Ahh yes, the good ol' preorder game of the great Gamestop/EB. In my 3 months there over the summer, preorders were the thorn in my side. Why might you ask? Plenty of reasons.
1. You are allowed to cancel or transfer preorders at any time, regardless of what the clerk tells you. An employee's work hours are supposed to be directly derived from how many preorders and GI subs they get every week. Therefore, sometimes the clerk will tell you that you can't cancel or transfer to another store so they can keep their stats. If you cancel a preorder, that cancel is taken off their total for the week, regardless if they are the ones who took the reserve in the first place.
2. When I got people who wanted to simply cancel one reserve and put the money towards another reserve, it wasn't a big deal. One cancel and one reserve evened out, no harm, no foul, your stats stayed the same.
3. If you want to transfer a reserve, you can go to the store you want it transferred to, and they are supposed to call the store you currently have it reserved at, and they will assign the money to a gift card and have it switched over the phone. If they tell you no to transferring from store to store, they are wrong, and they have to do it. If they won't do it, either call the district manager, or get your money back.
4. Be careful with preorders. I'm sure this info is taboo, but I was told on two different occasions to sell through our copies, regardless of preorders. The two I recall working for where I was told this was Madden and Bioshock. Madden wasn't a problem, but Bioshock did become a problem, because we ran out of copies, and only had preorders left. I told the manager that I was turning away people who didn't have it preordered, because I wasn't going to be turned into a liar after telling everyone on every preorder I had sold to that point that they would be guaranteed a copy. He let me continue, and I think I turned away atleast 6 people that night. I also think they told us to "sell through" GH: 80's Edition, but I only worked the night before that release.
5. Know that Gamestop can never tell you no to cancelling or switching preorders, but they can deny you the priveledge of ever preordering at their store again.
I would occassionally preorder a game, but never again after working there. The only advantage to preordering a game is if you can catch one of the deals where they'll take off $5, or give you an extra percentage on top of your trade-ins. They push preorders way too much for little in return. They make only a few coins off a new game sale, only with the hopes that you'll bring it back to trade in.
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