Barty’s Weblog

Its been just over five years since we launched the first GP Store web site — September 15th 2003.

Archive.org still has a few early shots of the what the site looked like back then.

Over the 5 years since launch we changed pretty much everything… except the header (if we’d been able to come up with a decent design we’d have changed that too).

And I still remember the 2003 launch being very clumsy…

On day one we couldn’t actually ship any orders, or process orders, or even print them actually (as we did back then). Our admin tools were, well… non-existent. Our stock on hand was limited to two cupboards in our garage, we had no stock of DVDs and back then, we manually charged credit cards through an EFTPOS terminal… and cut out address labels from a piece of paper.

Somehow we’ve grown out of the garage to the point where we have 13 staff, a warehouse literally full of stock and now ship hundreds and hundreds of orders every day. We’ve developed our own order processing application and it’s funny to think we now have a staff member who’s full-time job is to… “stock in products” (that’s one job that never made any of our business plans).

Times have changed… but I still believe working from a garage can be over rated!

GPstore has evolved! Early this morning we launched our new web store… www.mightyape.co.nz

Check it out.

One of the things that really bugs me, is when our suppliers refer to us as an “account”, or worse, forget our name.

Maybe we take the whole customer focus thing a little too seriously, but we’d never refer to our customers as accounts. We’re not an account. We’re a customer. There’s a difference. Right?

When you talk to your customers, remember they’re much more than a source of income to help you hit some-budget-that’s-slightly-bigger-than-last-years-one.

Customers have needs and wants and if there’s one thing they do want… it’s to be valued. Why do customers like to feel valued? Because we all have a choice about where we spend our money and we like to think it’s going to someone who appreciates we’re choosing them.

Here’s a few simple tips to help you value your customers:

1. When you send letters or emails, address them personally — “Dear Simon,” not “Dear Retailer”, nor “Hi there”.
2. When you attend meetings make sure you can remember the name of your customer (btw we’re not GameWizz, GameBizz, nor Gamesplanet!)
3. Put yourself in your customers shoes and consider how they would view you and your services.
4. Put customers before profits. “Customer Lifetime Values” are meaningless when your customer walks.
5. Treat your customers as you would like to be treated (sounds very familiar huh?)

IMHO every company should be practising all of these points. They’re very easy to do and they’re free.

I’m constantly amazed at just how many businesses focus on the bottom line first. If you put customers first, then the bottom line will take care of itself. If you put the bottom line first, then your customers will take care of themselves.

Value your customers and you’ll never be left wondering… “What’s gone wrong with this account?”

We love bucking trends, but its generally not something we set out to do. It’s easier to ride the current after all, than to try to swim upstream.

But sometimes its just happens. Anyway, back to the point… GPstores music sales have more than doubled since the start of the year. For some reason, we’re selling more and more music CDs online.

The other interesting phenomenon is the type of music we’re selling.

We’ve been doing really well with music that’s non-mainstream. This was highlighted last month when pre-orders for Indestructible Special Edition by Disturbed out sold the new Coldplay album by around ten to one. To top it off, the new Disturbed album sold its pants off without us even promoting it.

This suggests a couple of things. People know that mainstream music will be everywhere and therefore they don’t need to pre-order it… or perhaps people who buy music from GPstore are mostly gamers. Its probably a mixture of both effects, but this has certainly changed our view of what music we’ll be pushing…

In the future we’ll happily swim with the current… and promote the stuff our beloved customers actually want to buy from us!

Even when trying to avoid the news it can be hard to do so — there’s talk of a recession, talk of tough times, rising oil prices, rising food prices, and so on.

I read an article recently on the DVD Industry site that suggested that entertainment category was bucking the trend. According to local GFK sales data, DVD sales in New Zealand are up 18% on volume and 13% on value over last year. There’s nothing gloomy about that growth?

Our own sales on GPstore for the last quarter (April-June 2008) were up 71% on the same quarter last year (and we thought last year was great!). There’s nothing gloomy about that growth either. From where we’re sitting… times are pretty good.

It seems that when times were tough… people like to stay at home, watch DVDs and play games.

Booyah.

Softprint Interactive have today confirmed that they have gone into receivership. Apparently the gaming staff were told the news on Friday afternoon and given 30 minutes to gather their things and leave. SPI were the exclusive New Zealand distributors for both Nintendo and Activision — two of the biggest game publishers on the planet.

As a Softprint customer, we were rather surprised by the speed of the demise. Normally a business in financial difficulty would clear stock, sharpen prices and do everything they could to improve their cash flow. This would buy some time for overheads to be cut and the business be turned around. We didn’t see any of those normal signs… wham.

I’ve got to add … its another sad day for Nintendo in New Zealand.

Over the last 15 years Nintendo has gone from Roadshow to Monaco to Softprint to erm… now what? Nintendo has been distrubuted by some very good local distributors… and none of them have managed to make it work here. Nintendo’s reputation in the trade just took another battering. Is it time for Nintendo to show us how is supposed to be done? I think so. Now or never.

So where’s this leave Kiwi gamers? Well that’s the messy bit. Experience suggests it will be several months before the distribution is sorted out. Will Softprint keep trading? Will new distributors be needed? Does anyone actually want to distribute Nintendo here? Will the publishers open up NZ offices? Lots of big questions.

In the meantime, GPstore will have to resort to importing to satisfy the local demand. Not cool.

Worldwide, Nintendo can seem to do no wrong. Profits are soaring. Their share price is hitting record highs. Nintendo is on fire.

But here in New Zealand things are different — Nintendo seems to be floundering in New Zealand. Big time.

GPstore has always been a strong supporter of Nintendo products. Nintendo has, over the years, been the confined to the hard-core gaming niche which has suited us well. We’ve always punched above our weight for Nintendo and we probably sell more Nintendo than many of the mass merchants.

But, our sales from the last quarter show the Nintendo Wii has hit a wall. The Wi’s share of GPstore’s game sales for the quarter ended March were down 41% over the previous quarter. The Wii came in at sixth place — behind Sony’s PSP and even its own Nintendo DS. Given we’re probably preforming well above the general market… this is a real concern.

The Nintendo Wii, with its revolutionary game controller, lends itself brilliantly, to appeal to the mass market… to even reach people that PlayStation and Xbox can’t. People who aren’t even gamers.

But with Nintendo’s own premium releases now missing their street dates, the future is starting to look questionable. Mario Kart was due April 24th, but it’s gone AWOL. The local Nintendo distributors can’t provide a release date, yet the game was released in Australia two weeks ago.

Retailers and gamers must be wondering… what the heck is going on? I wish I knew.

Nintendo’s revolutionary Wii Fit is due May 8th, but I’d be surprised if it makes that date. So far there’s little hype, no press coverage and muted demand for this revolutionary “game”. There’s no doubt it is a very very cool product… but its already going to under-perform.

So, even though its not officially duck season until tomorrow, the question has to be asked… is Nintendo a dead duck in New Zealand? Is there room for only two console platforms in the NZ market?

We’re big Nintendo fans and we really do want to see it to do well here, so we certainly hope not. But the clock is ticking. What are your thoughts?

Its been a crazy week at GPstore, but thankfully the release of Grand Theft Auto IV has finally been put to bed. With all the confusion over the classifications adding to our customer service workload and our warehouse team having to pull extra shifts over the long weekend… we’re really happy to get this game out the door! (And now its just up to Courier Post to do their part).

Having played the game extensively over the long weekend, I must say its one hell of a game, but it’s definitely not for the faint-hearted.

For me the most impressive thing about GTA IV are the production values. There is so much polish in this game — it’s amazing. From the mini games, to the radio stations, to the TV stations, the cut-scenes, the intro, the cars, the physics, the sound, and so-on are all wonderfully crafted. Its very very rare for products to be this great. Very very rare. This game is a work of art.

The reviewers agree too… all the early reviews are astounding. The game is currently rated a perfect 100 at Metacritic. This game just raised the bar for video games to a phenomenal new level.

I think its a shame that a lot of the focus will be on the games content rather than its quality. GTA IV is rated R18 for very good reasons (yet it still baffles me how Australia allows 15 year olds to play it). Yes it’s violent. Yes the language is coarse. Yes its gritty and dark. But…

Grand Theft Auto IV is one of the coolest video games to ever grace our planet.

This week we had the “pleasure” of deleting over $50,000 worth of customers orders at the push of a button… and yet we’re very happy with the final outcome.

After it was announced that the Australia was getting an edited version of Grand Theft Auto IV, GPstore was flooded with orders from Australians looking for the real thing. This week the bad news broke… New Zealand was also getting the edited version. Not cool.

We had two choices. Inform all our Australian customers and lose the orders. Don’t inform the customers and hope to keep some. We immediately took the high road — we emailed all the Australian orders and cancelled their orders for them as we “didn’t want to supply you with a product you weren’t going to be happy with”.

It has paid off big time. We’ve got plenty of great coverage in the forums and a flood of emails from very happy people who seem genuinely amazed with our honesty and in love with our customer service.

Here’s some of the feedback we’ve got from doing the right thing:

• NeoGAF
• AusGamers
• Kokatu

Here’s a small selection of customer comments we’ve received so far:

“Thanks a lot for your responsiveness and honesty. I certainly appreciate it and wish all the best to Gameplanet Store. That’s what customer service should always be about. ”

“I’ll be sure to shop from you in the future simply due to my respect for your service.”

“I am impressed with your customer service, and will hopefully have a chance to use you in the future. In the meantime I will be sure to recommend you to any of my friends living in NZ.”

“Oh ok, thank you very much for that, execellent customer service after getting back to me. I will use your store in getting certain items in the future as you have quality stock and I always remember good customer service. ”

“I really do appreciate you letting me know the situation and coming foreward with the facts. This is much more than I’d expect from an online retailler. Most would just take your money and hope the customer was none the wiser. This is a true testament to your great service and this reflects positively for you now being a highly recommended online store. ”

“You are exactly right. Thank you so much for letting me know! That’s fantastic customer service. ”

“It’s nice to see you have looked out for customer interests instead of merely profit. Very commendable!”

“Thank you so much for your wonderful customer service. It is amazingly refreshing in this day and age.”

“The ease of use of your site and the way you have handled this situation though have guaranteed that I will come straight to you guys if I ever need another game imported in the future.”

“Thanks for informing me this news. That is very dissapointing but cannot be helped. Thankyou very much for your kind service these past weeks and I’ll be sure to use GPStore in the future.”

“I simply wanted to write and thank you and GP Store for your efforts on my behalf and for understanding what your customers want. It’s good to see that this level of service still exists in the world. ”

“Thankyou very much indeed, thats very honest and extremely professional on your behalf.”

“Now that’s what I call customer service! GPStore is now stuck in my bookmarks for future occasions.”

“Thank you very much for your honesty !”

“Thankyou for removing my order, it is much appreciated. I’ll certainly recommend Gameplanet Store to my friends!”

“God Damn It. Thanks guys!”

“Wow thanks! Your service is awesome I’m definitely going to consider buying from you guys in the future.”

“Anyway thanks for the professionalism in canceling the order. I’ll be sure to order from you guys in the future.”

“Wow, thank you very much for the excellent customer service. I was worried that this might happen, and appreciate your attention to detail on this matter. If any future releases get an uncut release in NZ i’ll be sure to buy it through Gameplanet!”

“Thank you for this, amazing customer service!! ”

“Thank you very much – excellent customer service, much appreciated! I will use your store in future.”

“Thanks for the honesty in letting people know about this.”

“Thanks for your prompt and friendly service and hopefully I will shop with you soon sometime!”

“Just wanted to say thanks for letting us Aussies know about this, most other stores wouldn’t bother – very impressive customer service which you don’t see much of these days! Will definitely use you guys for my other imports in the future. ”

“Thank you so much. I would never expect a store to be so open, frank and honest about such a situation like this. I will definitely be shopping at gpstore again in the future. ”

“I would just like to say how impressed I am with your service as I have never used gameplanet before, but I will definitely be using you in the future. Thank you for your first class service anyway. ”

“Thank you very much – excellent customer service, much appreciated! I will use your store in future.”

“Thank you so much for being pro-active and actually being smart enough to notify people of this. I’m actually quite surprised and it’s one of the best acts of customer service I’ve ever seen. Thanks again. “

We believe that being honest with your customers will reward you in the long run. In fact, the positives from the PR and word of mouth already easily outweigh any small profits we could have made by shipping the orders to unknowing customers.

For us this decision was always a no-brainer… but we’re very happy to see that our customers appreciate our honesty!

For those who don’t know, GPstore started out as an Amiga store back in the early 90’s… until Commodore Business Machines went bust. We’ve been selling video games ever since, and if fact, we had the honour of selling the first PlayStation console in New Zealand at our official midnight launch back in 1996. Good times. Good times indeed!

Up until now, we’ve had great success selling games and DVDs (and we don’t expect that to change!). We had the good fortune to win some Netguide awards for “Best Online Store”. But, some people would suggest GPstore’s success at the Netguide awards maybe highlights the lack of quality e-commerce stores in New Zealand — and that’s quite possibly true.

Given New Zealand is so small, its not surprising that the cost to build a world class store is prohibitive for most companies in NZ. But, there does seem to be a real gap in the market for an “Amazon for New Zealand”?

After meeting with some local distributors over the last few weeks, we’re starting to ask ourselves is it perhaps time for us to diversify and get big?

While the answer may seem obvious… our success so far has been tied to us being specialists in what we do. Its great being the best game store in the country, but it’s a different game altogether to be the best in a range of categories.

Can it be done? And can it be done with the GPstore brand? Interesting times…