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Topic: Amazon Prime and BestBuy GCU Nintendo Ending

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SwitchForce

This is about Amazon Prime members and how they feel how Amazon has screwed over Prime members by loosing their discount on Nintendo games on Amazon. I joined for that very reason I can get the discount on the games I purchase. But I also find out that for merchandise preorder that if the price drops below the listed price you get that locked price for being a Prime member. And I've seen this happen as well but the problem was it was mainly I went Prime was discount we get on games. And their reason for why is fishy and to say they aren't making money is flawed from the start. Being big as they are giving Prime members discount isn't going to kill their bottom line it's let's give more back to the ShareHolder and CEO. If they are losing that much money why not show why and give details as to why but everyone knows this typical excuse. They are a big corporations and I doubt they are in a deficit for sellers and funds. This also had another part is that BestBuy removing the GCU and going to a buyer model if you buy more you will get this rated model but that assuming you buy that much in a year and some don't. So it's a win for BestBuy and loss for former GCU members. I still have GCU until it expires and that has helped these past years make buying Amiibos and Games far under what non-GCU would pay. I don't want to have to get a job at BB or GS to get a buyer discount when I am a member at both already. I still think in the very end this comes down to a neglectable loss in profit for them. But it all still comes down to GREED as to why they are doing this. And why BB closes their stores are bad Upper Management that can't see past their blinders. The way others and I see if the discount was why you got the members you had and they bought more than they would otherwise do in a year compared to those whom don't and are just waiting for Holiday or Discount time to buy. This mindset means the corporations sells at a loss rather then selling more. So what does others take on this?

SwitchForce

GeoChrome

This was a greedy move for Amazon, as Bezos and the rest of the executives are still printing money just from being a online store, but this was a smart move for Best Buy. Don’t know if anyone else watches Company Man on YouTube, but he made a video discussing how BB almost went out of business due to Circuit City closing. The GCU was only kept alive to compete with Prime discounts. With Amazon walking away, BB has no reason to keep doing the promotion, as it could put the company back into financial jeopardy.

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HobbitGamer

Agree with @PolarExperience, The GCU was done as a loss-leader method to try and draw in more customers from the Circuit City closure and used game shopper pool from GameStop. The economy was also crap at the time and big ticket items were not selling well, and folks started to not even visit big box specialty (see Sears).
Either way, I never expected GCU to last forever, because the retailer's margin on new games is typically $4-$9 for a $60 game. It was like an introductory deal to get shoppers more familiar with the Best Buy brand and hope they stick around to by other, more profitable, stock.
Amazon stopped it because there's no point. They have a large enough customer base and economical footprint that they can risk annoying and potentially losing X number of customers, because they'll make it up in other areas. And that's just what Amazon does, that's why they're sucessful at being large. Someone angry and not gonna pre-order a game with them anymore? That's okay, because MollySue in Rhode Island will buy 7 packs of 24-count paper towels in a few minutes, negating the immediate customer loss and increasing profit margin versus the lost video game sale. I don't begrudge them, but I wish more folks understood how that could eventually be detrimental to local businesses.

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redd214

Not really concerned to be honest. There are always ways to save if you pay attention and are resourceful. I mean my NSMBUDX preorder is locked in at $46.91 on Amazon which is cheaper than the prime discount or gcu and that's just one example. The discontinuation of the preorder discount was unfortunate but it's not the end of the world, the other benefits of prime are certainly with 10 bucks a month imo.

Also, paragraphs are your friends

redd214

Heavyarms55

@SwitchForce I wasn't even really aware this was a thing. Maybe it was a North America only thing? Regardless I use Amazon regularly for all sorts of shopping and love Prime. The free 2 day and sometimes overnight, shipping is easily worth it for me. I buy food, clothes, electronics, collectibles, and all sorts of stuff from them. Just in the last week or so, I bought 4 Gundam figures, a humidifier for my apartment, a waffle maker, a case of Coca-Cola, Taco seasoning and socks. It was all brought to me door the next day after I ordered it.

I am not a fan of Jeff Bezos' absurd wealth, or the way they treat many of their employees, but Amazon's offerings lack any real competition, so that's why they get away with it. No company offers the variety of things and services Amazon does. Absent that legitimate competition, the only thing that could change that is government rules and regulations. And Amazon being a global company, even that would be hard to enforce.

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SwitchForce

I like the free 2 day shipping and if the price drops Prime members get locked into the lower price that is a benefit but games when they gave discount was welcomed. Didn't everyone talk about competition but now know one talks about it when it comes to Amazon right. And giving Tax break does nothing to the community that has to pay for it. Now if all corporation pay their fair weight then I have no complaints then everyone has to pay. But they are given Corporation Welfare at the taxpayers expense but you hear nothing about them talking to pay their fair share to level the playing field.

SwitchForce

NEStalgia

Amazon doing discounts was purely to thwart the BB GCU. It's not new to Amazon to do that. With their scale they can do the old Walmart tactics but do it better. They can take severe losses in any one department, until they crush all competition, and then double the prices instantly. It's grotesque, and their market power has been unchecked for far too long. Walmart had similar, but lesser power for decades, and they decimated the very structure of retail into the shell you see now. Amazon's taking it one step further, that when there done there will be one national store for all shopping, connected to financial, medical, and government itself.

All that said, BB wasn't going to do it forever, that was a promo. Amazon just matched them to prevent BB from succeeding and supplanting Amazon as a go-to gaming store. It worked, BB stopped, Amazon stopped, and you can pay more now because the competition has ended. Competition is good for consumers, thus industry seeks to end competition.

What I really fault Amazon and their handling of prime for, however, is their continuous changes to services offered, and their habit of changing things instantly with no notification. When they started charging sales tax, one day the prices just changed. Other stores sent notifications out weeks in advance. Not Amazon. Then they a few weeks ago reverted to 2-day shipping meaning 2-business days. That's how it was 10 years ago. When they included USPS and their own delivery they added Saturdays, then Sundays....then with no notice, one day, they suddenly stop showing weekends and anything ordered on Wednesday night is set for delivery the following Monday. The language on their Prime page had quietly changed back to "5 business days" in the middle of the night. No warning, they know they can change whatever terms they want on the fly and all people can do is quietly complain to themselves and accept it. THAT is the kind of power that needs to be checked. Terms should not change quietly in the middle of the night with the knowledge customers have no choice but to accept it. I wouldn't mind if they sent out a notice a week before that a term is changing. Even PayPal sends notices when terms are changing. Not Amazon. Not Google. Big-Data gets a pass on everything.

@redd214 "Also, paragraphs are your friends "
Remember you said this......remember well....

NEStalgia

Ryu_Niiyama

It was nice while it lasted but companies can't be expected to undercut themselves and survive. We keyboard analysts like to claim greed and what not but payroll, marketing, shipping, stocking ...etc costs money...and they still need to turn a profit. GCU didn't really work from what I've read (and anecdotally I'm part of the problem) BB was hoping that gamers would buy other things while they were in the store, but that isn't what happened for the most part. I spent about 1500 in 2016 thanks to GCU and everything I bought was gaming (and two apple chargers and a charger for my surface pro). I didn't buy a tv or a computer or anything else that BB was hoping I'd buy and a lot of consumers did the same. So if your incentive program isn't an incentive then you axe it. Amazon only did their nonsense because they wanted to cut BB at the knees (and it worked I'd say), but when they didn't have the competition anymore there was no need to continue it.

As people said before Amazon is large enough to weather gamers getting mad or whatever over the price changes. I've canceled prime (their delivery drivers suck where I live and I got tired of them giving away my packages) and canceled most of my preorders and I know that no one is going to lose any sleep over it. BB is small enough that they can't eat consumer greed either so we have the situation that we have. I do agree with NES though I wish Amazon would just stop changing terms willy nilly (and locking products behind prime and add ons...which I never noticed until I didn't have prime anymore).

At the end of the day it boils down to what I always say....gaming is a luxury hobby. It is nice to get discounts when you can, but its not a requirement. Nobody owes gamers their fix. Budget and be selective about what you buy...or wait for a sale. Prices come down eventually. Its the nature of the beast.

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NEStalgia

@Ryu_Niiyama Amazon aside, BB is BB's worst enemy. Not the best prices, often the worst prices, byzantine policies from the 90's. A month ago when the Starlink fiasco happened they didn't even have automated returns for online purchases, they directed you to stores, or you had to call and beg like a special exception. With my Eevee return (shipped instead of Pikachu), they finally added auto returns and printed labels etc on the website. They received my return a week ago, their system acknowledges they received it. I STILL do not have my refund, it's still "processing." (c'mon guys, try to catch 'em all!) And while strolling in the store on occasion is fun, I make it out there once or twice a year, between used-car-lot sales people that hound you around the store and a random chaos of floor space split between being designed around phone contracts, terrible looking tossed around gaming aisles, and the appliance department that I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever buy from again after the nightmare I experienced with them, it's fun to go as a destination to wander around and see the cool toys on display, I'd be a little sad to never do it again, but I can't imagine actually buying anything in there. Maybe a TV once a decade or so since few places display them compared to back when I bought mine around PS3 launch time. 15 years ago I bought at BB there all the time. I'd make special trips there. Now they redesign the store every 10 months and it seems to keep getting worse, with dividing it into a thousand "store within a store" "brand stores." And traffic takes 3x longer to get there than 15 years ago....it's a complete mess around here. a 30 minute trip now takes over an hour. So it's a dotcom to me now, and as a dotcom it's worse than the other dotcoms.....

GCU worked in one sense, after that appliance fiasco I vowed never to buy anything at Best Buy again. GCU actually pulled me back in just for gaming stuff. Maybe I wasn't buying TVs but I was actually shopping Best Buy at all....and price comparing them for other (often gaming) stuff, but also Surface....of course they lost every price war always.... after GCU expires for me next year I doubt I'll ever type bestbuy.com in my browser again. The program kept me looking.

NEStalgia

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