EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

[Crimsontide27]

Heres a story for ya.

This past weekend shoppers braved the cold and stood in lines for days / hours to purchase their next gen systems.

EB / Gamestop of course took their usual pre-orders for each system...and once again couldnt deliver the amount of units they pre-sold. This caused customers to be irrate again. Well EB / Gamestop blamed low release numbers as usual on Nintendo / Sony and guarenteed those that didnt get a system that as soon as some arrived, they would call them.

Now...here is the problem...

Gamestop and EB have piles of PS3s and Wiis in their back rooms as we speak and have for 2 days now. Due to a company memo, they are not allowed to sell these systems until Friday. As far as walk in customers...thats fine if they want to alienate their customer base, but to those that preordered a system this is bull****. In good faith, some customers gave EB / Gamestop over $1000 to guarentee a system at lauch, and here it is after launch, with piles of next gen systems in the back room, and yet they cant give a customer a call ! WTF is that ****.

Is this not illegal? I tried to call our district mngr, but he hasnt returned any calls in 2 days. I cant stand lying to customers, yet the company has us lie and say we dont know when we are going to get any, but to check back friday. All of this garbage to inflate sales on Friday. I would never risk customer loyalty to inflate some meaningless numbers.

Edit: To add fuel to the fire....we were turning away preorder customers the day the systems came out, and still hadnt sold all of our stock. We got PS3s in a week before they went on sale, and Wiis about 4 days before they went on sale. We still had systems left over in the back from our initial shipments in order to maximize profit on friday. This is unethical and bull**** to paying customers.

[Skyboxer]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

I doubt it's piles.
I do know (I work part time there) that the GS by me has 8 Wii's for Black Friday that came in this week. No PS3's though.

[aholbert32]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

Heres a story for ya.

This past weekend shoppers braved the cold and stood in lines for days / hours to purchase their next gen systems.

EB / Gamestop of course took their usual pre-orders for each system...and once again couldnt deliver the amount of units they pre-sold. This caused customers to be irrate again. Well EB / Gamestop blamed low release numbers as usual on Nintendo / Sony and guarenteed those that didnt get a system that as soon as some arrived, they would call them.

Now...here is the problem...

Gamestop and EB have piles of PS3s and Wiis in their back rooms as we speak and have for 2 days now. Due to a company memo, they are not allowed to sell these systems until Friday. As far as walk in customers...thats fine if they want to alienate their customer base, but to those that preordered a system this is bull****. In good faith, some customers gave EB / Gamestop over $1000 to guarentee a system at lauch, and here it is after launch, with piles of next gen systems in the back room, and yet they cant give a customer a call ! WTF is that ****.

Is this not illegal? I tried to call our district mngr, but he hasnt returned any calls in 2 days. I cant stand lying to customers, yet the company has us lie and say we dont know when we are going to get any, but to check back friday. All of this garbage to inflate sales on Friday. I would never risk customer loyalty to inflate some meaningless numbers.

Edit: To add fuel to the fire....we were turning away preorder customers the day the systems came out, and still hadnt sold all of our stock. We got PS3s in a week before they went on sale, and Wiis about 4 days before they went on sale. We still had systems left over in the back from our initial shipments in order to maximize profit on friday. This is unethical and bull**** to paying customers.

This isnt true with allGamestops. I was one of the unlucky few who preordered a PS3 and didnt get one at launch. My GS called me on Monday and told me that they just got a few in and that I could come pick mine up. I declined because I was only getting one to sell on launch day.

[BigTigLSU]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

This isnt true with allGamestops. I was one of the unlucky few who preordered a PS3 and didnt get one at launch. My GS called me on Monday and told me that they just got a few in and that I could come pick mine up. I declined because I was only getting one to sell on launch day.

That is one of the nicest things I ever heard... or the dumbest its a toss up. j/k

[Crimsontide27]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

We have over 15 of each system in the back right now. There are 24 people on the PS3 list so far that havent gotten their system yet due to the fact "we wont get a shipment in until maybe friday"

Those people that have paid for a preorder deserve their system.

[CaptainZombie]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

It is a bunch of bullsh*t if you ask me. They don't care about their customers and they figure that people will continue to buy from them no matter what they do.

[Peter_OS]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

Heres a story for ya.

This past weekend shoppers braved the cold and stood in lines for days / hours to purchase their next gen systems.

EB / Gamestop of course took their usual pre-orders for each system...and once again couldnt deliver the amount of units they pre-sold. This caused customers to be irrate again. Well EB / Gamestop blamed low release numbers as usual on Nintendo / Sony and guarenteed those that didnt get a system that as soon as some arrived, they would call them.

Now...here is the problem...

Gamestop and EB have piles of PS3s and Wiis in their back rooms as we speak and have for 2 days now. Due to a company memo, they are not allowed to sell these systems until Friday. As far as walk in customers...thats fine if they want to alienate their customer base, but to those that preordered a system this is bull****. In good faith, some customers gave EB / Gamestop over $1000 to guarentee a system at lauch, and here it is after launch, with piles of next gen systems in the back room, and yet they cant give a customer a call ! WTF is that ****.

Is this not illegal? I tried to call our district mngr, but he hasnt returned any calls in 2 days. I cant stand lying to customers, yet the company has us lie and say we dont know when we are going to get any, but to check back friday. All of this garbage to inflate sales on Friday. I would never risk customer loyalty to inflate some meaningless numbers.

Edit: To add fuel to the fire....we were turning away preorder customers the day the systems came out, and still hadnt sold all of our stock. We got PS3s in a week before they went on sale, and Wiis about 4 days before they went on sale. We still had systems left over in the back from our initial shipments in order to maximize profit on friday. This is unethical and bull**** to paying customers.

I work for EBGames and I'll tell you right now the company doesn't have any systems they are holding on to. Our initial thought was that we were getting an allotment (number) of systems on day one, but then Sony dropped the bomb on us and said only 1/3 or close to that number would ship on day one.


I doubt your EB/Gamestop is holding onto units to maximize on profits. My store received extra Wii units for walk ins on Sunday, but we didn't receive any extra PS3's on Friday.

EB/Gamestop was being cautious with the pre orders. They didn't want another fiasco like they had with the Xbox 360. People had to wait for months to get their pre order for that system. So I don't blame them at all.

[Whaaaazuuuuup]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

how are you guys tell this dude his store is not doing something when he's there and seing with his own eyes. i for one believe him because my friend works for Gamestop and he's admitted to the same thing...

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

Didn't Sony cut back the number of units it was going to ship for launch already anyway? I wouldn't doubt that if the number went from 400k for the US launch to 150k (or whatever the number was) that some of those units were from the GS/EB allocation.

[dave360]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

The same thing happened last year with Best Buy and the 360. They held their units back till sale days.

[Crimsontide27]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

Didn't Sony cut back the number of units it was going to ship for launch already anyway? I wouldn't doubt that if the number went from 400k for the US launch to 150k (or whatever the number was) that some of those units were from the GS/EB allocation.

I dont know the exact allocation or shipping numbers of the next gen systems to any sore other than ours. However, I do know that we have PS3 and Wiis in the back....

I understand why they keep systems to sell for friday. It is a way to artificially inflate sales figures for that one day. Overall, total net sales over the month would be the same, but by holding a bunch of systems for one specfic day when demand is high is a way to inflate sales figures for friday.

What I do take issue with is telling customers that have already paid for their system...some over $1000 cash / credit for preorders, that we dont have their system.

Last night things boiled over because while stock was being put out, the door to the back room was open...not 1, not 2, not even 3 customers were in there looking for next gen systems last night...but 5 were. Since the back room is right next to where the gamecube games were, it gives you a very clear view into the stockroom. Only problem with this is that we have piles of next gen systems sitting right there in the floor in plain view if the door is open.

Customers saw it and demanded the system, but we couldnt sell it. One customer in paticular went ballistic because he is one that had not only the ps3 preordered, but also the Wii and didnt get either at launch due to < not in stock > I cant blame him at all. I thought there was about to be a riot there.

I encouraged the guy to contact the Better Business Bureau, because what we are doing is plain wrong, no if, ands, or buts about it.

[Jimplication]

Re: EB / Gamestop and their unethical practices...

We have over 15 of each system in the back right now. There are 24 people on the PS3 list so far that havent gotten their system yet due to the fact "we wont get a shipment in until maybe friday"

Those people that have paid for a preorder deserve their system.

I'm curious about whether those 15 PS3's in the back will go to those that pre-ordered, or if they will be sold on Black Friday to walk-ins, allowing the store to double their sales, in the sense that those that pre-ordered have already purchased the system, in a sense, and thus are a "guaranteed sell," providing they don't cancel.