Question for a Gamestop employee

[fishsandwich]

I go to a Gamestop this weekend and find a nice copy of Pikmin 2 (Gamecube) for $25, not a bad price at all considering they go for over $40 and ye crappy Ebay. I notice when I'm waiting in line that the sticker on the side says $30, so it's got two conflicting stickers.

It rings up for $40. I ask why. The manager is very nice and gives it to me for $25.

So what happened? Does corporate track average online sales and increase accordingly?

[TonyTheTiger]

I never worked at Gamestop but I do know that if a product is priced a certain way the store has to sell it at that price. They can't be tagging things for $5 and then wait until you get to the register to surprise you with a $20 price. Chances are, the price did change (up or down) and the particular copy you found just wasn't updated accordingly.

[8 1/2]

I used to work for GS, and yes, they totally track online sales data. They don't want to be suckers. When Disgaea started to rise early on (before all the reprints) they quickly went back and upped the price on used copies. In the case of your Pikmin 2, it probably just got overlooked in a price change. The second sticker on the side is just for inventory checks so the employee can scan the side of each box without having to slide each one out.

[SpyHunter]

I used to work for GS, and yes, they totally track online sales data. They don't want to be suckers.

They should lower their prices as well. They still sell stuff for $40-$45 when it can be had for much cheaper on E-Bay or Amazon, etc.

[norkusa]

$25 for Pikmin 2 at Gamestop is uncharacteristically low for them. Considering how they sell MvC2 used for $80, they are obviously hip to Ebay prices on the "rare" titles. They probably just forgot to mark it up. Even their website lists it at $39.99.

It's cool that you got it for $25 though. You could easily double your money if you flipped it on Ebay. I think when sealed prices hit $125, it'll be time to sell mine.

[Mayhem]

Is Pikmin 2 seriously that hard to find and/or in demand? I just got it on release because I loved the original. Did it not sell well or something?

[incubus421]

I used to work for GS, and yes, they totally track online sales data. They don't want to be suckers. When Disgaea started to rise early on (before all the reprints) they quickly went back and upped the price on used copies. In the case of your Pikmin 2, it probably just got overlooked in a price change. The second sticker on the side is just for inventory checks so the employee can scan the side of each box without having to slide each one out.

Correct...spine labels are just put there for easy scanning when doing category and title counts. Also there so that the customer can know the price without having to slide every title off the shelf. These can get overlooked from time-to-time but most of the mislabeled spines come from shear laziness.

Also on a side note....recently the price of every Gamecube game in GS inventory took a price drop...keep tabs on the GCN sections, I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped even further soon.

[TonyTheTiger]

I did hear that they're phasing GCN out so that's no surprise. The problem is that most stores have very tiny GCN sections and those already tiny sections are mostly taken up by about 5 Wind Wakers, 10 or so Metroid Primes, and 100,000 copies of Geist.

[DonMarco]

I'm thinking it missed a few price changes. If the front price sticker says $25 and it rings up for $40 now, that usually means a few $5 increases. My best guess is that it was sitting in the back forever waiting for an employee to buy it and was accidentally put on the shelf without checking the price first.