A report from Kotaku is claiming that according to their sources within GameStop, the company are pressuring their staff to sell pre-owned games even if it means misleading their customers. This means that they are to pressure customers to purchase pre-owned games and are even going as far as to say that they are sold out of brand new copies even when that isn’t the case.
One source for Kotaku said..
“We are telling people we don’t have new systems in stock so we won’t take a $300 or $400 dollar hit on our pre-owned numbers. This is company wide and in discussions with my peers it is a common practice. We also tell customers we don’t have copies of new games in stock when they are on sale—for example, Watch Dogs 2 is currently $29.99 new and $54.99 pre-owned. We just tell them we don’t have the new one in stock and shuffle them out the door.”
This comes off the heals of what the company considered a “disappointing” holiday season and has had their overall sales dipping since Q3 2016.
We here at Gaming Conviction have reached out to our own sources within GameStop and they have also confirmed this to be the case at their stores. There are also reports of an underground movement from within the company to make these issues aware in hopes that corporate will change their ways.
