no wonder high street shops are going down the pan!!!!

bluenoseam

Incidentally Game as a group are trying hard to move with the times, they're increasing the delivery in-store of digital goods (such as MS Points cards or PSN credit) to mirror the changing landscape of games retail, the one thing they have in their favour is that games will always be a hardware reliant sector, even cloud based technology such as OnLive requires some form of hardware and games consoles will almost always be required to run games. The other major factor is that a bricks & mortar store you have to satisfy so much more than you do to run a warehouse - to run the store you have the cost of carriage to central warehouse if you want the "bulk" discount followed by carriage to the individual stores, if you want each store to place orders directly you'll lose out on bulk discount to save the added distribution cost. Margins on games aren't all that huge anyways, especially when you consider a game is a bit like a movie, it's either gonna do well & sell or it could potentially tank & leave you having paid £27 for something which was hyped to the moon which doesn't shift, only problem is believing the hype you bought 100,000 copies of it which are going nowhere - it's not like milk where you can comfortably predict that it will sell because it's a staple of the average kitchen.

MamaMoo_2

I must say, I went to Game earlier, and was really impressed.
The manager was running up and down the queue taking the boxes from people and putting the games in, so that when they got to the till the game was ready and waiting, and there weren't 3 sales assistants all rummaging in the drawers at the same time.
Also, one couple in front of me were buying Just Dance on the Wii, and the manager informed them that the newer version (imaginatively named "Just Dance 2") was in fact £5 cheaper at the mo, as it was on special. The couple were chuffed and bought the cheaper one instead.
Having worked for Gamestation, I'm usually rather anti-Game, but I was really impressed today that's the kind of service you won't get online.
Also, when I used to work in GS, we used to get a lot of customers that came in to chat to staff about upcoming releases whilst buying new games. Also, we had the occasional in-store event, and new store openings were always a good laugh with some incredible deals, and big game launches were also fun (we used to do face painting/dress up/competitions. Again, all kinds of fun you won't get online.
We also had a lot more flexibility with pricing bundle deals. We could quite often knock a little extra off, or chuck a freebie in, which again, you won't have the option of doing on the website.

texranger

also as a retailer who has a highstreet store and website. i used to run the website sales from the shop, but then you have to allocate space for packing ( valuable sales space) along with staff do look after online sales and then as highstreets now are pedestrianised delivery vans cant get to collect packages either before 10am or after 4pm.
As i had a storage unit on an industrail estate where i have a member of staff their to take deliveries of stock and sort stock that needed to go to my shop, all i did was move another member of staff to the unit and have them take over the web sales which works 100% better and gives me extra shop sapce. as these are now handled away from the shop with less staff, cheaper rates etc. i can change a lower prioce for these than what i do in the shop

new_home_owner_3

Its not so much as a shop costs more to run, i just think its wrong that the game the same shop whether its online or a shop in the highstreet can sell things at different prices, it may state this on their website, but i think its wrong, so i never bought them.

However i looked at asda direct and they advertised the games online fifa 12 was 27 pound and battlefield 3 was advertised for 25 pound.

I then phoned my local asda and asked if these prices were the same instore as they was online and they confirmed they was, and the games where purchased from there.

If game the online retailer can sell the games at a lower price online they must still be making a profit at the lower price, end of the day i never bought from them, so they lost the sale/

somethingcorporate

I am sure they will be crying themselves to sleep at that prospect.

Evidently you don't have a clue about business then. These sales channels probably have their own P&Ls so they can afford to sell at a lower price and make a profit online due to lower costs but have to sell at a higher price to reach the same (or any) profit from the store as the cost of sale is obviously higher. Simple unitary economics.

Helix

Game.co.uk is actually run as a separate company from the retail stores, it clearly states this at the bottom of every page.

©2011 Gameplay (GB) Ltd. trading as Game.co.uk

So it could be considered the same as seeing something on Amazon and expecting Game to have it the same price in their stores.

Spank

There online system sucks as well, at least from my limited dealings with them. I pre ordered a special edition of BF3 in July, when I realised that they had not sent it to me I emailed them, with my order number & they told be it was for a game in 2010 (news to me as I didn't own the game & never bought anything from them before, or in the future).
I emailed them back with a copy of my original email from them, highlighting the number & the game title & pointing out they had a problem in their system in colourful language. The only reply I got was them saying that they didn't respond to emails with swearing in them, to which I replied that sending me that email was responding to a swearing email.

vicmorrow

It's not

new_home_owner wrote: »

Its not so much as a shop costs more to run, i just think its wrong that the game the same shop whether its online or a shop in the highstreet can sell things at different prices, it may state this on their website, but i think its wrong, so i never bought them.

However i looked at asda direct and they advertised the games online fifa 12 was 27 pound and battlefield 3 was advertised for 25 pound.

I then phoned my local asda and asked if these prices were the same instore as they was online and they confirmed they was, and the games where purchased from there.

If game the online retailer can sell the games at a lower price online they must still be making a profit at the lower price, end of the day i never bought from them, so they lost the sale/

It's not the same shop though! You really need to get a..no please just enjoy Christmas and accept price differences!:D.

arcon5

What was the price AFTER the discount?

knightstyle

Price of a game on line a few weeks ago was £22 from Game, price in Game shop on Christmas eve was £42.99 Even with all the overheads how do they justify that!