EB Games new rewards club

[Kriminy]

I walked into an eb games store in Adelaide today, first time in ages, and noticed they had a new members reward club going on where you earn 'carrots' for trade-ins, pre-orders etc. that add up to bonuses and advanced membership benefits.

*Edit*
I just found this on kotaku:

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/10/what-is-eb-world-and-why-do-they-keep-giving-me-carrots/

It certainly is a step up from GAME's reward system and does look a bit promising, mainly for trade-ins and 2nd hand deals like the buy 2 get 1 free. I guess another way to help combat against online stores and other stores getting cheaper prices like JB.

One point of interest is the 7-day return policy. If you are not an EB World member, does that mean you don't get the 7 day "satisfaction returns guarantee"?

I'm curious if anyone has signed up for it, or will? It is free to join, but I know I'm not too sure as I haven't shopped in EB for ages.

[steveau]

It's free to sign up. You start with a level 1 card and once you've earned 1200 carrots (I think) you level up to 2. You can pay $30 to instantly get the level 3 benefits for a year, plus the game informer 12 month subscription and a $10 trade bonus coupon/buy 2 get 1 free preowned coupon. The only problem is that you start on 0 carrots even if you pay the $30 and after a year, you continue on whatever level you should be on (according to however many carrots you've equated throughout the year.

It's a good system... but I have two complaints.

1. Trade values aren't what they used to be. I think MW3's day 1 trade value was $40. In the old days it would have been $90. Perhaps there should be a middle ground. I took 10 games in the other day (all still somewhat valuable in my opinion, i.e. A Boy and his Blob on Wii)... and the highest value was $10. Most of my games were valued between $3 and $7. I wasn't trading in Batman or MW3, but still the disparity between what I was offered and how much they were selling the same game... was a little off in my opinion.

2. The EB store that I signed up to were WAY too pushy to sell me on the $30 subscription. I had a salesworker and the manager hounding me to sign up. Must be their big upsell.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

[ianinozzie]

I renewed my Game Informer subscription a couple of weeks BEFORE the EB World membership information was released, so I'm wondering whether I will need to make a case that I should get Level 3 membership immediately. Free to join so I'm definitely joining, but I agree with Steve about the trade values, which are just not up to scratch anymore.

Sure, I understand that they can't offer $90 trade values for newly released games anymore, but given that EB usually has the most expensive retail game prices for a bricks-and-mortar store (before price matching), surely they could offer better trade values. Not that Game's or JB's trade values are too different from EB's, though both stores seem to be offering better trade in values of late.

The $10 trade bonus coupon could be handy, the buy-2-get-1-free preowned coupon isn't for me. By introducing the buy-2-get-1-free preowned coupon, I'n wondering if they will discontinuing that particular promotion effectively. With the uncertainty over whether JB is bringing back the 3-for-1 trade-ins, searching for trade bait may now be a thing of the past.

[steveau]

Another thing to note is that if you are a current Edge+ card holder, I think you can swap to a level 3 card (until your Edge+ is about to expire).

The other problem with EB is that they are almost entirely a second hand dealer nowadays. You walk into their stores and 80% of their stock is preowned. Generally speaking, new games are only $5 cheaper preowned then they are new... in hope that a) someone doesn't care/realise they are buying a preowned game or b) they run out of new copies and so consumers are forced to buy preowned. It's sad that game developers don't earn a cent on preowned sales. That's obviously why EB push preowned so hard. Maybe they need to do it to stay in business... who knows.

[Kriminy]

I didn't know you could jump up straight away to a level 3 for $30, I guess it saves time having to collect all those points. I also hadn't notice the trade-in values dropping on new release games. I generally keep my games for a while, if not for years, so I usually don't trade-in straight away.

Good point about EB being 2nd hand. The store I visited had a small new release section for each console and a very big 2nd section, including a bargain bin of $18 for PS3/360 titles. I guess that's where the big market is these days.

[Anthony]

I signed up with my preorder for Zelda. Free is free, but customer reward programs have never influenced my purchasing habits. When I first heard of this I though it was pretty terrible, I mean I have two other EB Games reward cards just from this generation. Both proved to be utterly useless. This one feels different because of the larger investment EB made to get it integrated with the site, but I still wouldn't be surprised if it was gone in 12 months time.