Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

I would like to see more movie tie-ins like the recent Watchmen and Sherlock Holmes promotions. Getting a free movie ticket and free console content got me into the store to make the required purchases and then some.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

No reason to go over something already said over and over, but three things about price.....

1: Everyone keeps saying price, but to be more specific, have a more dynamic price structure on second level games, or games that are a month or more old. What I mean by that is the big popular games always get the attention, or games that are over a year old, but outside a sale, a lot of slower selling games stay 59.99 way past when a place like amazon has them at this price. Wal-Mart suffers from this problem, as games that are part of the "plan" get special pricing, but another game is still 59.99 a year after it comes out.

2: Change your prices on a lot of games all the time, and make sure the store follows this. If your game section is always changing, even if only a few dollars, it is going to make me want to check it out every time I go by, and might increase my impulse purchases. Coke and Pepsi have mastered this. I am not talking about a Sunday ad either.... it might take a lot of work... I am talking about a lot of inventory here because an ad is easy for me to not go into your store if I don't see anything I like...but knowing your price goes up or down every wed or something like that, I might go in to see what is going on.

3: Price match...and I know most stores price match, but be more aggressive about it. Put signs up in the section talking about your price match. Encourage customers to price match. Get them use to it, and make sure they know they are not going to feel like a fool for asking for a price match and then being told no. Once I am comfortable coming to a store for all my purchases, I become loyal. Also push hard that you price match amazon....

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

So what are the chances Tarantino compiles a bunch of this information, takes it to his meeting and they tell him we all sound like a bunch of 'devil' customers they wouldn't want anyway?

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

I don't want that. I want an actual card, in hand.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

They seemed pretty sincere/serious about improving the gaming portion of our business. Many of the things the EC discussed & voted on in the past couple of years happened, so I'm pretty sure they'll be listening to your concerns.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

Agreed... it would be much better that way. All they would have to do is have the receipt reflect the game price minus the price of the gift card. That way if someone returned it, then they would only get that amount. Pretty simple, and doesn't take 35+ days to post, etc to cover the return period, etc.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

Hell, if an inept company like TRU can pull off Gift Card promos, you would think a company like Best Buy could.

Exactly. A $10 credit that shows up in 6 weeks that's only valid for about a month and a half is pretty sad. Better than nothing, but there's definitely room for improvement there.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

I'm not disagreeing that an actual GC would be better, but I'm saying from BB's point of view I'm sure they already feel like they're doing this. Also, if you take into account that most people pay tax at BB and not at Amazon (although I'm sure everyone reports their Amazon purchases to the IRS) $10 at Amazon goes a lot farther than $10 at BB.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

Tax aside (KY pays), you still come out ahead with Amazon considering gas and time spent going to BB.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

I own 16 games for my PS3. 8 were bought from Amazon, 4 from Fry's, 2 used from Second Spin, and one each from Wal*Mart and Best Buy.

The only game I bought from Best Buy was SmackDown Vs. Raw 2010, and that was because they offered any WWE DVD for $5 with purchase of the game. It was a combo that blew everybody else out of the water.

My other purchases, have all been made due to that store having the best price or I got some kind of exclusive. Even in those cases I was still paying either the lowest price or close enough to the lowest to make it a washout.

Bottom line, exclusives and price are very important.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

THIS X10

I pretty much only buy clearance/discounted titles nowadays which is why Target gets about 95% of my business. At my two local Targets there are endcaps with red-stickered clearance games. Have found a number of great sub-$10 and $15 titles. True, the truly spectacular deals are pretty rare (like coupling a $10 game with an occasional coupon for electronics...I got Mass Effect for $4.98), I'm at least compelled to stroll though the game aisles every time I visit Target. I don't even bother with the games section at BB as I know there won't be any "finds."

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

Offer more B 2 G1 Free sales and price more competitively. My gosh, almost all the games are at MSRP.

And ditch the RZ coupons. 10% off is not going to get me excited. That's basically just paying my sales tax. Now if you offered 20 or 30% off, now I'm excited about Best Buy!

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

This is the reason, at least for me personally, that a B&M retailer needs to *BEAT* Amazon's price, not just match it, at least on new releases. With Amazon, I go home from work and the game is there waiting for me. Plus I've usually received a $10 or $20 credit, I didn't have to pay sales tax and I got whatever preorder bonus they have going. The sheer convenience of having the game at home waiting for me on release day is pretty compelling, and a retailer would have make it worth my while to abandon that convenience.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

I'll echo that it would ONLY take BB coming close to Amazon in terms of price + those awesome $10-$20 off next purchase. That is genius in my opinion because I just keep buying and buying from Amazon. If BB did anything like that (not "points"), I'd rather get the game myself on release day down the street than wait for shipping.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

The only thing that would ever send me to Best Buy as a "destination" rather than a "last resort" for video games is price.

More sales, more loss leaders, matching other retailers without being asked to. I always chuckle when I see the card that says "Price as advertised: $59.99!" Give the same deals to video games the company gives to other media (especially Blu-ray...gotten a lot of great deals at Best Buy because of that pricing).

I don't spend enough to make my Reward Zone worth it beyond an "oh, I got a certificate" that happens every six months or so. And that's just because we've made some big appliance purchases there.

Amazon usually offers $10+ off bestselling games that are only a few weeks old, not to mention all of the gamer credit deals for major titles people will be buying anyway. Until I see that from Best Buy, I won't be making many video game purchases there.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

So I gotta ask, was the $20 Price is Right text courtesy of you, Tarantino?

That's where in-game DLC trinkets could push people towards BB. If they can match the price + random GC offers and still have some rinky-dink trinket (be it, an in game item or something tangible like the Fallout Nuka Cola bottle opener) then they might have a slight edge on Prime.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

I don't think there's anything you can do. Amazon is raping you on price, they offer far better promo deals on games ($10/$20 credit on future purchase) and they don't charge tax in most states. BB is the best place (for me) to pick up an impulse game or two, but even then, I often go to Gamestop b/c I want to trade stuff in.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

1. I like the Gamer RewardZone Program, but honestly I don't go out of my way to purchase from Best Buy because of it. I just consider it a nice bonus if I happen to buy a game from BB. I do like it though, and it's always nice when you've earned another certificate.

2. Before Amazon started smoking them on pre-order deals, I did a few pre-orders from Best Buy. They need better training for the stores/employees on how pre-ordering works. I swear I go through a different process each time I go to pick up a pre-ordered game. Sometimes they say I need to get it at the customer service desk. Other times I wait in line at that desk and then they say "well, you could have just got the game yourself off the shelf and gone through the checkout lane". The next time I show up in line with the game and I'm told "go to the service desk". Same with how they ring it up - sometimes they apply the $5 preorder properly, other times they apply it as a $5 coupon, which negates me having a 10% off coupon at the time of pickup (the coupon rings up like it's working but doesn't actually apply the 10% off). A couple of times they even had a manager come over and override the price of the game by discounting it by $5. All of this seems unnecessary. And god forbid I ever need to return the pre-ordered game, getting them to refund the full price and not the price after the $5 deposit is like asking them to compute PI to the 10th digit. It really makes it not worth the hassle, especially when I can sit on my butt at home, order it from Amazon for a little bit cheaper (I pay tax on Amazon purchases so it's not usually THAT great of a discount for me) AND usually get a $10 or $20 GC for a future purchase. At this point, there's no real incentive for me to go with Best Buy here in town over Amazon other than I can go to Best Buy in the morning when they open on release day vs. waiting for UPS to get here with my Amazon purchase that afternoon.

#3, #4 - Would this lead to Best Buy selling used games in store? An in-store trade-in program for Best Buy credit would be cool, but I would hope it wouldn't mean a bunch of used crap lining the shelves at my local store

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

The receipt check thing is getting ridiculous at Best Buy stores around here.

I understand the need to prevent shoplifting, but there is a point when you start treating your paying customers like thieves where they don't want to step into the store anymore.

As far as being a destination for video games, selection and price need to improve a lot.

It's crazy that a store with 50+ feet of display cases for 360 games will have 500 copies of the newest blockbuster game out, but none of games that came out a few months ago. And even if they do have a copy of an older game, it's still full price long after other retailers have lowered the price.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

It's even more ridiculous at Best Buy than at other stores. At Fry's for instance, the exit is completely out of sight from the registers and they're pretty far apart, so I can kind of get them wanting to check receipts. At Best Buy, I'm usually paying a cashier like 10 feet from the security guy at the door. It's like, dude, if I was stealing something, it'd have to be hidden well enough that your cursory receipt and bag check wouldn't do shit. It's just an inconvenience for inconvenience's sake.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

Didn't read most of the thread, but I'm guessing I'm echoing what many others have said - people with an ounce of common sense or frugality are going to buy on Amazon or the like 95% of the time. About $50 for a new game is what I'm willing to pay now (taking into account credits and taxes). So get new game prices near that point regularly, and I'll start coming in more.

Also, drop prices on older games faster. There are so many available used online within a couple months of release that it makes no sense to buy new, unless you are obsessed with having everything brand new.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

Best Buy would, for me, be a destination for anything if I didn't feel so harassed the last few times I went there. I haven't been to a Best Buy since 2005, save two visits when I needed to pick up a quick birthday present and there wasn't a Target nearby.

If you want Best Buy to be a destination for anything:
1. Stop trying to sell me protection plans, especially on video games.
2. Stop trying to sell me magazine subscriptions to the point where I only pay in cash because I'm afraid you're going to take my credit card number.
3. Stop trying to guilt me because I don't want to join any reward club in which I need to give you my personal information; just let me buy a game and leave.

Those are the reasons I don't shop at Best Buy. After that comes price for me.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

It's all about:
- Price
- Selection
- Timeliness

I buy a lot of games at Fry's because they have a huge selection, they put the games out on their release day and most importantly, more often than not, they discount new releases $5 to $20. I should point out that amazon pretty much does all that too.

If BB can do all three, then they'd be a "destination" too.

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

It's amazing how, in just the past few years, Amazon has become such a haven for videogame sales. I used to buy games on amazon very rarely, because they were mostly retail price with no deals to speak of. In those days, i would horde the 5 off 20 Best Buy coupons that came with gift cards and buy stuff with that discount. I'd pricematch the Fry's ads at Best Buy with no problems.

Now I rarely go into Best Buy (my wife even commented on it recently, since I haven't asked to go in a long time), mostly because of Amazon. If they ever decided to do an ECA-like discount membership program (without the ECA, of course) I'm not sure I'd ever go anywhere else. As I said before, the thing Best Buy has done pretty well with DVD releases are the exclusives... I hate exclusives, but if it's cool and doesn't jack up the price too much over other discounts at other stores, it'll tempt me.

On a side note, did the margins of games get bigger? I remember that stores could not offer bigger discounts on games because the margins were very low. Video games seem pretty pricey to be consistently offered as loss-leaders. Do some game companies partner with stores to give them a break on pricing?

Re: What would make Best Buy a "destination" for video games?
 

This is one of the reasons I stopped shopping at Best Buy. It's their preoperative to do this, and I get it, but I don't want to get in a line to leave a store, right after I got out of a line to pay for something. It's stuff like this, and games being behind cases, that really influences were I shop. I really hate being treated like a thief. I did love, when I shopped at Best Buy anyways, that the games weren't behind cases though.