[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Why Amazon's Game Trade-In Program Won't Work here

[JoeG2001]

You are forgetting one little thing. Why is Amazon.com so succesful as an online retailer? People don't want to drive to the store, waste gas, time etc to shop and save money in the process. Same thing is happening here, you make it sound like it takes and hour to pack up a game and send it out. Not saying it will overtake gamestop but I don't think it will be quite the failure you draw it up to be.

[lightwave25]

Good job on describing your point of view. Personally, I don't think that Amazon's program will fail because of their giftcard and the number of products that can be purchased with it. I can't wait to compare their used game section with my local Gamestop.
By the way, I also lived in Nowhere, IA, but wouldn't be able to find a used game seller/buyer within an hour of driving in any direction.

[mattpeckham]

Could be, and I've been wrong before. I'm just coming at it from the angle that online buying works best when it's strictly "click and receive" ... as opposed to click, print, package, send, wait, and then (fingers crossed) get a voucher which you can only then employ to "click and receive."

On the other hand, an important perquisite I failed to mention in Amazon's favor is that you can convert games into general Amazon cash. Sell a couple games, buy a couple books. Or DVDs. Or music CDs. That's something no one else offers, and worth noting.

[jlf278]

Back in 1998, I had gotten my first paycheck from my summer job at West Coast Video. It seemed like a lot of money until I got to Funcoland 1/2 an hour away. Since I didn't want to spend all my hard-earned cash, I brought a bunch (maybe 15) of old video games to trade-in (btw, this was my first visit to a place that bought used games) . As hesitant as I was to part with my beloved old games, I made the mistake of bringing everything up to the cash register at once. So there I was with some mediocre new and used Funcoland games against my finely cultivated treasures plus some cash. Since I was pretty young, shy and stupid, I let the guy at the register ring up all my games without telling me the individual trade-in values. All-told, I think it was about $80...those games were advertised used at Funcoland for over $400. I almost immediately regretted trading them in, especially Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger.

Ever since, I've had nothing but contempt for Gamestop. They take advantage of kids and make a ton of money doing it. You're right, they're successful because kids can go into a store and immediately get something for the games they no longer play. But the prices they offer are obscenely low since they can get away with it. Fortunately, for those of us with credit cards, we can sell our old games on eBay and amazon marketplace (though I prefer keeping/lending out most games). Sill, this amazon game trade-in program seems like a good middle ground between gamestop and eBay. I think it will have some moderate success, but it depends on offering the right prices to offset the trouble. And I'll certainly admit, it will likely never reach close to Gamestop's success at placating the immediate gratification needs of the short-sighted teenager.

[mattpeckham]

Right, I'm on the same page with you about GS jlf278. I should have made this clearer in the post -- don't make this about Amazon vs. GameStop. It's not. Or it's only partially so. Don't discount all the mom and pop shops that deal in used games. The ones I've used all offered better value deals than GS per game, and had three or four times as many used titles in stock.

[jeffopus]

You hit the nail on the head both with your initial arguement and with your follow up.

I have used Gamestop to get cash and other gaming goodies as I review games for a gaming website and as a freelance writer getting games direct from publishers and its great. I also have used a game trading site to trade games with others before I started writing reviews for games and the instant cash or game products in hand is much better than having to wait.

Problem with Gamestop is the limited to gaming products that keeps me from getting opther things that I am interested in which Amazon does have when you get credit from them. There is a host of things you can get from Amazon and for that reason I think this program will actually work.

There has been numerous times when I would have liked it if Gamestop sold video cards and other computer hardware but now we can just wait a little bit and get some money toward all kinds of stuff at Amazon.

Thanks

Jeff Gedgaud

[sbonneau]

Respectfully, Amazon's trading program will work. I operate a startup company that offers software as a service “buyback” platform call Buybak.com. Our online retailers who buyback directly from consumers their no longer wanted DVDs, Video Games and CDs - buyback many tens of thousand of units per month, growing month over month. Consumers do this because it is actually is convenient to see what you will get before you're committed in an in-store trade. Consumers can trade for cash (or in the case of Amazon a gift card), this is better the 20% discount Gamestop offers for cash trades vs. game trades. And they can trade across multiple categories for more cash. Amazon has always iterated their service offerings and they will do so here, with more categories, convenience and reliability.
Gamestop believes that online buyback will fail because of their experience with Tradestop. With Tradestop - Gamestop customers were already used to trading pre-owned for new games in the thousands of brick & mortar Gamestop stores across the country and the way Tradestop was presented online it didn't provide any additional benefit to the current Gamestop consumer who had been trained on in-store trading, plus (IMO) Gamestop shuttered Tradestop due to it’s recent (in 2005) acquisition of Electronics Boutique and since it owned a monopoly ( ~80%) of the pre-owned video game space, why offer a service that exposed their buyback prices with no material benefit to their existing customers. First, what Amazon and other buyback sites offer is a trade for cash platform that isn't Gamestop. Many gamers feel that Gamestop doesn't pay a fair price for their games. I believe Amazon (along with many current online buyback sites) will offer buyback in additional categories/benefits - this is where Gamestop will have to make a decision to follow (or not) since consumers will be better served by trading for cash across multiple categories. To date there hasn't been anyone the size of Amazon to offer this service to consumers - I believe Amazon will iterate their offering (as well as other buyback sites) to add more categories, benefits and successfully differentiate from Gamestop in-store trading. In my opinion, for Gamestop to say that online trading will fail is like Blockbuster saying that Netflix would fail because why would people want to receive new movies in the mail rather than go to their local Blockbuster store – we now know how that story line has played out.
As far as immediacy of payment all these online buyback sites have to do is offer immediate cash (via virtual or physical stored value card – like Visa debit) on the creation of the online trade (if the consumer has a good history in selling quality trades – “a high trade reputation”) – once this happens then the brick and mortar benefit of trading at Gamestop goes away and they can follow Blockbuster into bankruptcy for not acting quickly enough to online competition as Blockbuster did with Netflix.

[MooseBoys]

What I think would really sell the system is to include a free bubble-padded return envelope with new game orders. For the most part I'm a game consumer - chances are when I order a new game from Amazon, it means one of my old one's going up to the shelf to collect dust. If Amazon gave me an option to add a pre-labeled ready-to-ship envelope in my order, to return one of my old games in (kind of like HP's ink cartridge recycle envelopes), I'd probably be much more inclined to use the system.

[JcHc3in1]

MooseBoys, that would be a brilliant idea for Amazon to do. Other retailers won't do that of course, they don't have any reason to, but if Amazon did that the return business alone should make this program a success. You should recommend this to them...

[ddthesm]

To me, this idea from Amazon isn't necessarily competition for Gamestop. Why, you ask? It's kind of like going to a cash advance place as opposed to earning a paycheck and putting it in the bank. As others have pointed out Gamestop is all about instant-gratification. You take your games there, trade it in and bam you've got credit towards another game that you want now, and you can get it now.
Amazon, however, you can send off some games over time, and eventually you could potentially have enough to completely earn that new...well whatever you want! This without having to pay the difference like you would at Gamestop.
Like I said, completely different market just like a cash advance is to a bank.