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Your trade values suck
Several times a week I will get complaints alleging our trade values are crap and we are ripping kids/people off and giving them nowhere near fair value for their games.
I will then be asked how the trade values are determined and I honestly don't know for sure because no one from corporate has ever told us. I know the number of on hand copies, the age of the game, and the rate of the sale on the game (aka how popular it is) all factor in, but a lot of the time the trade values that pop up don't even make sense to me.
I'm a gamer, I know what fair value for a lot of games is and sometimes my company is so off the mark it's ridiculous. I've seen a game that trades for $2.50 sell for $18 and a game that trades in for $4 sell for $10.
I have been cussed at and screamed at and even had games and accessories thrown at me due to our low trade in values. In one instance I even warned the guy he wasn't going to get much for what he had and he still threw a fit and tossed a cable at me!
It's always fun when they ask for a manager because NO ONE at our store has any power over the trade values or can influence how they are set. We are not a locally owned pawn shop, we don't negotiate.
But the price on your website is Y!
We don't price match our own website. That's not really a big deal, other companies don't either but the problem with our site is that when you search for a game and get a price back there is NO INDICATION whatsoever the price you are seeing is online only. Unless you call ahead to verify, there's no way to know that the price you see is different from what our store will have.
This problem has cropped up a lot lately since we are running a big sale, but the website is offering different deals than we are in store and customers are getting confused and complaining to me about it. Even our usually flexible area manager has stood her ground and put us under orders that we are not to price match the site in any circumstance.
I feel for you people, I really do. I know our website needs to be redone to more clearly explain the pricing and I really wish I could match our prices for you, especially since you drove all the way down here expecting one price and got another but all I can do is give you our corporate number and tell you to complain to them (which, as we all know, will result in nothing changing).
How come you don't have more copies of game X or units of Console Y?"
Starcraft II launched last week and for some reason most of the stores in our area were chronically understocked. At my location, we had only six copies for sale outside of the presold copies. These were gone by 1 pm on launch day. Usually we get a good number of extra copies for games we get a lot of presells on (because logically a game that has lot of presells also has a lot of interest) but for Starcraft someone apparently didn't get the memo.
We did get a memo from corporate reminding us to try and convince people who come in to get Starcraft II only to find it's sold out to preorder other games so they won't be left out next time. Apparently corporate is completely oblivious to the fact that Wal-Mart and Best Buy and Target all have tons of copies on hand so they can easily suck customers away from us.
And we are still having problems with shipments of the new Xbox 360 slim units. The problem being we aren't getting any. We've been sold out nearly two weeks now.
Again I get to be on the receiving end of complaints and cussing from customers who are upset with all this stuff that is totally beyond my control. What bothers me is that I literally can't do anything about it other than direct them to the (useless) corporate number who can do little more than give them a gift card for their trouble.
We aren't given any specific options to handle these scenarios. Not a rain check, not a one time discount on a game, not a gift card, nothing. Just call corporate, that's all you can do.
It would be great if we could get these complaints and concerns into the hands of someone who would really listen and do something about it, but I think it's highly possible such a person does not exist.
Several times a week I will get complaints alleging our trade values are crap and we are ripping kids/people off and giving them nowhere near fair value for their games.
I will then be asked how the trade values are determined and I honestly don't know for sure because no one from corporate has ever told us. I know the number of on hand copies, the age of the game, and the rate of the sale on the game (aka how popular it is) all factor in, but a lot of the time the trade values that pop up don't even make sense to me.
I'm a gamer, I know what fair value for a lot of games is and sometimes my company is so off the mark it's ridiculous. I've seen a game that trades for $2.50 sell for $18 and a game that trades in for $4 sell for $10.
I have been cussed at and screamed at and even had games and accessories thrown at me due to our low trade in values. In one instance I even warned the guy he wasn't going to get much for what he had and he still threw a fit and tossed a cable at me!
It's always fun when they ask for a manager because NO ONE at our store has any power over the trade values or can influence how they are set. We are not a locally owned pawn shop, we don't negotiate.
But the price on your website is Y!
We don't price match our own website. That's not really a big deal, other companies don't either but the problem with our site is that when you search for a game and get a price back there is NO INDICATION whatsoever the price you are seeing is online only. Unless you call ahead to verify, there's no way to know that the price you see is different from what our store will have.
This problem has cropped up a lot lately since we are running a big sale, but the website is offering different deals than we are in store and customers are getting confused and complaining to me about it. Even our usually flexible area manager has stood her ground and put us under orders that we are not to price match the site in any circumstance.
I feel for you people, I really do. I know our website needs to be redone to more clearly explain the pricing and I really wish I could match our prices for you, especially since you drove all the way down here expecting one price and got another but all I can do is give you our corporate number and tell you to complain to them (which, as we all know, will result in nothing changing).
How come you don't have more copies of game X or units of Console Y?"
Starcraft II launched last week and for some reason most of the stores in our area were chronically understocked. At my location, we had only six copies for sale outside of the presold copies. These were gone by 1 pm on launch day. Usually we get a good number of extra copies for games we get a lot of presells on (because logically a game that has lot of presells also has a lot of interest) but for Starcraft someone apparently didn't get the memo.
We did get a memo from corporate reminding us to try and convince people who come in to get Starcraft II only to find it's sold out to preorder other games so they won't be left out next time. Apparently corporate is completely oblivious to the fact that Wal-Mart and Best Buy and Target all have tons of copies on hand so they can easily suck customers away from us.
And we are still having problems with shipments of the new Xbox 360 slim units. The problem being we aren't getting any. We've been sold out nearly two weeks now.
Again I get to be on the receiving end of complaints and cussing from customers who are upset with all this stuff that is totally beyond my control. What bothers me is that I literally can't do anything about it other than direct them to the (useless) corporate number who can do little more than give them a gift card for their trouble.
We aren't given any specific options to handle these scenarios. Not a rain check, not a one time discount on a game, not a gift card, nothing. Just call corporate, that's all you can do.
It would be great if we could get these complaints and concerns into the hands of someone who would really listen and do something about it, but I think it's highly possible such a person does not exist.
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