GameStop 2010 Annual Report Download - page 30

Table of Contents
our central database of all used video game products allows us to actively manage the pricing and product availability of our used video game
products across our store base and reallocate our used video game products as necessary.
Field Management and Staff
Each of our stores employs, on average, one manager, one assistant manager and between two and ten sales associates, many of whom are
part-time employees. Each store manager is responsible for managing their personnel and the economic performance of their store. We have
cultivated a work environment that attracts employees who are actively interested in electronic games. We seek to hire and retain employees who
know and enjoy working with our products so that they are better able to assist customers. To encourage them to sell the full range of our products
and to maximize our profitability, we provide our employees with targeted incentive programs to drive overall sales and sales of higher margin
products. In certain locations, we also provide certain employees with the opportunity to take home and try new video games, which enables them to
better discuss those games with our customers. In addition, employees are casually dressed to encourage customer access and increase the "game-
oriented" focus of the stores.
Our stores communicate with our corporate offices daily via e-mail. This e-mail allows for better tracking of trends in upcoming titles,
competitor strategies and in-stock inventory positions. In addition, this communication allows title selection in each store to be continuously updated
and tailored to reflect the tastes and buying patterns of the store's local market. These communications also give field management access to relevant
inventory levels and loss prevention information. We have invested in significant management training programs for our store managers and our
district managers to enhance their business management skills. We also sponsor annual store managers' conferences at which we operate an intense
educational training program to provide our employees with information about the video game products that will be released by publishers in the
holiday season. All video game software publishers are invited to attend the conferences.
GameStop's U.S. store operations are managed by a centrally-located senior vice president of stores, four vice presidents of stores and 31
regional store operations directors. The regions are further divided into districts, each with a district manager covering an average of 15 stores. In
total, there are approximately 308 districts. Our international operations are managed by a senior executive, with stores in Europe managed by two
senior vice presidents, one vice president and managing directors in each region and our stores in Australia and Canada each managed by a vice
president. We also employ regional loss prevention managers who assist the stores in implementing security measures to prevent theft of our
products.
Customer Service
Our store personnel provide value-added services to each customer, such as maintaining lists of regular customers and reserving new releases
for customers with a down payment to ensure product availability. In addition, our store personnel readily provide product reviews to ensure
customers are making informed purchasing decisions and inform customers of available resources, including Game Informer and our e-commerce
sites, to increase a customer's enjoyment of the product upon purchase.
Vendors
We purchase substantially all of our new products worldwide from approximately 75 manufacturers and software publishers and several
distributors. Purchases from the top ten vendors accounted for approximately 82% of our new product purchases in fiscal 2010. Only Microsoft,
Nintendo, Sony, Activision and Electronic Arts (which accounted for 18%, 16%, 16%, 12%, and 10%, respectively) individually accounted for more
than 10% of our new product purchases during fiscal 2010. We have established price protections and return privileges with our primary vendors in
order to reduce our risk of inventory obsolescence. In addition, we have few purchase contracts with trade vendors and generally conduct business
on an order-by-order basis, a practice that is typical throughout the industry. We believe that maintaining and strengthening our long-term
relationships with our vendors is essential to our operations and continued expansion. We believe that we have very good relationships with our
vendors. 14