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Retailers, let's rethink mob scenes

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published November 22, 2006

News that gamers camped out for four days to score the new PlayStation 3 console led many to conclude these folks either need to get a life or someone was paying them to stage the endurance contest.

Upon further review, I've decided to cut the campers some slack.

After all, sales of video games and consoles, excluding those played on PCs, hit $10.5-billion in 2005. That's more than the $8.8-billion generated at the box office for all Hollywood movies. And movie fans have certainly demonstrated far goofier behavior.

To the second point, it's become obvious that, like most holiday buying frenzies, lots - if not most - of these gamers did it for money. They were trying to land a PS3 to flip on eBay or to some dealer over the back fence at three times the $499 to $599 purchase price.

I don't pretend to know how Sony's PS3 stacks up against its rival Nintendo Wii that debuted in far bigger supply and at half the price two days later. But PS3 prices fell sharply on eBay when news hit that the system doesn't play all the old Play Station games and Wii got a few rave reviews. So I'm sure the gaming world will argue right up to Christmas Eve whether this is another contrived manufacturer's shortage hyped to goose sales.

The media have always been moved to chronicle aberrant behavior. Stories about greed and self-interest strike a chord during the holidays. Product shortages have been a staple since a 1980s video showed a Pennsylvania retailer banging a baseball bat to restore order in a mob of Cabbage Patch doll collectors/investors.

Reports of PS3 carnage venture into little new territory, but the season is young. There were the usual arguing matches and fist fights as people tried to jump line. Some were trampled when a mob of 400 rushed the doors to a mall in Boston.

Two Englewood, Ohio, clerks were robbed of PS3 consoles at gunpoint.

In Eugene, Ore., robbers traveled from store to store mugging people standing in line. Same thing happened at a Putnam, Conn., Wal-Mart, except the 14th victim was shot but only wounded when he refused to comply.

The greed part came to me about a decade a ago when a New Port Richey woman called to report she beat store-imposed limits on the hot product du jour. She had deployed her family to multiple stores, coordinating their moves via walkie-talkie the day after Thanksgiving.

A glance at the classified ads offering Furbies at four times the retail price explained why she wanted us to report she had a dozen.

Retailers play the heavy as the distributor in product shortages.

Most consider it a great way to "generate excitement" that brings shoppers to their stores, even as their risk managers fret over lawsuits.

Letting strangers camp at your door poses security issues. So stores ask police to check frequently, or hire their own security.

Circuit City kept campers to a minimum by posting on the door how few PS3s would be in the first batch.

"That's after we learned we wouldn't get as many as we expected," said spokesman Jim Babb.

EB Games and GameStop skipped the whole mess. They only took orders and payment a month in advance, then called when the console arrived.

All this reminded me of Fred Rosen, the onetime chief executive of TicketMaster, saying people misunderstood how his company became a near-monopoly.

Once drug-addled rockers lined up for days to buy concert tickets. Ticket-buyers don't blame promoters or rock stars for treating them like dirt. After all, they're supposed to be rogues.

It was only when publicly owned auditoriums grew weary of shouldering the unsavory job of policing the milling mobs that they turned the job over to someone who extracted an extra fee for parceling out tickets over the phone or online.

So until more stores start feeling the same way about product shortages or more people get hurt, don't expect much to change.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.

[Last modified November 21, 2006, 23:48:53]