Game Digital’s marketing charge slows following dismal Christmas sales
Game Digital’s marketing blitz has failed to overcome the heavy discounting over the festive period after sales fell 7 per cent in the 11 weeks to 10 January, slashing its valuation in half.
This led the video game retailer to predict underlying profits for the year to come in around £51.3m, unchanged on the year before but well below analysts’ expectations.
Right on cue its stock price duly fell 50 per cent as traders digested the news.
In a trading update Game chief executive Martyn Gibbs said: "Our strategy is to grow customer lifetime value and over the Christmas trading period, starting with Black Friday, we invested margin in offering gamers competitive product propositions through the bundling of games with hardware and reduced pricing, to recruit as many new generation customers as quickly as possible.
"We now have a huge customer base within the new formats, to sell both mint and pre-owned physical and digital content and accessories to over the long term.”
Game is no stranger to financial travails having previously been forced into administration in 2012 amidst declining sales, forcing it to shed 2,000 jobs before being rescued by investment group OpCapita.
Seeking to evolve to survive the retailer is embracing digital technology to capture more customer data and drive sales.