Question for Gamestop current/former employees

Skylander7

Skylander7

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What is the maximum amount of time that a store will "hold" a pre-ordered game/item before selling it to another customer? I went into a couple of stores today after the website showed Guitar Hero II 360 in stock at all local locations, and received two different responses. One store said they had one in the back on hold for an employee, and the other store had 5 right behind the counter. However, the other store said that 3 were pre-ordered, and the other two were on hold for employees.

Personally.. I think being so blatant about saying "we won't sell this to you because you aren't employed here" is pretty shitty (granted.. the only reason I wanted to buy it at a Gamestop store was that I had store credit to cover it). I find the practice a little discriminatory.. however, both associates that I spoke to were the store managers, and complaining wouldn't have done anything about it. I'm guessing that they were pre-ordered by friends instead of normal customers, but who knows.

So.. that's my question. How long will they hold a reservation, and is holding for employees an allowed practice?
 
Generally 48 hours, but it's up to the manager.

And yeah, employees have first dibs.. but my boss never held anything beyond the standard 48 hours for me.
 
1. The website is not always accurate.
2. These are $90 items not $50-$60 games. They may hold them a bit longer then normal.
3. There has been somewhat of a recall on GHII so they may be returns in-stock
 
I was a Game Crazy employee and we always held stuff for 1-3 days after our 'hey your stuff is here' call.

If we wanted something we had a hold box somewhere we could hide stuff in. A considerate employee would never say 'HEY THIS IS BEING HELD FOR ANOTHER EMPLOYEE HA HA'. That's so rude. In all fairness, I also sold people stuff from the employee hold box. When you have literally thousands of games to pick from, we had a tendancy to 'over hold' and grab stuff that we basically didnt have the balls to buy.

Then again, the job pays crap and there are some really lame parts to it, so I am totally okay with employees snatching the good stuff first, in a desperate attempt to make life tolerable.
 
As stated, it's a 48 hour hold on those, and those managers are asses. Even if I was holding something for myself, I'd never say "We've got it here, but it's my copy."
As for holding for employees, it's going to depend. If it's a game like GH2 and my employee didn't reserve it, I'm selling "his" damn copy. He knows our policy and he'd better follow it. Now, if it's something like a game that got traded in and we're waiting for payday, I've got no problem with that.
I'm not sure what the official policy on employee holds is, however.
Also, Gizmogc's right. Technically, we've got one copy of GH2 at my store, but you wouldn't want it.

I sold my reserved copy of GH2 today because I knew other people would want it more and I can't play it right now. I'll have to wait for the next ones to come in.
 
Thanks for the info guys.. honestly, many of the local managers at the stores see the public as the enemy... typical small retail chain syndrome. Hell, when I walked into one store tonight, a female clerk was busy eating right at the register while customers were in the place. From the answers I've received here, I'm assuming that preorders will reflect as actual units in stock via the Gamestop store locater/inventory search on the website.

All of the bundles I saw were still sealed.. no returns (to the best of my knowledge). However, I didn't know that there were controller issues... that was new info to me. I guess I'll just wait on it, as I can't really justify plunking down that kind of money on it. On a side note.. I was told the bullshit of "we won't even be getting any until next month, as the first batch was limited quantities." One particular store even says "the only way that we can sell most games on release date is if you preorder them, because they only ship the stores enough for preorders." I was kind of surprised by his knowledge of Red Octane's production process.

I can kind of understand holding the thing a little longer, but few if any were preordered in full. I know a few years back that I had preordered a game, and they sold it off in 48 hours (I had gone out of town, and couldn't pick it up until the fourth day after release). The excuse back then was a 48 hour rule... I know some would disagree, and I can also sympathize a little with doing it.. but if an item is in stock and an employee wants to hold it for X amount of days after release until they get the dough, it should go to the first customer who comes in and asks for it. I can see holding it until the end of a shift, but not for a number of days. That's just opinion though.. putting up with a company such as Gamestop and low pay, there have to be some perks.
 
We hold pre-orders until Sunday. The reason being some people just don't have time to come in on the weekday so we let them pick it up on the weekends.

As for GH II we held all our other ones just incase they bought a defective unit. You can blame Red Octane for that mess.
 
Each store is different. My old store would hold for two weeks.

Policy states to be held for 48 hours so they can't sell yours before that time... or least they shouldn't.

Be aware that even if they sell your copy, your money is in the system and you can get that preorder when they get more in stock.
 
fucking christ... checked it out again today (thinking that they may drop the preorders after the weekend), and they're still holding on to them. One store still has 5, others have 2 or 3 each. The story is staying the same; "We aren't getting anymore for a long time." So I figured.. what the hell, I'll use my store credit online (like the old EB days). Just found out that the website doesn't take store credit. Does anybody else know if their store is getting restocks in the next couple of weeks? I find this "no more are being sent to us" story to smell a little like a crock of shit. If I remember correctly, stock is shipped on Wednesdays or Thursdays.
 
I've recently seen a manager hold an item for 2-4 weeks. I wanted that item, so the second time I went there, I asked for the same item and got it. Apparently the employees were pretty tired of it too.
 
At my Game Crazy we can't sell new released games to employees until after two weeks (or the hype dies down- which is not the case for Guitar Hero) unless he/she preordered it. Then, all we have to do is tell customers, "Sorry, it's preordered" not "It's on hold for an employee". We hold games for customers for 24 hours after they are contacted, with a couple exceptions. 1. They are a regular customer & shell out big $$, then we know they'll pick it up. 2. They tell us on the phone "I'll get it this weekend"- then we'll hold till then. Otherwise, if we leave a message we hold it for only 24 hours. Reason being: the fast we sell it, the faster it can be replenished..... if it just sits on the shelf then our computer says we have one, so the company won't send us more.
As a tip, next time you go in Gamestop you should not start off the conversation with do you have any Guitar Hero 2's but, "I'm thinking about getting an Edge/More (whatever they call it nowadays).....what's do I have to do to get one of these?" That will get their attention- They always want to sell those. Then bring up the Guitar Hero 2... they'll probably tell you they have one to sell to you (since they are now focused on the discount card sale). When they get ready to sell the GH2 & a possible Discount Card tell them that you don't have enough money for the discount card. They still have to sell the GH2 to you, since it was offered. If they don't sell it to you I would talk to a manager and ask them how a GH2 is available one second but all of a sudden they can't sell it to you. I know it's dirty pool, but that seems to be the type of game they want to play.
 
As far as your first question goes, my store usually held games for at least 2 days. We'd keep them set aside after that, but if people asked for it, and we had no copies left other than the ones set aside, we'd start selling those. Most of the time we'd preorder games we knew would be popular, but if odd games slipped through and suprised us we'd set them aside. Depending how long I'd watch games sit in the backroom set aside, I'd sell them if customers requested - if a game has been collecting dust for a week and a half and there's no sign of interest in whoever is working I'd sell it. Rare items traded in were usually snagged up by us, if you were in our position you'd do the same thing, too. Same goes for limited quantity 'special' items like the Street Fighter II Arcade Sticks. The first 3/4 units we got sold went to employees, suprisingly we got another 4 a week or so later.[quote name='Skylander7']Hell, when I walked into one store tonight, a female clerk was busy eating right at the register while customers were in the place.[/quote]Depending on where the store is (strip mall vs actual mall w/ food court) you don't have a lot of options as far as eating/breaks. Most stores in my area don't have actual break rooms, there's the backstock room but that's not a break room. I can't speak for her, but I usually worked weeknights alone and chose to eat while I worked (processing trade-ins, etc.). If customers came in I'd make sure that they were OK before I'd continue eating and check in if they seemed to struggle with anything.
My manager expected stuff to get done and if that meant the only way I'd have time to eat before 10pm was while processing stacks of games then I'd do it. You'd have to pay me a lot more than $7 an hour to skip a meal, especially after they took away most of the sources for comission/spiff but still made us push crap.
 
[quote name='gizmogc']Sucks, maybe you should have pre-ordered[/QUOTE]

I was going to, but just didn't get around to it in time. I think it could have worked out to be one of those "blessing in disguise" kinda situations though with the guitar problems. Thanks to this thread, I found out about the faulty whammy bars and whatnot.

[quote name='brainmunch']Depending on where the store is (strip mall vs actual mall w/ food court) you don't have a lot of options as far as eating/breaks. Most stores in my area don't have actual break rooms, there's the backstock room but that's not a break room. I can't speak for her, but I usually worked weeknights alone and chose to eat while I worked (processing trade-ins, etc.). If customers came in I'd make sure that they were OK before I'd continue eating and check in if they seemed to struggle with anything.
My manager expected stuff to get done and if that meant the only way I'd have time to eat before 10pm was while processing stacks of games then I'd do it. You'd have to pay me a lot more than $7 an hour to skip a meal, especially after they took away most of the sources for comission/spiff but still made us push crap.[/QUOTE]

This location is kind of like a strip mall, but the largest store in the area with a restaurant (Moe's Grill) almost right next door. Also, the manager was also there.. and they weren't doing anything. Being a former employee in a mall, I know that almost all retail chains will come down on an employee for scarfing at the register... especially at a mall. I also can understand how difficult it is to be a wage slave for a company that won't give you a break during a busy retail period of time. However, this particular location (Eastchase for the locals who catch this thread) is staffed by supremist assholes who have been forged in the flames of retail hell. They consider themselves superior over their customers due to their employment at a game store, and will actually make fun of the other locations in town to customers. The Wetumpka location is similiar. If a manager doesn't give you a break to eat though, that's a violation of labor law. I'd report them to the department of labor ASAP... trust me, they'll get investigated and fined.

On a side note, I'm really surprised that they won't accept store credit/gift cards online. Buying it from their site would have been $120 with shipping & tax anyways, but I know that I spent store credit in the EB morning update days.
 
[quote name='Skylander7']On a side note, I'm really surprised that they won't accept store credit/gift cards online. Buying it from their site would have been $120 with shipping & tax anyways, but I know that I spent store credit in the EB morning update days.[/quote]

Ever since they merged the site last year, they disabled the option to use store credit.
 
i know while i worked there we had two different managers. the first guy was cool and as he laid out the preorder slips on every game he actually knew who everyone was reguardless of whether they were a longtime customer or that was the first game they ever bought. he'd hold stuff for as long as it needed holding basically.

the second guy was basically an asshole who only wanted the best sales numbers in the region no matter what. if you didn't preorder seven or more games and get five new discount card subscriptions in your shift you weren't worthy. he even wanted to make employees not able to pick up their xbox 360 reservations reguardless of when they preordered ( i was #2 on the list right after the old manager) so basically i quit and was first in line to pick up my shiny new console. haha

moral of the story, it depends on the manager. some are cool guys, and some just plain suck.
 
[quote name='ctice44']"I'm thinking about getting an Edge/More (whatever they call it nowadays).....what's do I have to do to get one of these?" That will get their attention- They always want to sell those. Then bring up the Guitar Hero 2... they'll probably tell you they have one to sell to you (since they are now focused on the discount card sale). When they get ready to sell the GH2 & a possible Discount Card tell them that you don't have enough money for the discount card. They still have to sell the GH2 to you, since it was offered. If they don't sell it to you I would talk to a manager and ask them how a GH2 is available one second but all of a sudden they can't sell it to you. I know it's dirty pool, but that seems to be the type of game they want to play.[/quote]


I never thought of that. Thats some good advice.
 
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