One of the primary driving forces for attracting customers to purchase pre-orders is the promise of some promotional tchochke, often t-shirts, keychains, or in-game item.  That’s a great value add, but it often only attracts those already interested in the characters or franchise–fans who desire collectibles.  What attracts random passer-bys, though, is the promise of savings.  Think of the impulse purchase items by cash registers…just up-scaled.

GameStop is the last retailer out there that needs help selling video games.  Unfortunately, their reselling of used games is detrimental to the industry-supporting sale of new games, but they’re the prime candidate for who can support what I’m about to propose: meaningful discounts off the price of a new game.  But I’ll get to why GameStop later.

In most cases, when a brand new release is discounted, it’s a joint effort between the publisher and the retailer.  Both of them wind up eating some of the loss from the discount in order to simply drive the customer into the store or the product into the customer’s home.  A “loss leader” or subsidization.

Traditionally business says that you can charge early adopters whatever price you want, and they’ll willingly pay it.  Continue this pricing until sales slump, then cut the price.

I ask, why not offer substantial savings to attract additional early adopters? (more…)