100% Guaranteed Supposed to Work! - Pink Gorilla and Customer Service

[oracle_jedi]

My son turns 13 this coming weekend.

 

Despite being born in 1999, he has developed a great affection for 8 and 16 bit consoles and computers.

 

Maybe it's Dad's collection of Atari, Commodore and TI systems, or maybe its Nintendo. Who can be sure?

 

So for his 13th birthday he wants an original SNES. Not a reproduction unit, a real actual genuine SNES.

 

Living in Seattle, we are blessed with what appears to be an above average number of retro game stores, including Another Castle, Game Gurus and "AL's Music, Games and Videos". We also host the PAX Prime conference and Seattle Retro Game Expo here. All in all, pretty much a retro paradise.

 

So it was with some confidence my wife and I set off earlier today to Pink Gorilla in the U District to buy a SNES. We confirmed they had some before leaving, and they said they had one. But what they had had major discoloration. I know how to retro-bright, but I asked if they were willing to swap out the case plastics for non-functional one in the window display.

 

"Err.. Dude. No".

 

So then I checked their display of used games for some of the titles my son wants to play on his SNES. They were lacking a couple. I asked and the clerk reported that they didn't have them.

 

"You have two other stores right? Could you check inventory there?"

 

"Errr. Yeah. guess.."

 

He checked one, and they didn't have it either. But they did have two working SNES consoles, so maybe our odds of success were better across town in West Seattle. We bought a Mario and a Kirby game and headed off to the next store.

 

At the next store they had two SNES consoles. A rather battered one for $45, and a slight better one for $50.

 

"We'll take the fifty dollar one."

 

Then he showed me their display of SNES games. They had a Mario game that was a compilation of several other Mario games, including the one I had bought an hour earlier in the other store.

 

Despite buying a console, and having a receipt for the game from their other store across town dated today, the clerk told me repeatedly they could not exchange the more limited cartridge for the more extensive one. I was willing the pay the difference, but Pink Gorilla would only trade in the earlier purchase for maybe thirty percent.

 

Wow. That is about the most ridiculous approach to customer satisfaction I have ever heard. Even the DMV would struggle to match that.

 

So somewhat annoyed, I bought the SNES and no more games. I asked about any warranty that the $50 SNES would actually work when I got it home.

 

The clerk hesitated and mumbled.

 

"Yeah, these old systems are made like really well, it's our name here, it's like one hundred percent guaranteed supposed to work..."

 

Now that's a definite maybe if I ever heard one.

 

So we drive home with our SNES in a bag, only to discover the unit in the bag is the battered $45 unit, and not the somewhat better $50 one. We check the receipt and sure enough, he's charged us for the more expensive unit.

 

We call, explain, and head back across town.

 

Upon reaching the store, the same clerk looks up and says,

 

"Err, why are you here again?"

 

 

Wow. Just wow. Retro gaming is now so main stream, so over burdened with customers, the few suppliers in this market can resort to customer satisfaction policies that would make the main stream brick and mortar's blush crimson.

 

That my friends, is real progress.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Sorry to hear that. My local Game-X-Change has a 24-hour satisfaction guarantee that if you don't like a game for any reason, bring it back within 24 hours for store credit. They just opened a new location in my area (2 total), and you can return items to either store. They also have a 30-day warrantee for non-working games/systems.

 

I'd also like to add, you should have checked the bag before you left. These guys seem like pricks, so I would recommend shopping at another retro games chain since you live in a large enough metropolitan area. That said, you may be able to shine up the "beaten" system by cleaning it.

 

I assume the game you had reference to was Mario All-Stars. There are two versions, with and without Mario World. The combo cart is rarer ($25) and worth about the price of both separate game carts combined. I have the combo version.

 

Also, with SNES games, it may be wise to replace the internal battery, as the button cell batteries are probably 20 years old by now and starting to lose charge. Otherwise, your saved progress may someday disappear and you'll have to start over. You will need a security bit to open the cart. The batteries are soldered onto the board, so replacement of dead batteries can be a pain.

[RARusk]

Instead of trying to find batteries with the soldered pins may I suggest replacing the battery with a battery holder then popping in any kind of CR2032 battery you can get from any store. I've done this with a couple of cartridges.

[+Yurkie]

My son turns 13 this coming weekend.

 

Despite being born in 1999, he has developed a great affection for 8 and 16 bit consoles and computers.

 

Maybe it's Dad's collection of Atari, Commodore and TI systems, or maybe its Nintendo. Who can be sure?

 

So for his 13th birthday he wants an original SNES. Not a reproduction unit, a real actual genuine SNES.

 

Living in Seattle, we are blessed with what appears to be an above average number of retro game stores, including Another Castle, Game Gurus and "AL's Music, Games and Videos". We also host the PAX Prime conference and Seattle Retro Game Expo here. All in all, pretty much a retro paradise.

 

So it was with some confidence my wife and I set off earlier today to Pink Gorilla in the U District to buy a SNES. We confirmed they had some before leaving, and they said they had one. But what they had had major discoloration. I know how to retro-bright, but I asked if they were willing to swap out the case plastics for non-functional one in the window display.

 

"Err.. Dude. No".

 

So then I checked their display of used games for some of the titles my son wants to play on his SNES. They were lacking a couple. I asked and the clerk reported that they didn't have them.

 

"You have two other stores right? Could you check inventory there?"

 

"Errr. Yeah. guess.."

 

He checked one, and they didn't have it either. But they did have two working SNES consoles, so maybe our odds of success were better across town in West Seattle. We bought a Mario and a Kirby game and headed off to the next store.

 

At the next store they had two SNES consoles. A rather battered one for $45, and a slight better one for $50.

 

"We'll take the fifty dollar one."

 

Then he showed me their display of SNES games. They had a Mario game that was a compilation of several other Mario games, including the one I had bought an hour earlier in the other store.

 

Despite buying a console, and having a receipt for the game from their other store across town dated today, the clerk told me repeatedly they could not exchange the more limited cartridge for the more extensive one. I was willing the pay the difference, but Pink Gorilla would only trade in the earlier purchase for maybe thirty percent.

 

Wow. That is about the most ridiculous approach to customer satisfaction I have ever heard. Even the DMV would struggle to match that.

 

So somewhat annoyed, I bought the SNES and no more games. I asked about any warranty that the $50 SNES would actually work when I got it home.

 

The clerk hesitated and mumbled.

 

"Yeah, these old systems are made like really well, it's our name here, it's like one hundred percent guaranteed supposed to work..."

 

Now that's a definite maybe if I ever heard one.

 

So we drive home with our SNES in a bag, only to discover the unit in the bag is the battered $45 unit, and not the somewhat better $50 one. We check the receipt and sure enough, he's charged us for the more expensive unit.

 

We call, explain, and head back across town.

 

Upon reaching the store, the same clerk looks up and says,

 

"Err, why are you here again?"

 

 

Wow. Just wow. Retro gaming is now so main stream, so over burdened with customers, the few suppliers in this market can resort to customer satisfaction policies that would make the main stream brick and mortar's blush crimson.

 

That my friends, is real progress.

 

 

So what is the rest of the story? Did you get to swap for the nicer unit? Did everything work?

[AtariLeaf]

On a similar note, we have two local gamestores, owned by the same people called "Game Cycle 1" and "Game Cycle 2". When they opened the second store a couple of years back, I was informed that their policy was store credit is only allowed in the store you traded your games in. In other words if I traded in games and received $25 store credit in Game Cycle 1, I'd have to use that credit in Game Cycle 1 only. A strange policy since they routinely swap merchandise between stores as needed anyway.

 

Also a new one to me - there's a glass case of "collectors" items in Game Cycle 2 with a note on the display that items in that display case were sold "at their discretion". I was baffled by this and asked what it was about. Apparently they don't want anyone to just trade in a bunch of xbox and ps2 games for store credit and then use that credit to buy their overpriced "collectors" items (think highest ebay BIN + 10% - 20%). Again, this is odd to me because they routinely sell used xbox and PS2 games but the collectors items are always sitting collecting dust so if the goal is to make money then their own policy is counterproductive to that goal.

Edited October 21, 2012 by AtariLeaf

[Drixxel]

Also a new one to me - there's a glass case of "collectors" items in Game Cycle 2 with a note on the display that items in that display case were sold "at their discretion". I was baffled by this and asked what it was about. Apparently they don't want anyone to just trade in a bunch of xbox and ps2 games for store credit and then use that credit to buy their overpriced "collectors" items (think highest ebay BIN + 10% - 20%). Again, this is odd to me because they routinely sell used xbox and PS2 games but the collectors items are always sitting collecting dust so if the goal is to make money then their own policy is counterproductive to that goal.

 

Haha, yeah, I think I see the initial thought process behind that policy, but in practice, it's ended up exactly as you say - unsold "prestige" merchandise, sitting unclaimed and collecting dust. If their worst case scenario is a customer dropping by and trading in a few dozen everyday Xbox & PS2 games for store credit against the display cabinet rarities then they've misidentified the problem. Console commons are obviously going to come and go a lot more fluidly, that kind of dynamic inventory is clearly good for business and the perception of business. Hell, customers might even pick up on the fact that they've sold one of their big ticket collectors items, that's something of a confidence builder and even a conversation.

[oldjd]

Sounds like they hired a few Ex-Best Buy employees/or maybe Radio Shack

They wouldnt know the difference between customer service and slinging fries at Mickey Ds

[TheGameCollector]

What I dislike the most about Pink Gorilla is that they won't even give you a ballpark figure for trade-ins over the phone. At least Monster Gaming kind of did that. If you're talking boxed items that need to really be appraised for condition that's one thing but when a store can't give you a minimum trade in value over the phone it makes you not want to waste the effort carrying things to the store.

[+Gemintronic]

I think it's a retail chain vs. mom 'n pop store thing with customer service. Somehow employees are trained better and take more ownership of their jobs when they have a personal stake.

[oracle_jedi]

So what is the rest of the story? Did you get to swap for the nicer unit? Did everything work?

 

Happily the SNES does work, as do the game cartridges. My son is loving the 16bit era