As if GameStop wasn’t going to make enough money this year, they have decided to start opening kids stores across the country for the holiday season. It will be around 80 GameStop Kids stores throughout the country in malls by November 15th. GameStop CEO Paul Raines had this to say about the new stores:
“All of the stores will be in malls that have a better-than-average GameStop in them, so we know that the stores are high-traffic malls, We’ve been testing it around the world, In Europe, we’ve been running an Angry Birds section in our stores in Germany for almost a year. I just got back from Australia and they have a ton of Minecraft product in our stores.”
The GameStop Kids stores will still carry video games but only E-rated video games, and toys ranging from a talking Star Wars Chewbacca to Skylanders apparel. The reason for this move has to do with GameStop executives believing that there just isn’t the room or environment to make the change in the current stores. Raines went on to say
“This is really a way for us to take share away from people who are in the toy business and have an expanded assortment, and show people how to drive kids to new experiences, new products or an expanded assortment of existing products like Skylanders and Angry Birds.”
In addition, Raines said GameStop has been talking with current PowerUp Rewards members to see what their views on the GameStop Kids stores. He went on to say “They’ve been giving us feedback on what kind of store they’d like to see, We’ve been seeing a lot of success on a variety of these different products.”
As of right now this will only be a temporary store for the holidays, however if the project is successful GameStop may be open to letting the stores stay open longer. The first store opens October 26, at the Grapevine Mills Mall in Dallas, Texas. Is this GameStop Kids store something you might be interested in or do you think GameStop is over reaching their boundaries right into Toys “R” Us territory?
