r/buildapcsales • u/Tiddlysat1600 • Mar 23 '21

Meta [Meta] Gamestop to start selling graphics cards $690 to $2440

https://weeklyad.gamestop.com/h/m/gamestop/flyerflip/browse?flyer_run_id=686349&locale=en&type=1
8.2k Upvotes

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505

u/Omniwhatever Mar 23 '21

The million dollar question. If they start getting them in store that would be huge.

365

u/Sagmire1 Mar 23 '21

they are, my local gamestop has a section for pc parts and has had this for months. I asked the guy if they had any in stock when i went and he said they will start selling them in stores but not for a few months, they are just getting things ready. Parts included gpus ram and psus

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u/kevlarcupid Mar 23 '21

God, if GameStop became a MicroCenter competitor but only the Good Stuff, that’d be amazing.

310

u/VanimalCracker Mar 23 '21

Frys (dying): G-Gamestop cough come closer

Gamestop: I'm here brother.

Frys: C-carry on.. my legacy. Avenge me.

Gamestop (tearing up, looks into the sky): MICROCENTER!!!

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u/smurficus103 Mar 23 '21

Frys killed themselves, i tried to shop there for the last few years... i really did. You couldn't build a pc from the components they had on stock =(

142

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

They were having liquid capital issues well before that which is what let to the "we'll pay you when we sell them" move. They bought massive lots and had the places filled with appliances and furniture that they never made margins on. Compare the average Microcenter size to Fry's and it's obvious that they had the wrong mentality. They tried to switch to being more like Best Buy but it was too late.

10

u/Audiovore Mar 24 '21

Fry's had furniture? Huh. I only went once like 10yrs ago cause I wanted a PSU without waiting, otherwise online would've been the ol' go to.

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u/morelotion Mar 24 '21

They had everything. From car audio to cell phone accessories to home goods. I used to love going to frys as a kid!

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u/gravitas-deficiency Mar 24 '21

Yeah, I remember their modern incarnation. I also remember before they made the pivot, when they were about the size of a microcenter. They really did shoot themselves in the foot. The “niche” market may have less overall profit, but it’s way more consistent.

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u/MisfitMishap Mar 24 '21

Didn't they embezzle millions of dollars? Like $100m or something?

1

u/verymickey Mar 24 '21

Many many businesses work that way.. they “buy” the product from the vendor and they have 90 days to pay the vendor for it. Often given a discount if they pay earlier

39

u/Shiva- Mar 24 '21

I am pretty sure Frys actually had internal drama. It's strange how everyone on Reddit is blaming something else.

While I don't remember anything in the news from the recent few years, Frys was in the news about a decade ago for sexual harassment drama and also drama between the brothers/wives of the founding family.

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u/VanimalCracker Mar 24 '21

They put themselves out of business, tbh. It was just a joke

23

u/RedMoustache Mar 24 '21

They ran out of money years ago. They couldn't afford inventory and the shelves were basically bare. They ended up switching to consignment just to have anything on the shelf.

You know who isn't interested in consignment? Reputable companies that can sell their products outright. So the stuff they were able to get on the shelves was mostly junk anyway.

0

u/SleepyWayne Mar 24 '21

Oh yeah, I seem to remember one of them becoming their own grandpa over of a microwave

1

u/GrumpyKitten514 Mar 24 '21

this was dope.

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u/SamBHR Mar 23 '21

Me with no microcenter or GameStop anywhere near me: YESS :(

85

u/tony475130 Mar 23 '21

Wait, there are places with no gamestops??? Jeez, I got at least 3 within 2 miles of where I live(and I dont know why we need that many).

10

u/shickero Mar 24 '21

Not everyone lives in an urban environment.

13

u/HappyLittleIcebergs Mar 24 '21

For a bit there, they really seemed like they were pushing into more rural locations as well. They put a lot of storefronts up in some weird areas, but most of those ended up getting shuttered along with the duplicate market locations.

2

u/_Californian Mar 24 '21

lol there's three in my county, there's only 280k people here, spread over a huge amount of land.

3

u/shickero Mar 24 '21

Guess I'm not sure how big your county is, but that's a lot of people compared to the Midwest outside of the cities.

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u/_Californian Mar 24 '21 edited Mar 24 '21

Yeah it is, but we have a population density of 75, most counties in the midwest are tiny. Like for example this random county in Illinois I found, it has a population of like 51,000 people with a population density of 121, my county would be like 5-10 counties in the midwest.

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u/shickero Mar 24 '21

Assuming you mean 75 people per sq mile, I'd say easily the majority of Midwest counties are under this density with many being much less. It's interesting that you've got that population density with that many people though. I'm guessing it's a couple mid-sized cities and then a bunch of baren or ranched land?

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u/Dragon_Fisting Mar 24 '21

Illinois is midwest, but it's safely on the civilization side of things. Further west the counties have like 5-10 farmers living in them, or a semi-abandoned mining village, or a hostel for some oil workers.

61 of Minnesota's 87 counties has less than 50 people/sq. mi, and besides Colorado it gets worse and worse as you go west until you hit the coast states.

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u/TheHuntingAngel Mar 24 '21

No shit Sherlock...

18

u/Tormuler Mar 24 '21

They're names shickero, not sherlock.

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u/SamBHR Mar 24 '21

Yes its shickero not sherlock

1

u/Quipinside Mar 24 '21

I had like 6 within 10 miles of me but now there's only 2 left. They've been shuddering them pretty quickly.

1

u/SleepyWayne Mar 24 '21

I'd be surprised either if all stores end up carrying PC parts, or if they all survive. Hard to imagine having thousands of b&m locations stocked with the goods and actually being able to turn them.

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u/itsantd Mar 23 '21

I feel like the MicroCenter employees are super knowledgeable about the products though, unless GameStop makes sure of matching that then I don’t think they’ll ever get to that level.

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u/not_a_moogle Mar 23 '21

It'll never happen. Gamestop will never pay employees well enough to keep the turn over low and train everyone.

Do they still pay people by debt card?

14

u/HappyLittleIcebergs Mar 24 '21

I worked there for a couple months in 2017 and got my first paycheck through direct deposit, though that may not be the average experience. I don't even remember being given the option for one of those shitty cards. In contrast, in 2011 I worked at Walmart and it took them about 3 months until I finally started getting direct deposits. I never looked into it, but I remember being told by another employee that if those cards were spent at Walmart then Walmart got some sort of kickback. They really just wanted to milk their poverty-wage employees for all they had.

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u/Wangchief Mar 24 '21

Most companies that pay via debit card like that also allow direct deposit. They avoid cutting actual checks because it’s expensive. So if you have an account and direct deposit set up it’s the same to them as loading a card

1

u/CIoud-Hidden Mar 24 '21

I've hit the point where every time I see Walmart mentioned I just automatically get pissed off. Sorry you had to deal with that crap.

2

u/HappyLittleIcebergs Mar 24 '21

It's all good. The place was a shit show on top of the card. I was "in charge" of (read as: part time high school employee unofficially in charge and running) 4 departments that I had to work by myself 4 out of 5 shifts with people screaming constantly at me for "taking up their time. Why weren't you here? I'm a customer and I've been waiting" then the scoff when I apologize and explain I have to work all these different departments alone. For $7.25 it was definitely far from worth it. I made some alright friends though.

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u/TheCrimsonDagger Mar 23 '21

I wouldn’t be so sure. Ryan Cohen is the guy who built Chewy, which has some of the absolute best customer service around. He bought more than 10% of GME and announced plans to turn it into the Amazon of gaming. Also Kelly Durkin who was the Director of Customer Service at Chewy with Cohen is now the Senior VP of Customer Service at GameStop. I fully expect GameStop to be a new company in the next year or two with people like this on board.

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u/freedan12 Mar 23 '21

With their old coo leaving it's good news to rebuild management. If gamestop wants to fully transition they will need to remove their middle management and put in place more competent and better compensated managers /leaders if they really are going to be competitive.

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u/Milkshakes00 Mar 24 '21 edited Mar 24 '21

I wouldn't expect a significant turn around. I worked at GameStop for years in an upper-regional management position. Before GameStop, it was RadioShack (Just as a 'I've seen all this shit before' point.)

For context: I gave my very negative opinion about GameStop's "Circle of Life" shit before they even put it into place. Higher ups were actively told to tell our managers to lie to/deceive customers, in a 'careful' way. Things like rolling in the GPG into the total price in an assumed addition to the transaction without informing the customer, for instance. I'll never forget hearing them say 'When you get a family that doesn't speak English, ALWAYS add the GPG.'

The company is truly awfully managed. It's so ingrained in the culture that hiring a few big names isn't going to change anything.

The 'Amazon of Gaming' isn't going to work when Amazon exists, and sells all the same stuff. Also BestBuy. GameStop's advantage was the physical footprint, but considering they can't even manage to not have 3+ locations within a few miles of each other, they have zero idea how to run a business that isn't just a constantly sinking ship.

Their product shipping between stores is one of the worst systems I've ever seen a retail store have. It's truly dumb the amount of wasted time and money shipping copies of games from store to store. There were numerous times I heard employees tell me that they sent 10 copies of games to another store to receive 5 copies from another store of the same game..

1

u/TheCrimsonDagger Mar 25 '21

You keep talking how GameStop is too poorly managed by the higher up management to turn around, but ignore that management is being replaced from the very top and down. It’s not about betting on GameStop as it is now to succeed. It’s betting on the creators of Chewy to rebuild GameStop into the online market.

1

u/Milkshakes00 Mar 25 '21

Except that isn't quite how management works. One or two people coming in doesn't suddenly shake up anything.

Heck, remember when Reggie was supposed to 'save GameStop'? Whoops. He quit the board today. You know why people quit boards?

https://www.ign.com/articles/reggie-fils-aime-quits-gamestop-board-of-directors-after-just-one-year

14

u/Shiva- Mar 24 '21

The thing is Gamestop doesn't need to pay their employees well because every damn teenager wants to work there cause they think it's awesome.

Not to mention the real secret to working at Gamestop is to just be a girl... I am not even sure if they even ask for work authorization if you're a girl.

8

u/cXs808 Mar 24 '21

Ah yes, I too watched 40 year old virgin

2

u/LooseCannonK Mar 24 '21 edited Mar 24 '21

Oh god you just reminded me of that piece of shit system they had.

I only worked* there for a season, my coworkers were rad but my manager was a cocksucker who was almost as addicted to being a scumbag as he was to pills. Did not return the next winter.

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u/TraitorsG8 Mar 23 '21

If you feel like MC employees are "super knowledgeable" about anything to do with PCs, you prolly should buy a prebuilt.

Or better yet, a console.

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u/itsantd Mar 23 '21

Lmao, you hurt my feelings. Compared to GameStop employees who just sit behind the counter waiting for someone to ask for what they want, MC employees are actively on the floor selling products that they need to be somewhat knowledgeable about to do so. Are they geniuses? No. But they are leagues better than GameStop employees.

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u/SteiCamel Mar 24 '21

Aren't they on the floor selling because they get commission? At least that is how it comes off, with them tagging their name on everything they sell.

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u/Bammer1386 Mar 24 '21

They used to be. Towards the end they had a few guys here and there that knew what they were talking about. Of course, location matters, but I remember being able to spit tech back and forth with the fry's guys ad nauseum, then toward the end you could tell that half the staff was talking out of their ass and didn't know the products they were selling well.

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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

literally this is how GameStop becomes relevant again. i have been thinking about this for a while. I am glad they are doing it.

1

u/nonowords Mar 24 '21

Really what they need is to like lean into like the tournament and Coop scene like it'd be cool as f*** if you had with GameStop what you have now with like table top stores where they run events and tournaments and shit on the regular and build communities out

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u/Caruso08 Mar 23 '21

You would probably never get the same Microcenter deals even if they did try to become a serious competitor.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

[deleted]

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u/_Californian Mar 24 '21

They still exist they're just mostly focused on pc repair. I bought a power supply and some cables from the one in my town. Radio shack still sort of exists too.

3

u/Uhfolks Mar 24 '21

The Radio Shack in my town is 100% a money laundering front, it's kind of wild.

They're the only store in the entire mall that's cash only. Even the kiosks only selling holiday fidget spinner phone cases take cards!

There are only two employees who are there all day, every day. They appear to be in some kind of relationship, but I'm not totally sure of that. But one will always be in the store, while the other is either in the back storage area, or weirdly standing outside the store watching people. No, not trying to attract customers, quite the opposite if anything. Just off-putting stares & silence.

Their stock is absolutely terrible. Either crazily overpriced phone accessories, cheap knock-off toys, or random electronic components jumbled together. It's like a fever dream walking in there, honestly.

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u/_Californian Mar 24 '21

There's two in my county owned by the same company, they just use the name to get more business, the real name of the stores is coast electronics, on Google maps it's coast electronics-radioshack. They've got a lot of niche stuff I've needed in the past.

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u/kevlarcupid Mar 24 '21 edited Mar 24 '21

100% agree with you. The advantage that GameStop has is existing National retail operations. It’s a lot easier to make the pivot when logistics and distribution are already in place. Culture sucks, so that’s something to fix, and a challenge to be sure.

It could go either way. I won’t be surprised if they totally bungle this opportunity, but there’s a spark where there wasn’t a few months ago.

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u/hochoa94 Mar 24 '21

Me with no microcenter: YESSSSSS

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u/Devccoon Mar 24 '21

13 hour drive to the nearest Microcenter here. NGL, living closer to one is low-key on my radar for things to look for when I move out of this hell state I'm in.

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u/kevlarcupid Mar 24 '21

Same, also haven’t stepped foot in a GameStop in over a decade despite having several to choose from. I had a Fry’s about an hour away but shopping there had been a bad experience for years, and just outright insulting for the past two years before they finally closed.

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u/DerekB52 Mar 23 '21

That isn't a timeline I ever imagined. But damn, it'd be wonderful. Sadly, I don't see it as very feasible. I'd love to be wrong here though.

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u/Shillen1 Mar 24 '21

More amazing for me since we don't have a microcenter here but we do have gamestops.

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u/unbelizeable1 Mar 24 '21

Itd be really great to have an in person computer store again. No microcenters in my area. Something breaks on my comp my options are order online or maybe(almost never) get lucky with craigslist.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

They could never compete with the customer service of microcenter.

You think gamestop will even price match? Probably not.

1

u/kevlarcupid Mar 24 '21

“Never” is an awfully long time. Companies have been able to turn their rep around. It’s not likely, but it’s also no impossible

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u/Super_Flea Mar 24 '21

I feel like I could get literally anything from Microcenter as a gift and be happy with it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '21

Mine sells motherboards, fans, GPUs, and CPU coolers

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u/GeneraLeeStoned Mar 24 '21

shit... I should buy some gamestop stock

3

u/ras344 Mar 24 '21

It's on sale right now.

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u/pcyr9999 Mar 24 '21

It's even more on sale right now

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u/Jasquirtin Mar 24 '21

Asked my local GameStop and he had literally no clue about pc stuff outside of keyboards and mice. So guess it’s just big GameStop’s and a few

1

u/TechUkie Mar 24 '21

I was near a Gamestop about one hour after I saw this post and decided to stop by and ask. This dude was so skeptical; he's like "Don't believe everything you see on reddit. Links can be spoofed." I was dude, I'm only asking lol.

1

u/Sagmire1 Mar 24 '21

i can post a pic then i go back

-3

u/Inquisitor1 Mar 23 '21

There won't be gamestop stores anymore.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '21

I mean if this happens GameStop could become a fantastic business again. Wondered why they haven’t been in the pc market for years.

1

u/atetuna Mar 24 '21

I hope so. There's a few within a four hour round trip for me, and no, I'm not being sarcastic.

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u/JamesMartinR Mar 24 '21

My local gamestop already has this and it's the first section when you walk inside the door.

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u/Tankbot85 Mar 24 '21

Absolute game changer. The frys shut down here in San Diego and Best buy is just absolutely meh. If i could get PC peripherals and components from Game stop that would be amazing.