GameStop selling hardware now?!

[Frugivore8894]

 

 

Summary

Well good news for Linus beaches game stop might be charging to a more profitable business! GameStop is going to start selling GPUs.

 

Quotes

Quote

 As reported by PCMag, GameStop has undertaken a new business venture. The renowned video game retailer has started selling computer hardware on its online store, including Nvidia's elusive GeForce RTX 3000 (Ampere) offerings that are among the best graphics cards that money can buy -- or rather cannot buy.

 

My thoughts

 I think this might be a rebirth of game stop. The GPU maker is a very profitable place right now and this might just be the right maker to get in to. I do think this is a good idea and I do think that they should expand on to this market more especially if it goes well. 

 

Sources

 https://www.tomshardware.com/amp/news/need-a-geforce-rtx-3000-gpu-gamestop-can-hook-you-up

[Semper]

Now seems like among the worst times they could have decided to try and go in this direction.

If they continue the trend of focusing on the used market though, it could give an outlet for a more "mainstream" used hardware market, though I'd expect their trade values to continue to be pretty piss poor.

[Downkey]

So I’m other words they aren’t selling anything new

[Blademaster91]

I really don't see the point in gamestop selling graphics cards, especially now that prices are really jacked up, or theres nothing in stock. And according to the tomshardware article Gamestop is selling them for more than Newegg.

[StDragon]

GameStop is renowned for selling new and used console games and hardware; but at least they test the hardware with defect return.

 

And there's the rub with purchasing a used GPU, there's no guarantee you're not buying something sketchy / defective in some way. GameStop could standardize buying used GPUs, benching them and running a validation stress on them. It wouldn't be all that complicated for the clerk. And buyers can buy used with some more meaningful assurance. So the way I see it, GameStop can leverage both the new and used GPU market.

[Mark Kaine]

31 minutes ago, Semper said:

Now seems like among the worst times they could have decided to try and go in this direction.

If they continue the trend of focusing on the used market though, it could give an outlet for a more "mainstream" used hardware market, though I'd expect their trade values to continue to be pretty piss poor.

They're probably banking on buying up used GPUs for cents and selling them at or above MSRP.

 

It could probably work.

[TrigrH]

I thought margins on PC parts were kinda bad? (under normal circumstances anyway)

[TetraSky]

Oh nice, I hope they also accept trade-ins for GPUs as well! Can't wait to trade a $1000 GPU for $5 in store rebate on used hardware.

[OhioYJ]

4 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Oh nice, I hope they also accept trade-ins for GPUs as well! Can't wait to trade a $1000 GPU for $5 in store rebate on used hardware.

 

I also figured they'd just pull all the cards out of the boxes, throw away the manuals, and slap a sticker on them that can never be cleanly removed. It is Game Stop afterall.

[Basher99]

I got the email that they were going to have GPUs for sale.  Couldn't find them online at all.  Minutes later sold out email showed up.  Yay! lol

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, Downkey said:

So I’m other words they aren’t selling anything new

It's pretty much a guarantee that that even if they sold new GPU's they wouldn't be trading in any used ones.

 

Computer hardware has a very low resell value, and anyone going into it with that mindset other than putting it on eBay is going to lose money. Unless they're going to put everything on consignment. 

 

With that said, they probably realized that it could be more profitable to try and sell high-end PC GPU parts along side PS5's and Xbox whatever's since not many physical games people care about to buy used when they can buy them digitally on sale for 80% off.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

This seems to be the way of things - Best Buy and Walmart are selling components in a real way now

[PopReference]

So is having GPUs out of stock the new fade right now? Should I open my own store just to say I have no product to sell, because its cool?

[SteveGrabowski0]

12 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Oh nice, I hope they also accept trade-ins for GPUs as well! Can't wait to trade a $1000 GPU for $5 in store rebate on used hardware.

What's funny is Gamestop's trade-in promotions can be gamed sometimes. Like when I wanted Persona 5 Royal they had a $5 extra on every game traded in towards a preorder deal so I went to the pawn shop and spent like $9 on XBox 360 and Wii games and sold them to Gamestop for all but like $2 needed to pay for the preorder. Another time I used a combination of two promotions they had going to sell them a copy of Nioh for PS4 for like $120 of PSN credit. I remember people using that same promotion to go buy games at Walmart and Best Buy for like $20, taking the wrapping off, and selling them to Gamestop for like $70 store credit so they'd get Switch + Pro Controller + Zelda bundles for like $180 out of pocket back when Switches were impossible to find a few months after launch.

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

What's funny is Gamestop's trade-in promotions can be gamed sometimes. Like when I wanted Persona 5 Royal they had a $5 extra on every game traded in towards a preorder deal so I went to the pawn shop and spent like $9 on XBox 360 and Wii games and sold them to Gamestop for all but like $2 needed to pay for the preorder. Another time I used a combination of two promotions they had going to sell them a copy of Nioh for PS4 for like $120 of PSN credit. I remember people using that same promotion to go buy games at Walmart and Best Buy for like $20, taking the wrapping off, and selling them to Gamestop for like $70 store credit so they'd get Switch + Pro Controller + Zelda bundles for like $180 out of pocket back when Switches were impossible to find a few months after launch.

That reminds me of the time I got the circular scratch on one of my Xbox 360 games and gamestop wouldn't replace it because its the result of moving your Xbox while it was moving. I bought a new copy of the same game from BestBuy and swapped the game out and brought it back. BestBuy swapped it out for a new one no question asked. I then flipped the other game to a friend for 40 bucks instead of the 60 bucks i paid for it. Yeah I was out 20 bucks but it was better than spending 60 dollars on the game again. 

[SurvivorNVL]

This better earn me back that $25K I sunk in to the meme.

[Bombastinator]

I thought GameStop always sold hardware.  Just not gpus.  Lot of controllers and things.  Shouldn’t be much of a stretch to add a new product.  They probably don’t even need to modify their inventory software. 

[Bombastinator]

22 hours ago, PopReference said:

So is having GPUs out of stock the new fade right now? Should I open my own store just to say I have no product to sell, because its cool?

My dad used to sing this song which makes me think this is a later cover of the song.  Most of his favorites were 50’s vintage or older.  Sometimes much.

 

[AndreiArgeanu]

Kind of surprised it took them this long to make this decision. CEX (basically gamestop equivalent in UK) has been doing this for years, buying and selling PC hardware. Though CEX doesn't buy or sell motherboards, psu's or cases, only memory, storage, gpu's, cpu's and fully working pc's, oh and network cards.

[soldier_ph]

inb4 sold out

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, soldier_ph said:

inb4 sold out

Too late I think.  Stock is probably periodically being resupplied though. 

[Bombastinator]

20 minutes ago, SGT-AMD said:

More Theft...Great

 

Got a point. Theft by swindle is still theft.

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, SGT-AMD said:

Of course it is.

It brings me back to the days when you had to refund a customer because they used A/E. Missing items, etc. Very frustrating when there is nothing wrong with the item:

99 % User Error.

 

 

I understand in the retail industry they refer to shoplifting as “stock shrinkage” it doesn’t matter why there is less product, just that there is.  If a given console damaged disks easily that would contribute to “stock shrinkage”.

 

the whole difference between Sam’s club/Costco and other big box groceries was aggressive behaviors to control stock shrinkage.  That’s why all the products are gigantic there.  It’s not about “valu size” it’s about making the products physically larger so they’re harder to hide.  Also the “membership cards” the people at the door, everything.  It’s basically the only difference.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, SGT-AMD said:

To solve that problem, We had bought display cases that locked, and limited how many were out front.

One of the employees was making lots of money, stealing the product and then selling it on his own.

He quietly quit.

 

I used to have a Costco membership but did the math and it turned out it wasn’t actually materially cheaper given gas to get there and membership fees unless I shopped there literally ALL the time, which wasn’t feasible, so I dumped it.

[FRD]

It seems like they are jumping on the scalper train after all. It's funny to easily differ your former favorite shops by scalpers and honest MSRP priced selling shops from each other. Know which businesses to support and not.