GameStop will open new US East Coast fulfillment center

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Retailer GameStop has announced plans to open a brand new fulfillment center on the east coast in the US. The center will help make for better delivery times for online orders, allowing them to keep up with the sort of delivery speeds offered by Amazon.

The new facility is 700,000 square foot in size, and is located in York, Pennsylvania. The expected opening time for the facility is the fourth quarter of this year. This is an ambitious time frame in which to get such a facility open and up and running in, but it’s likely to be key to the retailer’s future success.

The retailer stated that this facility is key to its ability to get delivery times down for all those consumers on the east coast. With the pandemic forcing many consumers to buy online or digital games only, GameStop’s online fulfillment has been a huge part of its business for the last twelve months. That’s no doubt why it wants to invest in that side of the company.

The company’s revenues were down by 21 percent for the year ending January 2021. However, ecommerce sales were up by 191 percent. A clear sign of where consumers prefer to shop with the company, despite it being based in brick and mortar stores for the most part.

A renewed focus has been put onto the online side of GameStop over recent months. New hires in upper management have been strategically made to incorporate more individuals with experience of running vast online systems and companies that deliver around the world.

By cutting down on the costs of brick and mortar stores, and moving those resources to a new online fulfillment facility, GameStop stands a much better chance of turning around its financials even sooner.

There is a matter of the human cost of this shift though, namely the staff in each brick and mortar store that closes. While there may always be a need for a few stores, many are closing each month as the company focuses more and more on online sales.

There will surely be a huge number of jobs at this new facility, and more with the new delivery driver requirements. That doesn’t help those people who live on the other side of the country and lose their job when a store closes though.