[quote name='RyogAkari']I used to go to the BME in Louisville once a week but then their trade policies went all to hell. You could only trade against like things (books for books, cds for cds, games for games) and then they went even further and made it so that you could only trade certain system games for certain systems. And then they started the "No trade" policy where certain games couldn't receive trades towards it. At first it started out being the games that were extremely recent (as in within a month) and then it basically became everything and anything of value.
Plus they never updated their prices on games. Once they were on the shelf, that was the price it was until a year or so later when they might go through the games or when it was sold.
They also used to sell atleast 5 dollars under gamestop and then they decided why should they and adopted gamestops prices basically becoming game stop except for selling old games at mostly inflated prices and not being able to get any trade value towards any game worth $25 or more. I soon wised up and elected ebay as my new home. I haven't returned to that store in over 2 years.
Hopefully your store is different/better. If you can convince me it is, I may come visit.[/quote]
It's not much better but here's what we do, IIRC:
If you bring in a batch of items (let's say 4 dvds that we would sell for $14.95 and 2 video games that would sell for $19.95): you could either do a 2 for 1 trade (ie. your 4 $14.95 games would become 2 $14.95 games) or you can do unrestricted store credit, which means that even though we don't do trades of video games for movies, you can choose unrestricted store credit and use it on anything at all, but you get slightly less. Cash (ie pawning your items) vields the least money at all from the trade.
That having been said, the one I work at is well managed and I'm sure that if you find a game for an older system that seems WAY overpriced (hasn't been repriced since the demise of that system, for instance) that if you ask the manager to check the current price list behind the counter that they can reprice it to the current price. I've found that a few DC games and PS1 games are like that, for instance, Shenmue is on the sales floor for 35 dollars but the current price in our book is $9.95)
After having worked there for a while now I understand why they only allow for certain kinds of straight trades and why we only accept either very good condition discs (now at least) or only slightly scuffed discs. Trust me, there's a method to the madness. It costs us 6 dollars to have discs buffed at a secret location (which I think is a bit excessive) but for the most part you will always find very good condition items, which I think is kinda an extra point for us.
From what I understand, for all newer games and movies we try to be competitive with other retailers prices by offering the lowest price we can while still making a profit. From what I remember about shopping at game crazy was that they offered the used discs from the video store (which weren't exactly mint condition, ya know) and still charged nearly retail price for most of the newest ones.
Also, most places won't let you barter down the price of some higher priced items and definitely won't accept other things such as books or electronics for uinrestricted credit that you can put towards anything in the store. Try walking into Game Crazy with 10 dvds and say you want Halo 3
IMO, the best deals are the 2 for 1 (as long as it's of equal value or so and the same kind of thing - dvd for dvd, ps3 game for ps3 game, xbox360 game for xbox360 game, etc...) and the manager I work with is pretty generous when it comes to that.
As for the "No Trade" policy, I don't know about that, or at least I haven't seen anything in that vein lately. Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.
Anyways, hopefully I eased some of your worries about shopping there. Definitely bring in some items for trade, it's WAY better than paying for what you want to buy. If you're crafty you can finagle some undeserved credit on certain kinds of things like CDs and DVDs. If you know of anywhere that sells brand new dvds and cds for like a buck or 2 (or even very good used that have little to no scratches), buy up some (but not any of that stuff like from the 1 dollar rack at walmart, I'm talking things that would normally cost between 5-15 dollars) inspect them (if used) for scratches and bring them in. I think the lowest we sell any dvd/cd item is 3.95, in fact there's a chart:
3.95
5.95
7.95
9.95
(can't remember if there's anything between 9 and 14)
14.95
19.95
sometimes you'll find an odd number mixed in, like a 3 dollar even or 10 dollar even, but it's pretty much something like that list up there. We tend to give more credit for better known artists that sell better than for the 1 dollar bin Rick Astley cds
for example: you bring in 2 aerosmith cds and 2 rick astley cds
you'd probably get a 7.95 or 9.95 credit for 1 cd of ours from your 2 aerosmith cds (might even be more if it's a double disc or one of their better albums like "Toys in the Attic" and "Rocks")
for the Astley cds you'd probably get 3.95 credit for both of those.
Best part is that you don't have to only use it on a 3.95 cd, but you can put it towards a higher priced cd (ie 5.95 cd minus 3.95 cd = 2 dollars or so plus tax)
Dammit, now I'm rambling... Hope that helped anyways!
D
