Sucky customer or did he have a point?

[Magpie]

I'm behind Broomjockey on this one. The fact that he had a very good point in no way makes him any less of an SC. And honestly, until I started reading stories here I had no idea that only empty cases were put out. If I went to buy a game for my cousins I wouldn't know that I needed to check to make sure that the contents were correct.

I also agree that while it's an annoyance, that there really is no way to prevent this kind of human error, hence me saying that it's no excuse for getting upset at the store. (I will make some exceptions when the company routinely screws up, although not to the level that this guy sunk to.)

[gremcint]

I'm going to buck the trend, and say "both." He was sucky, but if you're not keeping merchandise in the boxes, you need to be double and triple checking that you're giving it to people. To use the cliche, giving a child an empty game box for Christmas really would ruin it. The kid's crushed, the parents feel like jackasses. And then they have to go back and basically beg to be believed, rather than they're scamming. When you're on register, your job is to make sure people are paying what they're getting for, and getting what they're paying for. If this is as common occurrence as you seem to be implying, then frankly, your store is not doing the job well enough, Christmas Rush or not.

And just imagine if the game had come from "Santa"

[Zoom]

What the hell kind of store would sell unboxed games?

Many did, once upon a time!

There used to be a chip shortage which meant most NES carts were only produced for a short time and then were suddenly not available. (It's still that way today, and very maddening because a) there's no chip shortage, b) some of these games are on CD/DVD, and c) the window of opportunity to buy some games is too narrow if it isn't mega-popular.)

Once the game was not available, the store had to find some way of dealing with endless SCs whose kids wanted to play some obscure game. One way was to buy used games. But, the SCs who had games to sell would say "oh, I'm sorry but we lost the box, is that all right?".

It would be better for the store to take the cartridge (NOT a CD, mind you) sans box (you don't plug the box into the NES!), sans plastic sleeve (Funcoland had cardboard sleeves), sans instruction manual (Funcoland had photocopied "generic" instructions that said stuff like "Push A to jump, B to run, Start to pause, etc." and was sometimes even more specific!) and probably sans clean contact points because the SC's kids were blowing on the cart all the time and getting it all rusty (Funcoland sold game cleaning kits from Recoton), than to have the store NOT buy the cart and be out of stock.

Still, if it had been up to me, I'd have told the SCs, "We only buy used games that have the original box and instructions". I would also open the box to make sure the correct game was inside... but in the end, I'd probably have turned away 99% of the SCs and gone out of business earlier.

[rageaholic]

One thing I'm confused about is how would the store know the customer wasn't trying to scam them? How can he prove he didn't get the game, especially several weeks after the purchase?

I think stores should rethink those theft prevention meassures and put the damn game in the box. Or maybe they should just put the used games behind one of those glass containers. The way the OPs store does it just seems to cause unnecessary problems, unless there's something I'm missing?

[godaistudios]

The problem is, IMO, there's no real way to keep this from happening. The best that could be done is to have management keep reminding us to put them in there. I suppose they could come up with a penalty for us to try and deter it from happening more, but I would estimate it happens to less than 5% of our total transactions so we're generally pretty good with getting it right.

I think what corporate should do is put in place an official policy on what we can offer customers who have to come back to deal with an empty case. Currently as far as I know, there isn't one. It's up to the manager to determine what to do (or in the case of my original story, NOT do) which causes varying degrees of expectation for customers.

I think that a customer should be reasonable, but I also can understand why a parent would be upset about this.

As far as no real way to keep it from happening? I must disagree. The one thing that comes to mind is what a local pizza place here does on carry out. Open the box, show the customer, make sure they get what they order and complete the purchase.

I've worked retail during Christmas - in some ways I enjoyed it, in others... "shudder".

Can it be a habit instilled into the employee? Yes.
Does it take a few seconds more for each transaction? Yes.
Still, will it reduce the number of irate customers coming in because an empty case was sold to them? Absolutely.

Granted, no system is perfect, but we should try.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

One thing I'm confused about is how would the store know the customer wasn't trying to scam them? How can he prove he didn't get the game, especially several weeks after the purchase?

If it's within a week since the purchase, we can usually check on hands and see if we happen to have an extra copy of the missing game somewhere. Any further out than that, we usually just take the customers word for it as corporate has directed us to.

[rageaholic]

If it's within a week since the purchase, we can usually check on hands and see if we happen to have an extra copy of the missing game somewhere. Any further out than that, we usually just take the customers word for it as corporate has directed us to.

Wow! Corporate really made it easy on scammers.

I'm not even in retail, but I think I know enough that "taking the customers word" is just asking to get ripped off.

[Peppergirl]

Any further out than that, we usually just take the customers word for it as corporate has directed us to.

Like Rage said below, this is just a recipe for disaster. Makes you wonder if your corporate is just willfully stupid, or are they simply 'burying their heads in the sand' when it comes to trusting customers.

I know I'm jaded and cynical and all, but I think even some pro-consumer types would be surprised to hear this too.

[Andara Bledin]

How does that chain stay in business if they don't actually carry any merchandise?

As far as I can tell, it's mostly on the mark-up on used games. *shrug*

The way the OPs store does it just seems to cause unnecessary problems, unless there's something I'm missing?

They don't budget enough to hire enough people to watch the floor and keep things from walking out the door, so leaving the games in the boxes is a non-starter for them.

Even though I know why they do it, I still won't buy games there.

As far as no real way to keep it from happening? I must disagree. The one thing that comes to mind is what a local pizza place here does on carry out. Open the box, show the customer, make sure they get what they order and complete the purchase.

Humans are not perfect, so it's impossible to keep it from happening. Such is reality.

And, I have actually seen someone get pissed off at a game store employee (different chain) that showed that the used game they were buying was actually in the case. I have no idea what the SC's issue was, but they made a huge stink over it.

^-.-^

[godaistudios]

As far as I can tell, it's mostly on the mark-up on used games. *shrug*

They don't budget enough to hire enough people to watch the floor and keep things from walking out the door, so leaving the games in the boxes is a non-starter for them.

Even though I know why they do it, I still won't buy games there.
Humans are not perfect, so it's impossible to keep it from happening. Such is reality.

And, I have actually seen someone get pissed off at a game store employee (different chain) that showed that the used game they were buying was actually in the case. I have no idea what the SC's issue was, but they made a huge stink over it.

^-.-^

Which is why I stated that there is no perfect system - but I'd think that it would improve things... In other words, there should be at least an attempt to try and make it better - something that improves the process for both the business and the customer, you know?

And that sounds like an SC - I can't even begin to fathom why... but maybe I'll never truly understand the workings of the mind of an SC.

[Julesy]

It was an unfortunate mistake, and I can imagine that it wouldn't be fun for a child to open your christmas gift and find an empty box.

I think in this case, both seller and buyer should have been more careful to prevent this from happening.

As a seller I would be mortified if I had given someone an empty box.
But as a buyer I would not walk out of the store without checking the insides of my bought boxes first.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Yes, the customer should have checked the game first; but the blame also rests with whoever forgot to put the game in the box.

However, I'm betting that the reason why the manager didn't hand over a giftcard, was cuz the customer was being an arse. I've seen that happen loads of times; if a customer is being nice and reasonable when they make a complaint, they are far more likely to be given vouchers than if they're screaming and shouting.