GAME ripping off irish consumers

Genghiz Cohen

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Oh look, The Hut has it for super cheap, whats the delivery time like?

Bump...

KerranJast

GAME have always been dearer than Virgin/Zaavi, HMV, Smiths & Gamestop. Just shop around or shop online. There is plenty of choice in the market you know. Rumours are that Gamestop want to buy out GAME anyway to get a foothold in the UK market.

Attol

So the price *might be* 60 euros but you have no evidence whatsoever of any concrete euro price. Get a grip. Come back when you have the actual euro price then feel free to rant.

CiaranC

I dont understand people moaning about being 'Ripped off' in high street retail shops in Ireland. Its not as if they are dragging you in and forcing you to buy a game at gunpoint. There is no monopoly. The games are available to you cheaper, so buy them cheaper from other channels.

This is how the free market has worked for decades, why is it so difficult for Irish people to grasp?

noodler

PaddyTheNth wrote: »

Surprised no one has linked to this yet...Forfás published a study at the end of last year comparing the cost of doing business in the North with the cost of doing business in the Republic.

A summary of the report by the Tánaiste:


Full report - http://www.forfas.ie/publications/2008/title,2623,en.php

Basically, operating costs (VAT, rent, minimum wage etc) do not account for the differences in price.

As has been said already about 5 times in this thread.

PaddyTheNth

noodler wrote: »

As has been said already about 5 times in this thread.

I have the strength of ten tigers. Prove me wrong.

ShiverinEskimo

CiaranC wrote:

I dont understand people moaning about being 'Ripped off' in high street retail shops in Ireland. Its not as if they are dragging you in and forcing you to buy a game at gunpoint. There is no monopoly. The games are available to you cheaper, so buy them cheaper from other channels.

This is how the free market has worked for decades, why is it so difficult for Irish people to grasp?

Possibly because we fancy enjoying the feeling of being able to purchase something and have it in your hands as you pay for it like people in other countries enjoy. I think most people look at how we have to order online and wait a week for your product to arrive while joe soap across the border can stroll down, pick it up and start playing within the hour.

Yes, it's available cheaper elsewhere and it's unfortunate that we as irish consumer's have to resort to travel or online buying to get the products at a reasonable price. But the fact remains we are right to start giving out about how we are being ripped off on the high street - unless you want the entire irish commerce sector moved onto the internet....

And the shops can harp on about delivery costs etc but it's a well known fact that many of the north's shops are stocked by trucks arriving through Dublin and Rosslare and yet the items retail at almost half the price and the euro price is based on 4 year old exchange rates.

Which also reminds me about Play.com - people should avoid play.com and their ignorant policy of forcing Irish customers to pay in the Euro price which is also based on Jurassic exchange rates.

Example Call of Duty: WaW 39.99 sterling, 51.99 euro. Robbing bastards.

http://www.play.com/Games/Xbox360/4-/5575126/Call-Of-Duty-World-At-War/Product.html?cur=257

astrofool

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Which also reminds me about Play.com - people should avoid play.com and their ignorant policy of forcing Irish customers to pay in the Euro price which is also based on Jurassic exchange rates.

Example Call of Duty: WaW 39.99 sterling, 51.99 euro. Robbing bastards.

http://www.play.com/Games/Xbox360/4-/5575126/Call-Of-Duty-World-At-War/Product.html?cur=257

It's not an exchange rate, it's the extra cost for them to do business in Ireland, inc. delivery.

ShiverinEskimo

In fairness astrofool the cost of delivery to the UK and Ireland shouldn't vary much when your products are shipped from Budapest.

Cuddlesworth

You do all realise that the weak sterling is going to lead to a drastic increase in prices in England right? Given time and the assumption that Sterling will remain weak, prices are going to level out again.

ShiverinEskimo

Not for the likes of Game.co.uk and other british retailers who's principle market is the UK. They will be trying to stimulate sales so an increase in prices is unlikely especially in the games market which doesn't seem to be suffering as hard as the other markets.

If anything with the VAT rate drop in the UK they will increase the margins and leave overall price the same.

noodler

I always put forward the added costs argument for ROI stores but Play have no excuse.

Plenty of other Jersey based online retailers let you buy in Sterling and Play is supposed to have free delivery in any case.

Cuddlesworth

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Not for the likes of Game.co.uk and other british retailers who's principle market is the UK. They will be trying to stimulate sales so an increase in prices is unlikely especially in the games market which doesn't seem to be suffering as hard as the other markets.

If anything with the VAT rate drop in the UK they will increase the margins and leave overall price the same.

Unless the disks are made in Britain not likely. Unless the publisher is based in Britain and sells solely from Britain unlikely. Their currency has gone to pot, everything they buy abroad is going to cost them more. In the same way they have gone much cheaper for us. All the other company's that buy abroad are going to see costs go up. Inflation will go through the roof there quite quickly or the currency will strengthen.

ShiverinEskimo

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Unless the disks are made in Britain not likely. Unless the publisher is based in Britain and sells solely from Britain unlikely. Their currency has gone to pot, everything they buy abroad is going to cost them more. In the same way they have gone much cheaper for us. All the other company's that buy abroad are going to see costs go up. Inflation will go through the roof there quite quickly or the currency will strengthen.

It's only the Euro and the Dollar that are doing well against sterling. I imagine the disks are manufacturered in the eastern bloc or the far east where currencies are also struggling which means nothing should change for UK suppliers.

Only suppliers who purchase from Euro-zone or US markets will suffer and I imagine that's why we saw the end of Woolworths and the EUK supplier. HMV afaik use far eastern sources so should be able to weather the storm - in fact profit from it as you can see by their taking over of a few select Xavvi stores here in Ireland.

Mantel

Anyone know what the RRP from the publisher is for FEAR 2? I'd be intrested to see if GAME is just going along with the publisher RRP.

astrofool

noodler wrote: »

I always put forward the added costs argument for ROI stores but Play have no excuse.

Plenty of other Jersey based online retailers let you buy in Sterling and Play is supposed to have free delivery in any case.

Free as in the price of delivery is included in the price of the good, it clearly costs them something to send it, and the cost of sending it will affect the price of the good. Now clearly, the cost is probably less than the euro/sterling difference, but it's up to them to price a good at what the market will accept, and they clearly feel that Ireland (and any euro area) will accept this cost. Maybe being in Jersey gives them easier access to the UK market, and hence lowers the cost they can supply goods at.

Just comparing a price using current exchange rates is meaningless, you may as well give out that the US is cheaper than the UK.

Griffin87

I heard fear 2 is using steam as the drm method. Not sure though will i be able to from retail and it to my games list and be able to use the autopatching through steam ?

Vyse

astrofool wrote: »

It's not an exchange rate, it's the extra cost for them to do business in Ireland, inc. delivery.

???????? Never heard this one before. Play.com use to allow you to purchase in sterling but I reckon that they just got greedy. They don't "do" business in Ireland they simply post the goods here. If the likes of sendit.com can still allow you to purchase in £ than play.com should be able to as well.

I would agree with you on the fact that they have decided they can charge outside the UK in Euro if they feel they can. They lost most of my business when they did this. Occassionaly, when they have a really good bargain, I'll purchase from them.

noodler

astrofool wrote: »

Free as in the price of delivery is included in the price of the good, it clearly costs them something to send it, and the cost of sending it will affect the price of the good. Now clearly, the cost is probably less than the euro/sterling difference, but it's up to them to price a good at what the market will accept, and they clearly feel that Ireland (and any euro area) will accept this cost. Maybe being in Jersey gives them easier access to the UK market, and hence lowers the cost they can supply goods at.

Just comparing a price using current exchange rates is meaningless, you may as well give out that the US is cheaper than the UK.

You are looking at this all wrong. The website is quite clear that they have free delivery, not free delivery to the UK. Perhaps they do find it cheaper to post to the UK (In theory, I mean Jersey isn't part of the UK so we are only speculating because they are closer geographically).

However the fact they used to sell to us in sterling , as their Jersey competition still do, tells us they never used to make the distinction. Now if they find it dearer to post to Ireland I would like to be charged an up-front delivery charge of 3e or so. The fact is, Play's exchange rate was a joke before the Sterling's slump and they took an age to rectify it, now they eventually did modify it to make it more favorable for us but it still lags behind the truthful price.

Finally 'Free as in the price of delivery is included in the price of the good' is not free delivery. I mean by definition, it clearly isn't.
Check out thebookdepository.co.uk who do free worldwide delivery for a definition of real free delivery.

Vyse

noodler wrote: »

You are looking at this all wrong. The website is quite clear that they have free delivery, not free delivery to the UK. Perhaps they do find it cheaper to post to the UK (In theory, I mean Jersey isn't part of the UK so we are only speculating because they are closer geographically).

However the fact they used to sell to us in sterling , as their Jersey competition still do, tells us they never used to make the distinction. Now if they find it dearer to post to Ireland I would like to be charged an up-front delivery charge of 3e or so. The fact is, Play's exchange rate was a joke before the Sterling's slump and they took an age to rectify it, now they eventually did modify it to make it more favorable for us but it still lags behind the truthful price.

Finally 'Free as in the price of delivery is included in the price of the good' is not free delivery. I mean by definition, it clearly isn't.
Check out thebookdepository.co.uk who do free worldwide delivery for a definition of real free delivery.

Spot on, couldn't have said it better.

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

Mantel wrote: »

Anyone know what the RRP from the publisher is for FEAR 2? I'd be intrested to see if GAME is just going along with the publisher RRP.

The RRP in Ireland is €49.99

steviec

astrofool wrote: »

Just comparing a price using current exchange rates is meaningless, you may as well give out that the US is cheaper than the UK.

This.

Wages in Ireland are much, much higher than the UK. So it is not fair to complain about being ripped off compared to people in Britain who have a lot less money to scrape by on if all you look at is exchange rates.

Prices are set by supply and demand - at what price is the market willing to pay. The Irish market is willing to pay more, not because they're being victimised and ripped off, but because they have more money to spend to start with.

ShiverinEskimo

steviec wrote: »

This.

Wages in Ireland are much, much higher than the UK. So it is not fair to complain about being ripped off compared to people in Britain who have a lot less money to scrape by on if all you look at is exchange rates.

Prices are set by supply and demand - at what price is the market willing to pay. The Irish market is willing to pay more, not because they're being victimised and ripped off, but because they have more money to spend to start with.

Which would be ok if it were only Ireland being asked to pay Euros. Pick any european country in the euro-zone and compare wages. You're bound to find one with a lower average wage that the UK and yet they are still being asked to pay a price based on a criminal exchange rate.

astrofool

noodler wrote: »

Finally 'Free as in the price of delivery is included in the price of the good' is not free delivery. I mean by definition, it clearly isn't.
Check out thebookdepository.co.uk who do free worldwide delivery for a definition of real free delivery.

So you think thebookdepository.co.uk don't price their goods to take into account what it costs them to send an item? Do they just ignore the thousands and thousands of euro they spend on sending items every day, not include it on their balance sheets, and ignore it for profit calculation purposes? Really? Whoever taught you business studies in first year secondary school really really failed.

There are lots of different costs in supporting delivery to a country, even beyond shipping, which is why a lot of online retailers have a limited zone of delivery.

Gamesnash.ie: Pat

To be fair to noodler I think (s)he is using the point that to some areas they offer free delivery whereas to others there is a charge for the same service.

The term free delivery is very loose as you rightly say: retailers - ourselves included have to factor the delivery charge to the retailer into the costings before setting a retail price. At the same time though when you buy clothes from a store and they leave the hanger in and then give you a ( paper ! ) bag to carry the clothes home in - have they given you a free bag and free hanger or have these costs been included.

Of course someone will shout at this point that there is no sign in the shop saying free bag but the point is that in all businesses every single cost factor has to be included in the overall retail price. Nothing is free as such.

ShiverinEskimo

astrofool wrote: »

So you think thebookdepository.co.uk don't price their goods to take into account what it costs them to send an item? Do they just ignore the thousands and thousands of euro they spend on sending items every day, not include it on their balance sheets, and ignore it for profit calculation purposes? Really? Whoever taught you business studies in first year secondary school really really failed.

There are lots of different costs in supporting delivery to a country, even beyond shipping, which is why a lot of online retailers have a limited zone of delivery.

And do you not think the cost of delivery is factored into Play.com's sterling price? The argument is that the difference in posting to the UK versus Ireland does not justify the ridiculous exchange rates they enforce on Euro customers.

noodler

astrofool wrote: »

So you think thebookdepository.co.uk don't price their goods to take into account what it costs them to send an item? Do they just ignore the thousands and thousands of euro they spend on sending items every day, not include it on their balance sheets, and ignore it for profit calculation purposes? Really? Whoever taught you business studies in first year secondary school really really failed.

There are lots of different costs in supporting delivery to a country, even beyond shipping, which is why a lot of online retailers have a limited zone of delivery.

Personal attacks do nothing to salvage your annihilated argument. Misrepresenting my point doesn't help either, what said website do do is offer 'Free Delivery', not Free Delivery based on where you are, not Free Delivery based on what currency you use.

What Play do is offer Free Delivery for people inside the UK. Those of us outside of the UK have to pay for it with their rape of the exchange rates.

Economics is more my thing by the way.

astrofool

thebookdepository.co.uk clearly make enough of a profit on each item that it doesn't matter where its sent, this means that either

a) They're gouging the customers that live locally by having the prices of the goods higher to compensate for sending products to farther away places
b) They get so few orders from far away places, that the goodwill of delivering for the same price will get them a foot into that market (which they can then feed back into the price of the goods at a later stage).

Play use the sterling/euro difference to factor in the extra costs of the market (and to set the price at a level that the market will bear).

In 6 months, and all current/on order stock is sold, and the UK has to start importing everything, and if Sterling is still as weak, local prices will have to rise, there will be war.

noodler

Regarding point A they are cheaper than amazon or play for books so that kind of nullififes that point. Furthermore books are bulky and expensive to ship so play have no real retort in this instance.

You are ging off point anyway, delivery from to ireland from jersey shouldn't account for their currency alterations. Their Jersey competitors show this by allowingus to buy in sterling. Finally and to repeat, if such delivery chargs did account for play's conduct then they should stop lying about free delivery and just charge us the (much cheaper) £3 per item charge that their competitors charge (which is even more evidence since play's currency 'conversion' usually has a discrepency higher than this figure).

feckhead

You would be suprised how much retailers are making on games. I used to work for a retailer in the square in Dublin (I'll let you guess which one), and there were huge amounts of money to be made on selling new games.

For example when Gears 2 was released, all of the POS I recieved for the game had the price point at €60. I then went and checked the competitors prices on the day of launch and they ranged from €55 to €50. I called the prices into head office and they immdeiately dropped the price to €45. Obviously we were still making a good profit on the game, but thats €15 that they could knock off the price straight away. Which is shocking to me. Dont get me started on the traded games, I could tell some horror stories there too.

In my opinion retailers are artificially inflating prices, but the sad thing is people still buy from them instead of buying cheaper online.

L