Opinion: UPS, Or Why GameStop is Still Around

Posted by Tony Cardone in Games on Sep 23rd, 2009 | View Comments

Had today been a normal day, there would be a tantalizing first peek at the new Halo game from Bungie. Amazon.com, one of the world’s largest retailers, has a fairly good reputation amongst internet resellers for their good prices and prompt delivery. And the case with Halo 3: ODST was no different: $59.99 launch price (pretty standard) with a 10% off coupon that I had brought the price down to a rate that I felt was reasonable enough to spend a few extra dollars for release date delivery. The idea is that Amazon ships it about 5PM the night before launch and it arrives at your door no later than 5PM launch day, so that you can feel cool and get it with the rich gamers. If you don’t, you’ll get all your shipping costs refunded to you. And, it’s about as ironclad of a guarantee as you’ll get from an internet retailer. Except for one small problem: Amazon uses UPS as the shipper for Next Day Air services.

UPS isn’t the greatest, but apparently they just hate me. One of my Newegg orders left California on the wrong plane and headed into Washington before being relayed back to Texas through several destinations, delaying my new PC build by nearly a week. Two weeks ago, I had something shipped from my parents’ home in San Antonio to my dorm in Lubbock, and they could not, for the life of them, figure out how to deliver it properly. It seems as if somebody or some system rewrote my residence hall (Hulen) into an academic building (Holden), which are on separate sides of campus, leading to another long delay while they figured it out. It’s most peculiar because the actual label printed with the shipping address (the one you can print off the internet) had the correct one, but the after-shipment labels added by said shipper put it in the wrong place. Anyhow, two over the last year can be overlooked by myself, mostly because I’m a forgiving person.

Not this time. From this day forth, I shall no longer be choosing to use UPS for any of my shipments. This time, they managed to screw up my Halo 3 ODST delivery. I was one of those who ordered ODST early, and originally paid for simple 2-3 day shipping. When I got access to a 10% off coupon from the ECA deal at SlickDeals, I chose to cancel that order and get release-date shipping, which was entirely negated by the coupon, making it cheaper to get the delivery today than wait to get it. Somehow, UPS managed to be notified of my shipment at 8:31PM yesterday along with probably a zillion other Amazon preorderees and not get it out of Kentucky until 4:41PM today. This after they damn well knew that it was a next day air shipment and knew there would be a lot of them. They might have noticed this because of the large sum of money Amazon deposited into their coffers to do this. Some people have reported that it is because of a mechanical failure on a plane somewheres over the rainbow, but either way UPS is majorly at fault, and I can only hope they fix it somehow. Amazon has already refunded $9 because of a price change; now will UPS? Unlikely.

Which brings me to GameStop. And for that matter, most physical retail stores. As we progress to the digital age, where one no longer needs to go to Best Buy and pay far too much for a DVD or CD, the only thing holding us back is the subpar service of the mailing system. It’s a matter of instant satisfaction. I doubt most people could name one store they actually enjoy going to nowadays that’s not independent. Can’t do it. It’s because they can charge considerably higher for that instant feel good sensation of having the product in your hands that second. GameStop only exists because people are too lazy to list their game on eBay or Amazon Marketplace, wait for it to sell, and ship it. It’s almost guaranteed that more money will be had through independent selling; only the delivery method holds us back. The reverse is also true: going into GameStop is highway robbery, and yet many people will pay the premium just to have it at that very second. Currently, GameStop sells Madden 10 at full MSRP, $59.99, used at $54.99. Currently, both are cheaper (and tax-free for most) on Amazon- $57 for new, and $47 for used. But, the major hassle of waiting and then having a likely shipping issue is clearly worth it to some, and they are the ones who continue to fund the profit machines of GameStop.

tl;dr UPS sucks because they do, and retail only exists because they do suck.