Ever work at a Games store?

[The Adventurer]

I might be starting a part time job at a retro games store that's opening in my area and was curious what I'm in for. I've had a dream of starting my own used game shop someday, and figured I could use some practical retail experience. I figure it will be a lot of stocking and dealing with customers.

[Tupin]

Be sure to always have Battletoads.

[Greg2600]

Being well organized is a big deal for me.

[leatherrebel5150]

Be prepared to clean alot of games, assuming this store does that (hopefully they do)

[wiggyx]

Who knows. They're all different. You could be organizing carts all day, ringing out customers, pickin your nose 99% of the time, etc.

[Damaramu]

Yup. I used to work at Gamefellas during the mid to late '90s in Austin. Don't expect to be playing games all day and shooting the shit with customers. You'll be doing a lot of menial tasks like cleaning used systems, organizing peripherals, organizing and stocking games, etc. It is work, afterall.

[Neb6]

Aw man. Yeah, I sold games from the 80286 era, all the way up to the release of the first XBOX.

Entertainment software is actually pretty fun to sell and advise people on. Interestingly enough, I didn't mind the 'menial' stuff at all (like updating shelf tags).

Inventory was a bit of a drag, but sometimes companies hire outside firms to do that part.


You'll probably like it -- especially if your co-workers are cool. Then you can have good conversations with them on the slower days.

[RoryDropkick]

It depends. If you have an honest boss/owner, it's going to be fantastic. If not and prices suck and things like that.. well nope, not so much fun. I worked for Game World, Gamefellas and now Game Over Videogames here in SATX and I had varying experiences. Game World and Game Over have been the best.

[Damaramu]

It depends. If you have an honest boss/owner, it's going to be fantastic. If not and prices suck and things like that.. well nope, not so much fun. I worked for Game World, Gamefellas and now Game Over Videogames here in SATX and I had varying experiences. Game World and Game Over have been the best.

Ah, good to see another Gamefella 'round these parts!

[Sothy]

Be prepared for the lonely guy who comes in and wants to talk about his WOW characters and not buy anything.

[Damaramu]

Be prepared for the lonely guy who comes in and wants to talk about his WOW characters and not buy anything.

Jebus, yes. I forgot about the lonelies that wander in looking for a friend. Also, if the store is in a mall, be prepared for parents to drop off their kids there thinking you'll babysit them. It WILL happen.

[xelement5x]

Be prepared for the lonely guy who comes in and wants to talk about his WOW characters and not buy anything.

Man, I see those people sometimes when I go to GameStop, even worse are when it is some dude who's trying to "mack" on female clerk who is obviously not interested.

It totally irritates me when they are holding up the line doing that though. I just want to buy my shit and get out of this place Mr. Lonesome, go look around for a bit and come back to talk to the clerk after the line is gone!

[jammajup]

I had my own market Stall here in the UK from 1997-1999.Of course there are some things you need to be aware of,this depends what area you are trading in regardless of the country i guess.
*Customers have no loyalty towards you regardless of what they say to you.
*Where are your rivals in relation to you and how close are they,how many,what are their prices?
*Is there a cash point,or bank near to where your shop so people can draw cash,will you have a card payment facility in your shop?,here in the UK you can get fleeced with machine charges with one of those devices.
*You need security of some type,i.e alarm,cameras,etc
* Over here at least you need to keep you second hand games on a separate shelf to new goods otherwise trading standards start getting twitchy and accuse you of not correctly identifying and keeping them apart.(This happened to me as the kids were not putting games back on the correct rack after looking at them).
* Check games especially disks if you have a swap or part -x system as people do not hesitate to swap in a game with a scratch on level 3 of a disk and receive a new title.
* Is there customer parking near you? , if yes is there a time limit to parking which could deter customers?
* In the future next gen games could well be download only so if you do sell them what will you do then just sell retro games and accessories?
* There needs to be at least two people working in the shop for security reasons as a single individual is prone to `distraction tactics`,also one guy can serve and the other can test and check hardware and games swapped in.

That is just a few problems I recall but there are more trust me.

[wiggyx]

Jebus, yes. I forgot about the lonelies that wander in looking for a friend. Also, if the store is in a mall, be prepared for parents to drop off their kids there thinking you'll babysit them. It WILL happen.

I recall straight-up banning a few parents/customers who tried to do that on more than one occasion. One of the nice things about locally owned business; you can tell people who are assholes to fuck off without worrying about someone calling a BS 1-800 number to file a complaint.

[PizzaKat]

I use to work for a place where people traded in their games and/or consoles. The best part of it was since it wasn't an integral part of the business me and my manager got first dibs on the good stuff, that included other merchandise as well. Thats how I got my Wii U for a steal of a price. Considering how much I got it for the person who traded it in probably did steal it.