Posted 05 February 2013 - 05:03 PM
One of the things that I do like about HPB is that they are one of the few places that are actually willing to haggle with you on the price, at least for games, DVDs, blus, etc. Books are generally just half the price of what it's marked as on the book, hence the name of their store.
Basically there are certain requirements on how they gauge whether or not they can or can not change the price in their system. The system actually tags certain items that can not be changed, and usually these items that flat out can't be worked with are generally the ones that are popular titles that are easy sells, so they usually aren't willing to go any lower than what's marked in store, even if the price is relatively high compared to places like Amazon.
HPB uses Amazon as their price marker to put out product onto the floor, but it is up to each stores discretion to put whatever price they feel like. Prices in the system for HPB are "Recommended" prices rather than what they're supposed to charge which accounts for the vast difference in price between online at Amazon and in store sometimes. And if they refuse to go down on the price you can assume it will be one of the items marked as a easy seller in their system.
Generally there are only a few people that can actually offer to work with you on the price, so if you just go up to the counter the employee there may not be able to help you out if they are not one of the stock managers, as they don't have access to do the adjustment for you. Of course some of them are the cashiers helping out sometimes, so that may not always be the case.
And lastly, this will be quite YMMV, but some stores will also be willing to work out a price with you during a sale. I've had great success doing this at every sale (at least the ones that I've found stuff to buy), and they've had no problem doing it knowing very well there's a sale going on. I even asked the guy helping me out one time, and it was on the last day of a sale with a 50% off coupon, and he was like "Yeah, you can still use the coupon."
I do indeed enjoy shopping at HPB because you are capable of negotiating with the employees on the price, which is always a nice option to have if you don't like the price.
Now to some FAQs that will come up here and there,
Hold policies will vary from store to store. I've been to three different HPBs, and all have a different policy in place for holding products. They don't have a set policy company wide for holds, so it will just be dependent on your store.
Return policy is pretty standard. 7 days to return the product for a refund (they only accept the reason if you didn't want it anymore. if you say you didn't like it, they will not be able to accept the return, so be very careful about this). 30 days if there are defects with the product for a store exchange or store credit.
HPB takes trade-ins of generally everything. I've never seen anything lower than an NES in the store before, but even then that's still pretty good. My current store has Genesis, NES, and a few SNES lying around, and I've picked up plenty of Genesis and SNES games from the store, so they definitely carry older games. Sometimes there are also trade-ins that haven't been processed yet sitting in their sorting area, so I'd give that area a peak once in awhile if you don't find anything on the floor before you leave the store. I can't tell you how many times I've found something there at the last minute.
Of course there are downsides with HPB. Your store may have a crappy selection, stingy stock managers who never go down on price, they don't really have a website set up because prices aren't set and vary store to store, or you just don't have one around your area.
Anyways, food for thought for those of you who are unfamiliar with how HPB works.
Best of luck with your HPB shopping everybody.
Thanks!
