What's up with preorders?

[EvilBoris]

I saw that as soon as the date for MW3 was announced every time I went into a games shop they were trying to get me to pay a ?5 deposit to preorder it. I kinda understand they are taking preorders for all the crazy special edition ones or tempting you with posters and other shizzle you don't need.

But today I walked past another games shop and saw them requiring ?5 deposits for 3 other titles included.....

FIFA 12?!
Seriously. since when was their any worry that a Fifa game would not have enough copies made for day one release?


Are retailers trying to crack down on unnecessary preorders so that they can better gauge demand? and if so, is this the end of the current trend of games being heavily discounted the second they don't sell?

[Fader209]

I hate when they try to get me to pre-order games and they get a special hateful stare when that game is the next CoD.
*Evil glare*

Last time in Gamestation the guy asked if I was interested in pre-ordering CoD to which I said no but maybe Gears 3 closer to the date of release. He then tried pushing me for the pre-order saying I would be guaranteed a copy on the day and I told him there would definitely be enough copies on release (as there always is, whenever has a BIG game sold out that badly? Even if they did run out I would pop along to the next shop or better still find a supermarket deal.)

The only people I pre-ordered with or went out of my way to buy a new release game was with the guys at Chips. <3 you guys

[abigsmurf]

Lots of pre-orders = bigger stock allocation for the store + locks a customer to that store if there are any price reductions.

Stores benefit a lot from them.

For the consumer pre-orders only have benefits for console launches or if you get bonus goodies

[Decider-VT]

Allocations of big releases are usually decided on the number of pre-orders a shop takes, hence their willingness to push the pre-order. The deposit is in place to ensure that you collect your copy from them instead of shopping around and wasting the retailer's time- in the past we've often had piles of pre-orders for games sitting around when the rest of the stock has sold out because people have causally placed a pre-order with several retailers and gone to the cheapest on on the day of release. They'll often ignore phone calls asking them if they intend to collect the stock so we're left with games we can't sell on the slim chance that the twits will actually turn up to buy them- very annoying for genuine customers we have to turn away on the weekend of release while we wait for the second shipments to arrive.

Staff will also push pre-orders because they have to. Their managers will often crack down on them hard if they don't meet a pre-order quota (same for console insurance and peripheral upsells) and will admonish the staff if they're not seen to be pushing them. If you really want to make a difference, make a polite but firm complaint to head office about the intrusiveness of the pre-order offer instead of getting irritated with a subordinate that probably doesn't need evil glares for complying with pushy, overbearing management that'll threaten them with their jobs if they don't.

[EvilBoris]

I fullly understand that they only do it because it's their job to, I remember the days when I had to offer budget copies of the delta force games to mothers buying copies of pokemon gold and silver. I can never be rude to shop staff, even if they are totally useless and are cocking everything up.
RE: The preorders,I just find it odd that there has been literally what seems to be an overnight change in the way they deal with it. Deposits ahoy!

[Family Fry]

I'd like to place a pre-order for Grey Matter on 360 please.
Sorry its not in the pre-order book where all the most popular games are, most we are told by head office to push in your face to make corporate buyers jobs and lives a little bit easier, yay go team!
Nuff said.

Pre-orders are there to see how much interest there is on products that are the biggest selling games of the year, every year?
Palm meet face, enjoy.

[koopatroopa90]

The only people I pre-ordered with or went out of my way to buy a new release game was with the guys at Chips. <3 you guys

Is Chips still around? Was one fairly near when I lived in Brighton. Was always so overpriced and the guys just sat around playing games all day!

Staff will also push pre-orders because they have to. Their managers will often crack down on them hard if they don't meet a pre-order quota (same for console insurance and peripheral upsells) and will admonish the staff if they're not seen to be pushing them.

My girlfriend works in retail and really has to push stuff (fortunately she works in a clothes shop where customers actually like this), so these days I'm much more relaxed with people trying to push things on me, unless they need telling a third time in which case I might be slightly annoyed. Most of the time it seems to happen when the managers are in view/earshot so I guess you can't really blame them, they are only doing it to keep their job!

[Flabio]

It sounds like they're shifting more to the way the US stores work, where they pretty much only get in games at all if someone pre-orders them. Trying to cut down on the number of unsold copies in store.

[Fader209]

Staff will also push pre-orders because they have to. Their managers will often crack down on them hard if they don't meet a pre-order quota (same for console insurance and peripheral upsells) and will admonish the staff if they're not seen to be pushing them. If you really want to make a difference, make a polite but firm complaint to head office about the intrusiveness of the pre-order offer instead of getting irritated with a subordinate that probably doesn't need evil glares for complying with pushy, overbearing management that'll threaten them with their jobs if they don't.

Oh no, the guy I was talking about didn't get the hint I wasn't interested and kept going for the sell. Usually they give up after they gather I'm not going to pre-order or like with the guys in another store we laugh about how they have to say this kind of stuff to everyone (I much prefer an honest person serving me as even if I'm not going to make a pre-order I still buy a lot of stuff from them anyway as they know).

Koops - Our Chips closed down years ago and it looks like there aren't an awful lot around now from the looks of their store locator lol.
The guys in our store were always playing games and drinking energy drinks too