With the change in shopping habits in America, most physical retail stores have been losing sales ever since the rise of Amazon, and no other company has been hit harder than Gamestop. The corporation has reported continual sales decreases throughout the early to mid-2000s. In addition to the decreased sales, Gamestop was even without a CEO throughout 2018 until George Sherman took on the empty position this year. However, with this new CEO also comes a new plan of attack to save the dying company. The “3-point plan,” as Sherman has named it, is to change their main stores into more of a gaming cafe with places to sit and play games with friends\; furthermore, they will focus more on what has actually made the company profitable: retro games. Gamestop has always been most profitable with their used games sales rather than new game releases. Used games refer to video games that have been owned by someone else, brought back to the store, and then sold to Gamestop for fairly low prices. New store renovations will allow for numerous gaming tournaments for a variety of gaming genres from fighting to racing, hopefully enticing more people to visit the store. However, these aforementioned changes may not be coming to all stores. Gamestop has not yet released what they intend to do with their locations within shopping malls, but some have speculated that they will close these establishments indefinitely.
For this plan to work, Gamestop’s renovations will have to completely change the stores in order to encourage more people to actually come into their business. Simply making their locations into gaming cafes does not guarantee an increase in sales. If they make the tournaments pay to play, then there could definitely be an easy way to increase profits, but Gamestop has not given enough detail on how the business plans to conduct these events. Until more information about these tournaments is released, it is a challenge to get an idea of how these gatherings will affect the company.
The one change for Gamestop that is almost completely foolproof is having retro games become easily available. Originally, Gamestop only sold retro games online or in a select few “special” stores which is not an effective strategy to sell these products. Moreover, most retro game collectors want to see what condition the games are in and if games in the second or third generation still have their boxes and instruction manual. By making retro games one of the main focuses of the company, Gamestop will be able to gain profits on selling products they already have. Overall, Gamestop is making the right move with allowing retro games to be more accessible\; however, the company is taking a large gamble in regards to the renovations they hope to accomplish.
The important aspect of this change is this: Gamestop is asserting that they are still relevant in comparison to corporate giants like Amazon. The internet has completely changed the way we shop, and Amazon is at the forefront of this change. This change is kind of a gray area because on one side it has made shopping itself more accessible, more convenient, and more affordable, but on the other side it has caused many other businesses financial troubles or even bankruptcy. Amazon does have a place in the retail market, but so does Gamestop and other stores like it. Therefore, these companies should try and make a stand to declare their importance to the world of business.