BIG high street chain buys Smaller high street chain!

dannyjo22 said:
Thats bad news really for highstreet competition. In cambridge town the two stores are about 50 feet apart. Why now keep both open?
Click to expand...
It's definately worth keeping both open from a business point of view. If an average town has three stores and you own one then you have 33% of the business (providing they have equal market share) if you own two however then you have 66% as opposed to closing one down and only having 50%. Your average punter doesn't even realise that large groups own multiple stores which are in competition with each other.
 
I can tell you some info...

They were my biggest account and now we could win it all or loose it all..

They are keeping seperate branding for a while.. but lots of good people face redundancy


i heard it internally before the press release and my stomach went as the account to me means a couple £million

:(

I know that all the money goes back to one pot.. but why they bought the chain i dont know... for example Oxford will now have 3 shops within 2 minutes of each other...
 
Gamestation was sold by Blockbusters so that they can clear some debts/spend more money on their rental side. I heard about Gamestation being sold on just over a year and a half ago (but at the time no-one had an idea of who it was going to be).

I really couldn't work out why they were selling it though as the figures said it was more successful than its rental side :p

If it carries on making the profit it did then I cannot see why the other retailer would be making drastic changes.
 
Yay now there is hardly any competition and there will be no less than three stores on the highstreet. They are both a rip off anyway, I get my games online though occasionally they do good console bundles.
 
manoz said:
As far as I'm aware "EB" no longer exists in the UK, it bought BIG and changed it's name to BIG group which then became independant to EB in the US. Then the US EB got bought out by Gamestop. The two stores still exist independant name wise.
Click to expand...

EB in the UK was a franchise of the US company and therefore had to pay to use the name and logos.

When it bought out BIG the owners changed the name so they could stop paying to use the EB brand (because the price went up in line with profits). Using BIG meant that consumers didn't get confused as it was a recognised high street brand.
 
Okay, this thread is riddled with "Competitors", so as mine was edited and censored to remove them and there was no mention of any in any replies, can anyone inform me as to why my thread was deleted?

I don't mind my threads being deleted if the moderator deems there to be reason, however when the same thread comes up uncensored and does stay it baffles me.
 
NokkonWud said:
Okay, this thread is riddled with "Competitors", so as mine was edited and censored to remove them and there was no mention of any in any replies, can anyone inform me as to why my thread was deleted?

I don't mind my threads being deleted if the moderator deems there to be reason, however when the same thread comes up uncensored and does stay it baffles me.
Click to expand...
Why does it matter who posts the thread, or whose thread stays? Just let it be. If it isn't deleted then great. If it is then great.

Either way, enjoy it whilst it lasts :p
 
It's just a lack of consistency. As I said, I don't mind moderators delete threads they deem necessary, but mine was a lot less 'controversial' than this one.
 
fieldy said:
I was waiting for this thread to appear, I work for the smaller chain and we've all been told by our managers not to expect any changes in the way we do things but were all pretty skeptical knowing 'the big chain' like we do (90% of us used to work there!)
TBH they would be crazy to re-brand the smaller store as the two different stores attract two different types of customer so keeping us the way we are would be the sensible thing to do :)
Click to expand...

I much prefer the smaller chain, staff, prices, everything.
 
NokkonWud said:
VIRII said:
I much prefer the smaller chain, staff, prices, everything.
Click to expand...
Same. The only thing that isn't better is the layout.
Click to expand...
True, but the cheaper pricing and the abundance of cheap 2nd hand games that I've never played makes it my favourite of the 2. Plus the staff in the smaller one in Swindon have given me some great discounts on 2nd hand GC accessories such as bongos, etc... :)

I really hope they do keep them as 2 separate entities - otherwise it'd mean we now have 4 of the same store in Swindon town centre alone (although 1 is inside a department store, so not visibly present on the high street, as such).
 
I'm really confused as to why this thread is still around with competitors in the OP and openly mentioned throughout.

I hope that they continue operating as separate companies, as the smaller store is definately better for console bundles and second-hand games. There won't be any competition for gaming stores any more though, which sucks.

EDIT: Bloodwolf - it's Lancaster, according to the forum link in the article.
 
Last edited:
This can only be bad news for gamers :( plus it will take the number of stores in some towns/cities beyond saturation point. I can't see Norwich for example having a 4th store, 2 within 50 yards of each other. They were having a great little price battle recently too.

Buy out the competition + asset strip = no competition + £££ = customers getting shafted. Thank god for the interweb.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom