We’ve been tipped off by a mysterious figure known only as ironfist74 (or, er, Brian) on the subject of Sears, who’re currently selling Xbox LIVE points cards at an unreasonably high price. What is it with huge corporations and sticking vacuum cleaners in our pockets every time we make a reasonable request?
For that price in full and some comparisons with competitive stores (and a lot of unnecessary math) hit the jump.
According to some handy-dandy stats I’ve Googled out of the interwebs, Microsoft Points retail for 80 points to the US dollar, or 100pts for $1.25 (and so everyone on the other side of the Atlantic can be annoyed, approximately 100pts for $1.69 equivalent in the UK and $1.88 in the rest of Europe). This means that if you’re not into giving Microsoft your credit card details (and rightly so) 1600 points should cost you $20 on the dot in the good ole US of A.
In Walmart, this is fine by them and you can happily stroll in to a store or hop onto the website and pick up your 1600 Microsoft Points for nineteen dollars and eighty two cents. Circuit City’s down with the recommended pricing too, offering up their 1600 Microsoft Points card for $19.99. GameStop’s even fine with what Microsoft’s set, as is Kmart.
It’s doubtless that every single store, from Walmart to Kmart and everything else in between, will pocket a portion of the 20-odd dollars even if it’s not a majority (which will probably go straight into Microsoft’s giant pile of cash for Steve Ballmer to roll around in) and the chances are plenty of these cards are sold, hence their continued existence. All-in-all, gamers are happy at getting their Points, Microsoft’s happy at getting some more business and the stores are happy at pocketing a little slice of the profits.
Sears, though? They’re insisting on charging that little bit more: say, an extra five dollars. That’s an extra five dollars in their pocket per card sold, and when you couple that with the potentially huge number of people buying the cards (with 1600 being the only value of card available aside from the costlier 4000 points version) that’s a helluva lot of extra dough. If you make buying Microsoft Points cards at Sears a regular thing (and I don’t know if it is a regular thing, being on the other side of the Atlantic) the money lost due to the surcharge can stack up pretty quickly.
But Sears isn’t the only one with a hand in your pocket! On the next page we meet another culprit.
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7 responses so far ↓
1 Yousty // Jul 28, 2008 at 10:30 am
The way I look at is if there are people stupid enough to spend $25 for something that costs $20 at every other store then they don’t deserve to have that extra $5 to begin with. Go ahead and let Sears and Target take it from them.
2 Legendary Hooligan // Jul 28, 2008 at 12:02 pm
but yousty, you’re forgetting about the little timmys of the world, who must have their points, and mommy doesn’t want to go all the way to walmart if shes already on her way to target. im sure most of us know how many severely uninformed people there are in this world, so i guess you can’t blame them for unwittingly spending the extra five.
i guess we cant blame the corporations either, cuz they’re gonna make money however they can, and if people pay, they’ll keep doing it. doesn’t mean we have to like it, tough. thank god.
3 Legendary Hooligan // Jul 28, 2008 at 12:08 pm
*edit… i meant “though” in the last sentence.
4 Sean "Rothbart" Workman // Jul 28, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Guys, that’s only a $20 mark-up using Microsoft math… *zing*
5 Havok Saunders // Jul 28, 2008 at 5:22 pm
People shop for games at Sears?
All jokes aside, I was in the local mall a couple months ago and had to walk through Sears to get back to my car. I actually saw a factory sealed Playstation game sitting amongst the bargain bin PS2 games. That’s right, an original Playstation game.
6 Wolf26pack // Jul 28, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Ya that really sucks. It is too bad now a days you have to price match everything if you plan to get things at the lowest price. For example here are some of the Price Comparsions I did for the Wii Zapper & Wii Wheel at several stores.
Wii Zapper
- Amazon.com $19.99
- Circuit City $24.99
- Gamestop $24.99
- Radio Shack $19.99
- Toy’s R’ Us $19.99 or $24.99 (weird)
- Walmart $19.82
While it seems that the MSRP is $24.99 their are a couple of store selling it for cheaper. I believe that Amazon.com has always sold it for the $19.99 price though.
Wii Wheel
- Amazon.com $19.04
- Circuit City $14.99
- Gamestop $14.99
- Radio Shack N/A
- Toy’s R’ Us $14.99
- Walmart $9.87
So again while it seems that the MSRP for the Wii Wheel is $14.99 Amazon is selling it at a $4.05 profit and on the other end Walmart is selling it for $9.87 so that’s a $5.12 loss. So if you want to save a buck or two you really have to price check everything.
7 deez // Jul 28, 2008 at 5:41 pm
IT’s called “free market”
If they want to charge that much, let em. Just buy it somewhere else.
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