(Marike79)
You can’t walk into a GameStop without having to fend off requests to sign up for a membership and preorder games. A former manager says he refused to take part in the often irritating environment, faced a demotion due to poor upselling numbers and lost his house as a result.
He writes:
I am the ex-assistant manager of a GameStop location somewhere in the eastern United States. I’m writing you to inform you of my horror story with this company.I started off as a simple clerk (or Game Advisor as they’re called in GameStop land). Three months into my job, I received a promotion to shift leader (Senior Game Advisor). This, in turn, resulted in a pay raise and more hours which allowed me to quit my second job.
Enter recession.
While part time, our hours as lower level management were higher than those of regular employees. I quit my second job with the prospect of a better future with GameStop (and while it was not their fault the hours got shafted, it still made for a struggle to get by).
A year and a half into my tenure, I was approached by my store manager informing me that an opportunity had recently become available in a store 25 miles away. I happily accepted.
Christmas time in 2009 rolled around and I was now “Happily” placed at a smaller volume store as the assistant manager (full time!). Things were great for a while…
As many of you readers already know, if you don’t sell a certain percentage of GameStop’s “exclusive” membership cards (referred to as Edge Cards), and meet a certain percentage of reservations, you are worthless to the company. Let me simply state that I believe the customer’s satisfaction comes first. Apparently, that’s a frowned upon statement in GameStop land as I soon received a nice write-up telling me to “Improve my numbers or be demoted”.I was faced with a difficult decision; be demoted and lose hours and lose my house, or quit and lose my house. I elected the latter option and soon landed another full time job making less money but with more hours (which ALSO didn’t work out.. but I digress)
My point of this writing is not to receive your sympathy, but simply to give you some insight into the workings of the company.“Sell Edge cards and Reservations or lose your job”.
On a much more hilarious and sad note, I now work for Best Buy / Geek Squad.
At least he has optimized his work situation.
If you’re into video games, how does GameStop’s upsell-happy culture affect your choice to shop there?
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The higher ups at these companies make you push this stuff because they make a lot of profit selling the information they capture when you sign up for these cards. (If THEY had to do the obnoxious pushing on customers themselves, it would not be a requirement. But it’s easy to hand out these directives from the “board room”.)
Unfortunately, it is a turn-off to most customers, resulting in less customers in your store shopping for merchandise, so sales go down.
It’s a no-win situation if you are in retail-management – and it is happening at a lot more places than Game Stop.
It’s getting absolutely ridiculous. Customer service takes second seat to these upseeling “goals”, unfortunately.
Oddly enough, I got fired from Best Buy for the same reason. However they didn’t do it in that many words, they found some fuck-ups another tech had made that he didn’t sign and then pinned them on me.
I’m hoping Karma is getting back at that asshole manager for me.
I must have beat out the new initiative. The last two trips I made to a Game Stop were memorable because I wasn’t pitched 5 up-sells. I bought my item and left. It was amazing. In fact they were the only people in town that had what I needed. I would also suggest getting out of retail. If you stick around long enough, everybody you worked with will be gone.
if those whiz heads at corporate are so smart, have them run the damn stores
i’ll bet if all store managers walk-out on the company, lets see them recover from that
i think its funny that the numbers equate to worth for the company, yet those executives haven’t sold any edge cards them damn selves
same goes with all retail corporate execs
And how is your international store chain going?
I ask because you really don’t sound like you have any idea how to run a business. This upselling policy used by Gamestop isn’t attractive, but they still have a global store with almost 50,000 employees at 6,500 locations and over $9 billion in sales.
And what have you got? As far as I can tell all you’ve got is a crappy attitude and a broken SHIFT key.
Hum lets see… You didn’t do what you were told by your employer and now you don’t have a job. Sounds like it’s your fault.
You have to play politics no matter where you work. Sounds like it’s a hard lesson to learn since you already lost your new job.
I am disappointed that the Consumerist would post an article like this. It seems more like trying to pile on the easy target of Game Stop rather than providing me with any insight on consumer issues. Unless the lesson is “careful, if you don’t do your job you will get fired”.
Oh no, do your job or be fired. How crazy of them to have expectations of their employees.
Well, it’s the nature of retail. Apple does the same thing. It drove me crazy that Apple cared more about the upsell than about the customer, but I’m starting to see that it’s the same way everywhere. It doesn’t make it RIGHT anywhere, but not particularly surprising, either.
So… He knew the company rules, he willingly signed on, he didn’t cooperate (doesn’t matter the rules suck – they weren’t concealed from him), they dumped him. So what?
I used to work at Gamestop…I didn’t care enough about annoying people to stand for losing my job. Sorry, bills and roof come first for me.
The “upsell-happy” thing doesn’t bother me. You go in the same store often enough, and the people working there get to know that you don’t want something. If it’s at a store where they don’t know me, I won’t explode just from waiting from them to give a 1 minute spiel and for me to say “No thanks.” I almost never buy games new cause the used game return policy is much better, and I usually wait until the used prices drops to $30 or less, so…no problems for me.
If saying “no thanks” actually ended the upsell attempt, there wouldn’t be so much free-floating rage towards GameStop.
Just because YOU stopped there doesn’t mean that all GameStop jockeys stop there.
This article should be retitled “Gamestop fired me for not doing my job”. Then it should be taken down. Millions of people have sales quotas, it’s part of retail.
I’ll be the next to say this is a ridiculous post. That’s corporate life dude. You worked for a corporation, and corporations sell discount/charge/membership cards, and you have to sell a certain amount to be worth keeping. Does it suck sometimes? Yeah. I’m a lower-wage associate for my second corporate job now. But I’m not going to whine on Consumerist if I lose my job because I didn’t meet quotas.
This is why I do not shop at stores that force their employees to up-sell crap like this.
In the early 90′s I was an assistant manager for an electronics store, I wont name them. The place was a revolving door for sales associates because no matter how skilled, CS orientated, and knowledgeable they were, if they did not tack on a certain amount of warranty sales, they were fired.
After being there for 6 months the district manager came in and fired the entire staff from manager and down, everyone. Why? Because for a full week every customer that came in flat out refused all up-sells.
As what others have pretty much already mentioned… You worked in a sales position. You didn’t meet the sales numbers set by your management.
As being a consumer I cannot stand being upselled and offered additional things — I make most of my purchases online because of this.
Is this Consumerist or Employerist? Are we now posting job complaints here? If so, I got a few.
As a teenager, I worked at a car dealership and my boss asked me why I didn’t paint he fence as he had instructed and I told him that it was about to rain. He insisted, so I painted the fence, it rained, and all the paint washed through the parking lot in a beautiful white deluge. The paint river was still visible in the parking lot a decade later.
I had another boss who forbade me the unnecessary use of bold fonts in internal documents.
The point being, jobs often ask us to do things we don’t want to do. But our continued employment depends on us doing as we are told.
But at least now I get to share this BOLD story with everyone.
Moving on to “Geek Squad” is a step back.
But yeah, pretty much what everyone else says – you weren’t happy doing what was expected of you, so why is this even here? It was part of your job and you simply didn’t want to do it. To top it off, you come here to complain about it and make them look like the bad guys…
All of that presell, reservation crap is bull, I will agree, but it’s part of their job description and you agreed to it, plain and simple.
In other news a local santiation engineer refuses to pick up the really nasty trash and gets fired.
“Game Advisor” thats about as laughable as “Apple Genius”. When will people learn that there are other means to get your games other than Gamestop?
Seems like all the Gamestop hassle occurs only in the US. Its still EB Games here (with the exception of a few newer Gamestop stores) but there is no Membership or No sale here, they do still ask if you have edge card and how it benefits you if you don’t. They’ll still try to sell you the protection for a year but thats pretty much the extent of the harassment in canadian stores.
I worked at GameStop for a few years during college (and in the corporate office after college, but i digress) and got threatened at least like 6 times about my numbers being too low. Just ignore it, haha. It takes them forever to do anything about it.
So you refused to do your job and opted to quit instead, and somehow this is the company’s fault? Personally, I hated upselling when I worked in retail, but it was part of the job so I did it. I wasn’t good at it because I knew that extended warranties were a waste of money. How can I be expected to sell something that I wouldn’t buy? Yet, I offered these programs to all of my customers, explained them to those who were interested, and sold them to those who wanted them. I didn’t lie or obfuscate. I just offered them for what they were, and I slept fine at night knowing that I hadn’t cheated anyone out of their money. More importantly, I took “no” for an answer. Just offer it if it’s part of your job. If the customer doesn’t want it, leave it at that.
So you were fired for not doing your job?
that’s crazy.
“If you’re into video games, how does GameStop’s upsell-happy culture affect your choice to shop there?”
Absolutely. I’ll occasionally scrounge through the used titles, but I can’t stand the upsell. I’d rather deal with online shops.
I got my hours cut to 4 per week. That’s right, 4 per week, as a Senior Game Advisor, in charge of opening and closing and bank drops, aka manager, all because I didn’t sell enough Edge cards or reserves. When I still didn’t quit due to lack of hours, they said I shoved my boss so they could fire me and I couldn’t collect unemployment.
What I want to know is how Gamestop can enforce these policies without giving compensation in the form of commission?
I worked for the company for four years, and never had great numbers. But, I made an effort, and that was enough until the end.
Yeah, the upselling sucks, but at least it wasn’t terribly hard to sell game reservations. The Edge cards themselves aren’t necessarily a hard sell, but once I told the average customer that I needed their address for the magazine (a required part of the deal), they would back out. Sometimes literally. People don’t like giving out their personal info, and I don’t blame them.
For all the horror stories and stories of aggressive salespeople or customers getting badgered for these cards or for pre-orders, I have NEVER personally encountered any of this. The worst I get is being asked if I want to pay extra for a warranty.
I’m not saying these things don’t happen, just saying it doesn’t seem as widespread as people claim, and many seem to blast the entire company for one or two bad experiences.
When I worked at Radio Shack I was expected to sell a certain percentage of extended warranties on the crap I sold. This was a condition of my job. I didn’t like it and would never buy an extended warranty but I still sold them.
When I worked at Sears I was expected to sell a certain percentage of extended warranties on the crap I sold. This was a condition of my job. I didn’t like it and would never buy an extended warranty but I still sold them.
You may not like it, but it’s part of your job. If you choose to quit rather than up-sell that’s fine, but the consequences of that are yours and yours alone.
I can see where he comes from for sure. I sold tires for Wally World in my past for 6 years. Nobody in our district (which included a large swathe of demographics; City, Suburb, Sub-rural & Rural) could come close to my numbers. I was in a rural area, so 90% of my business was repeat business. My sales tactics would only involve things that the customer needed, or might have wanted. Simple things like “how are the tires treating you?” went a long way. Even moreso, telling them (or better yet, showing them!) when they didn’t need something that they were out to purchase and saving them money almost always created repeat customers.
Then, some time around year 5, we got a new district manager, and new policies to go with him. Policies like giving a full speech to every customer about why they need new wiper blades, air filters and fuel system cleanings. Let’s just put it this way, if you start giving a speech to an old farmer, who is only in to have his tire fixed and leave, he will get angry. Repeat this issue with a good 70% or so of my customer base. So I refused to give the little speech.
Shock and amazement, my sales numbers were untouched, while the rest of the shop’s plummeted. Meanwhile, I was hammered weekly for “secret shoppers” looking for the speech. I got a nice monthly chat with the DM for such a disgression, in which I calmly showed a full spreadsheet on how my numbers were just plain better, confounding and angering little napoleon, but insulating me from his wrath (my regional manager was a results man). I stayed on for a further year, until I finally had enough of the little napoleon and his terrible mandated speeches.
Now, when I visit the old store from time to time, I see very few people in the shop…when it used to be hopping. Forced upsells are bad for business. Organic sales are the true way to go. Sadly, corporations refuse to pursue it.
wait, wait… he didn’t do his job and is now complaining for being fired for not doing his job? why is this even posted? I worked at Best Buy as a kid, I didn’t like all the upselling, but I did it because it was my job! it’s not like they asked him to steal money (well sorta).
Gamestop sucks donkey cock. They devalue their employees, and their customers. I refuse to shop there.
“You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.”
You know, the two Gamestops in my area must be the exception, because I’m never harassed there. I walk in, they ask if I need help with something, I say no (or yes if I do), they leave me alone (or help) and that’s that.
I for one applaud this man. Upsells are one of the two reasons I do not and will not shop at Gamestop.
So you were hired to do a job which included upselling, and you refused to do it. Good for Game Stop. They were not telling you to trick people, lie, steal or use their credit cards illegally. If you can not sell, then it is obvious you should not be in a sales position (retail clerks and manager are sales people). Would you write this same letter if you were hired as a manager and part of the job was filling out HR forms, but you thought the forms were ridiculous and a waste of time, so YOU unilaterally made the decision to not fill them out.
If you felt upselling was wrong, you could always show EVIDENCE that it makes for less profits and fewer customers. THAT is how you change things.
THIS JUST IN!!! Retail establishment expects it’s employees to make as much money for them as possible! What has this world become?!
Next thing you know, the retail establishments will fire people who can’t make quotas and hire those that can. bastards.
At no point do I see the OP complaining about how he was treated, why then is everybody giving him a hard time about this? It’s like you’re all mad at him because he gave us a peek into what it’s like to work for Gamestop and you mistook it for bitching about it.
The people here telling him “Well what did you expect, not doing your job and all?” would be the first to whine and cry when someone tries to upsell them, I’m sure.