GameStop
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| GameStop Corporation | |
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| Type of Company | Public (NYSE: GME) |
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| Founded | 1984 (as Babbage's) |
| Headquarters | Grapevine, Texas, USA |
| Key people | R. Richard Fontaine (Chairman, CEO), Daniel A. Dematteo (Vice-Chairman, COO), David W. Carlson (CFO), Steve Morgan (President) |
| Industry | Electronics Stores |
| Revenue |  $1.842 billion USD (2005) |
| Employees | 33,000+ |
| Website | www.gamestop.com www.ebgames.com |
GameStop Corporation (NYSE: GME), headquartered in Grapevine, Texas, USA, is the world's largest video game and entertainment software retailer. The company operates 4,592 retail stores throughout the U.S., Canada, Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Austria, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Sweden. Retail stores operate under brands GameStop, Software Etc., FuncoLand, and EB Games, a subsidiary acquired after a merger with EB Games. In addition, the company runs internet sales websites, GameStop.com and EBgames.com, and Game Informer magazine, a leading video and computer game publication. In addition to video and computer games, the company sells computer and video games, magazines, strategy guides, action figures, DVDs (movies, TV shows etc.) and other related merchandise, along with buying used games and movies from its customers. A new store, in a similar vein to GameStop, called MovieStop, has been slowly building stores in the southeastern United States.
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[edit] History
GameStop traces its roots to a mall software retailer, Babbage's. The movements that made Babbage's into GameStop started in 1994 after a series of mergers. The first was with Software Etc. in 1994, the second was with Funcoland stores in 2000, and the third was with Electronics Boutique (now EB Games) in 2005, taking four competing, major mall software retailers and placing them under a single corporate umbrella.
GameStop bought out the Gamesworld franchise in the Republic of Ireland in 2002 and immediately took control of their 10 stores but are now operating 20+ stores in the country.
When Babbage's merged with another mall software retailer, Software, Etc., in 1994 [1] [2] the company was renamed "Neostar Retail", but the individual stores remained separate entities. [3]
The management of the two Companies did not pull the formerly seperate companies together well. The two entities operated seperately for several years, and a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing developed. This ultimately doomed the combined entity. The Company went into Chapter 11 reorganization in early fall of 1996. At this point the company had approx 800 stores. Several potential buyers of the companies' assets emerged. Ironically given events in 2005-2006 one of the potential buyers was EBGames. During the November manager's meeeting and conference in Early November in Dallas-Forth Worth near the Company Headquarters, managers were getting daily updates on the state of the company. At this time the managers were facing the very real possibility that they may not have stores or even jobs to go back too. They were told at a lunch time update that unless something happened in 24 hours the Company would be going to liquidation.[citation needed]
On the last day of the manager's conference there was a Lunch Time Special Guest, Len Riggio the head of Barnes and Noble books. He and a group of investors were going to put in place the financing to keep the company afloat, and get new merchandise into the stores in time for Christmas. The Companies' creditors by this point were owed so much back revenue that they were no longer shipping anything to the Company or the individual stores. Len and his investor's would also be making a buyout offer to the Bankrupcy court in the coming week. [citation needed]
In a personal comment during the lunch time address Len stated that he "Hated" the name Neostar Retail, and thought like pretty much everyone else, that the merged Babbage's/Software ETC. should have been called Babbage's ETC. He stated should his buyout bid be successful (and he was boldly confident it would be), that would be the name of the new company.
From the available choices of the potential buyers the Judge desired to accept the offer from the one that would keep the most people working and preserve the most competition, consumer choice, and be the most stable. Ultimately the Len Riggio offer was the one accepted, the day before Thanksgiving 1996, many managers had alot to be thankful for that day. Neostar Retail as Purchased or Rather Bailed out by Len Riggio and a Group of Investors also involved in book retail giant Barnes & Noble in November of 1996. Ironically Barnes and Noble, through B. Dalton, was the original owner of Software, Etc. A new management team largely composed of former Software ETC executives, and long time associates of Len Riggio was put in place to run the new Company.
The day after Thanksgiving 1996 approx 100 Babbage's and Software ETC stores were closed. The remaining merchandise from these stores was shipped to another approx 100 stores that would participate in a massive going out of business sale through out the final month of Christmas. These 100 stores would close for the last time on Christmas eve, and all Merchandise left would be shipped back to Corporate headquarter by New Years eve. The Company would be pared back to approx 600 of its best performing stores.
The newly streamlined and reorganized company performed better than anyone could have expected. The turn around was dramatic. By February of 1997 there was already talk of reopenning several of the closed stores. Infact some were in a very short amount of time. Moving into the same space they had left only months before, dramatically saving on openning costs. They only needed to be repopulated with fixtures, equipment and merchandise, the counters and walls of the vacated store still being in place as the malls had not yet rented to them to new permanent tenants that would have demoed/renovated the space. Along the same lines a majority of the store's former staff was simply put back in place or rehired.
When Funco, Inc. (operator of Funcoland stores) was acquired by Barnes & Noble in 2000, there was a corporate restructuring, and Babbage's Etc became a wholly owned subsidiary of Funco. The name at that time was changed to GameStop, Inc.
On November 12th, 2004, GameStop spun off from Barnes and Noble, and the companys are no long a part of each other. The only reason that GameStop employees get Barnes & Noble employee discounts (and likewise) is because the same person, R. Richard Fontaine, owns both businesses and decided to continue to allow them to share discounts.
As profit margins on new games are very low, both stores offer credit or cash for games traded in, which are resold for profit (albeit at a lower price than new games).
On October 10, 2005, GameStop and EB Games merged.
[edit] The GameStop and EB Games merger
The GameStop and EB Games store layouts are nearly identical. Since the merger of the two companies is nearing total completion, the only real difference in the two anymore is minor aesthetics such as colors of the countertop and placement of certain types of games. Corporate analyzes buying and selling habits of all games for all stores, and even has stores rotate stocks of certain games to ensure that all stores have enough copies of every game, so even the stock of games that each store has is as uniform as possible company wide.
The merger between the two tends to adopt GameStop operational policies and store layouts, but tends to draw store aesthetics from EB Games. EB's Windows based POS (Point Of Sale) system replaced GameStop's DOS based POS system, and is now the official POS company-wide.
In the future, there are more features expected to be added to the current POS system, such as:
- District-wide inventory lookup
- Improved email systems
- Faster credit card, check, and EDGE card processing systems
- Customer information lookup, including
- Past purchases
- EDGE Card membership
- Multi-store reservation tracking
[edit] Competition
When GameStop Corp. bought out EB Games, it became the largest specialty game retail chain in the world. GameStop Corp. has control over an estimated 98% of the used game market in the United States, and a significant share in the other countries it operates in. Currently, GameStop Corp. operates just over five thousand stores.
[edit] Employees
GameStop's retail stores employ four positions: Store Manager (SM), Assistant Store Manager (ASM), Senior Game Advisor (SGA), and Game Advisor (GA). Of these, the SM, ASM, and SGA are all managerial positions. In the past, the three were very distinct from each other, but due to the changing of the company and the necessity of efficiency, all three managers perform nearly all of the same duties. The main difference between them is the amount of time each works per week, as well as differences in pay and benefits (SMs earn far more benefits compared to SGAs). The managers are responsible for opening and closing the store, reconciling the registers, handling staffing and payroll, and keeping the store functioning. The Game Advisor's main responsibility is to keep the store in order and to help with register transactions.
All employees are encouraged to upsell merchandise to customers, as is typical with most retail businesses. While none of the employees are paid commission, their rate of items-per-transactions, reserves-to-transactions, and discount cards-to-transactions is tracked each shift. Each store typically employs one of each of the manager positions, and two to four Game Advisors. GameStop stores also hire on two to eight - and sometimes up to twelve (depending on the store's size and expected traffic) extra temporary Game Advisors during the holiday season, due to the extreme volume of sales during that time.
Recently, a new position has opened up in select stores: the Lead Game Advisor (LGA). The LGA is basically a normal GA, but has limited managerial duties. Day to day, the LGA won't do anything more than a normal GA, but in a pinch, they will act as an emergency SGA. They are allowed to do a limited opening of the store and can be left alone to manage the store if no other manager is available. The LGAs are not allowed to close the store, nor are they allowed to open more than twice per month. They can only perform their extra duties in case all three managers are truly unable to do so. Because of this, the LGA will rarely be used as a manager. GameStop stores will not be hiring to fill the LGA spot. They will instead be promoting one of their GAs to the LGA position, thus making two GAs the standard for most stores.
[edit] Employee benefits
GameStop employees receive 15% off all purchases, except new consoles, at any GameStop location. Employees may also purchase an "Edge Card," which offers a 10% discount on used items, which can be combined with the employee discount. With regards to consoles, the employee discount is applicable only to used systems. One weekend a year, around the holiday season, employees are able to purchase eligible merchandise with an additional 10% discount. Employees are also able to "check out" merchandise from the store for a limited period of 4 days. This is to allow employees the opportunity to play the games they are selling, thus making them more knowledgeable to the customers.
In addition to discounts at GameStop and EB Games locations, employees also receive 20-50% off merchandise at Barnes & Noble locations, and 15% off at MovieStop locations. The ability to use the "Edge Card" discount in conjunction with their employee discount on a purchase also works at MovieStop locations. (MovieStop is a company run by GameStop that is being tested in certain parts of the country right now before a possible move to a nation-wide company)
