No, I Will Not Sell You 36 Game Consoles...

[Mike Taylor]

... just so you can take them back to South America to sell at a ridiculous profit.

Yesterday, we had a customer come in buying for a "client". She wanted to buy 16 Playstation 2's and 20 Wiis. She even went through the whole song and dance of "Well, Wal-Mart and Target let me do it!" and "You don't want my business?!"

I told her "No." and the MOD came by in person to tell her person.

We'll make MORE money selling those machines to 36 different customers over the holiday season than by selling them to one person who is a reseller trying to sneak under the radar.

[Plaidman]

I'm confused on that regard. What do you care what she does with after paying for it? You get your money.

Oh wait, is it cause other people tend to buy games with their new stations?

[poofy_puff]

I don't get it either, unless she was asking for some sort of discount because she was buying so many.

[pssorens]

Target will not let you buy more than reasonable family quantities. We've turned a number of people away recently that want to buy in unreasonable quantity for business purposes.

[NateTheChops]

The Nintendo Wii is pretty popular in my store because of the recent price drop. We generally only get about ten at the most and those sell out pretty fast.

If we sold all ten of those Wii's to one person then that's nine customers who will the go to our competitor to buy, not only the Wii, but other things as well.

[Broomjockey]

Most retail stores don't sell to resellers. There's also import/export issues on things like game consoles. If a person can't get them from a legitimate wholesaler to get some to take to South America, then they're probably circumventing some laws.

That ignores attachment rates for consoles, and annoyed customers when they can't find the consoles.

[Mike Taylor]

I'm confused on that regard. What do you care what she does with after paying for it? You get your money.

Oh wait, is it cause other people tend to buy games with their new stations?

That, and it's preferable to satisfy as many customers as possible. I'd rather have 36 happy customers than one happy (and greedy) one and 35 that are pissed off at me.

And see below...

[Mike Taylor]

Most retail stores don't sell to resellers. There's also import/export issues on things like game consoles. If a person can't get them from a legitimate wholesaler to get some to take to South America, then they're probably circumventing some laws.

DING! DING! DING!

[Hanzoku]

Also, I think consoles are normally sold 'at cost' by the retailer, with the profit coming from the accessories. So selling 36 consoles to one person doesn't do them a lot of good, profitwise.

[lordlundar]

Most retail stores don't sell to resellers. There's also import/export issues on things like game consoles. If a person can't get them from a legitimate wholesaler to get some to take to South America, then they're probably circumventing some laws.

That ignores attachment rates for consoles, and annoyed customers when they can't find the consoles.

Compounded by they usually ask for some ridiculous discount for buying in bulk.

Of course when a store refuses to sell to resellers, the excuses get downright hilarious.

"these are for my family!"
"all 100 copies of the game?"

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Yeah, I'd tell her to go fuck too.

There's no profit in just the video game system. Why sell 36 game systems to one person, when you could sell those same 36 game systems to 36 people who might buy attachments like games, accessories, extra controllers and extended warranties? As the OP mentioned, then you have 35 more satisfied customers.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Unless they were paying in cash, they probably intended to use a stolen credit card. Then they would sell them on the street, not in South America.

[Mike Taylor]

Unless they were paying in cash, they probably intended to use a stolen credit card. Then they would sell them on the street, not in South America.

Where I live, we get a lot of people from Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina and Colombia-- places with INSANE luxury taxes on electronics. It's actually cheaper for someone to fly from there on vacation, buy the item here, and fly back with it. I have legit customers who do this all of the time. It's when they try to game the system that there's problems.

[bainsidhe]

Unless they were paying in cash, they probably intended to use a stolen credit card. Then they would sell them on the street, not in South America.

That's what I was thinking.

[Dave1982]

Where I live, we get a lot of people from Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina and Colombia-- places with INSANE luxury taxes on electronics. It's actually cheaper for someone to fly from there on vacation, buy the item here, and fly back with it. I have legit customers who do this all of the time. It's when they try to game the system that there's problems.

True. One of the businesses my friend the Greatest Customer is in (legitimately!) is selling niche electronics internationally. He once told me that one of his IR cameras, which costs $20K, would cost a customer in Brazil $34K because of all the taxes. Absolute insanity.

Still, I wouldn't sell someone 36 consoles either, for the same reasons that have already been mentioned. This was actually a bone of contention at my previous store (long before Professor X arrived on the scene), because management refused to stick their neck out and impose quantity limits on sale items when the home office hadn't specified any.