CEX Pricing Structure

cmdrmarc

Anyone have any clue about how CEX decide their pricing structure? I cannot fathom how their pricing for new Switch tiles for example make any sense.

Mario Kart 8 - £52 on CEX (Used), £42 on Amazon (New)
Splatoon 2 - £55 on CEX (Used), £45 on Amazon (New)
Zelda BOTW - £55 on CEX (Used), £48 on Amazon (New)

Given the price of these titles is only going to drop, and therefore they'll make less money on whatever price they gave people for trade in, why price them above New retail?

BizKiTRoAcH

CEX's pricing structure has never made sense. They were paying around £110 for the SNES mini before christmas and now they sell it for £90. I know they will have made a profit on some when supply was low but the supply was never as bad as it was for the NES mini so I imagine they are making a loss on them now.

cmdrmarc

Well that made a little sense as supply was limited for a month or so, but there hasn’t been similar issues on these Switch games, nor have I seen the price go this high..

Qactuar

Those prices are there for the "benefit" of people who trade in for credit only and want games to play on. Suspect that cash paid by CEX wouldn't be enough to get a given game.

cmdrmarc

Ahh ok yeah I hadn't considered that - people would consider spending £55 of credit to be "less" of a spend than £55 cash. Which is bizarre when you consider they'll have got under market value for the products they traded in to get said credit, so they're being screwed twice by CEX...

Qactuar

100% correct on the double-screwage. It is probably the case that the average punter trades in for experience of games not played before, so here's 2/3 of my old ones for one they don't have etc.

The cash is probably rarely taken - especially as you can sell vouchers for up to 85% face value for cash elsewhere, when cash is usually a crap alternative when trading in.

roymunsen

Picked up a good few 3D blu bargains and a few catalogue titles below a fiver. It's rarely a good idea to get anything recent from CEX, it's almost always cheaper elsewhere.

Example today

Crash Bandicoot trilogy PS4

Cex £30, Game round the corner had it for £23 pre owned. Tesco has it for £20 brand new.