Wal-Mart planning pre-owned invasion

The monopoly once enjoyed by the likes of GAME and GameStop in the pre-owned market is under threat like never before, and now one analyst has predicted that Wal-Mart in the US will follow Best Buy UK’s lead in introducing a second hand offer in its stores.

We had seen a number of attempts in the US from the side of competitors to enter this area last year but none really got any traction,” Klosters Trading analyst Lutz Muller told MCV.

Amazon did not because of their execution time problem, ToysRUs did not because they never expanded from their five test stores; Wal-Mart and Best Buy did not because their third party provider folded its tent and went away.

However, my sources tell me that Wal-Mart is going to try again but this time not with a half-hearted attempt like last year but in a full-fledged effort to wrest market share away from GameStop by using their own personnel in their own video game space.

"In fact, I am told that tests in some stores have already started.”