RECENT INTERVIEW WITH Yuvi Shmul

From Gaming Today Q&A With Play N Trade CEO, Yuvi Shmul

By Ron Whitaker

There's a not-so-new kid on the block in the retail gaming business. They're called Play N Trade. They have a new store opening every other day, and they're quickly becoming a major player.

We wanted to find out what makes Play N Trade stand out from the crowd, so earlier today, I sat down to chat with the CEO of the up-and-coming franchise, Yuvi Shmul, about their business, their stores, and what sets them apart from traditional retail gaming outlets.

Q: For those readers who may not have heard of your stores, what would you tell them to say, 'This is Play N Trade.'

A: "It's a very simple answer, in two parts. We are the only franchise in the industry. Our customer service is a completely different experience. The stores are owned by gamers, and the employees are gamers. When you come to the store, the franchisees are out in the front of store, not stuck behind a counter. They greet you, learn who you are (if they don't already know you), and ask you what type of games you like to play. They take a game, put it in the console, and they will start playing the game with you within minutes of you walking into the store."

"You can try any game in the store before you buy it. When you go to the competition, you might be able to try 4 or 5 different games. Here, you can actually try any game you want. The concept of by gamers, for gamers; maybe it sounds a little bit like a cliché, but that has been the culture of this company since its inception. The company has been around 6 or 7 years."

"If you were here with me right now, face-to-face, you could see my body language. That's our passion. It's all about providing customer service that is above and beyond what everybody else is providing."

"We do a lot of in-store tournaments, and we do a lot of national tournaments, which is obviously a great venue for people to come and compete. We've done the Halo tournament, and this coming Saturday we have the Guitar Hero tournament. We're going to have a few other tournaments coming up. Some of our stores have tournaments on a weekly basis or twice a month. They might have 300 people coming to play tournaments at the time. Even in a small town in Idaho, [with only] 30,000 people, they had 300 people come to the tournaments."

"We continue our service by doing repairs, which the competition does not. We repair games with a resurfacing machine, we repair the consoles. We also sell the classics, the older games. There are not a lot of places to buy those."

"All of these products and services differentiate us on the product and service side."

Q: The name Play N Trade implies trade-in is a part of your business. Is Play N Trade doing anything with used games?

"Absolutely. We sell new and used games. We also take trades, hence the name, Play N Trade. As you know, a lot of gamers keep all their games. One of our trainers here has 10,000 games. The ones who want to trade, for whatever reason, can come and we take trade-ins."

Q: How is Play N Trade expanding?

"We have 60 stores open today, and we are opening a new store every other day. By the end of this year, we expect to have 200 stores open, and by the end of next year we expect to have 500 stores open. We have sold almost 300 stores already. We expect to expand into a major player in the industry. We're actually eying the concept of publishing our own games."

Q: We've heard about your tournaments, including your recent Halo 2 tournament. What type of plans do you have for the future for new game tournaments?

"The first winner of the Halo 2 tournament was from Kentucky. He was 17, and he flew out with his dad. It was the first time they'd seen the ocean, the first time they'd ever flown, and the first time they'd gotten out of Kentucky. They loved it, and we had a lot of fun with them."

"We're into the famous games. You name it, we would consider doing those tournaments, specifically at the store level. All the different sports games, the first person shooter, etc. The national tournaments are for the big titles, such as Halo and Guitar Hero."

Q: I know you've said that you have consoles in you stores for people to try out console games. What about PC games? Do you have PC games in the store?

"Some of our stores carry PC games, but truly there's not as much demand. Most of our stores do not have terminals to play PC games. We do carry a lot of consoles. Some of our stores have consoles back all the way to the Atari. Most of our stores have 8-10 different console stations, so we can carry 8-10 different consoles."

Q: We've heard a lot about your stores. What can you tell us about your unique store setup, and how they compare to the setup of other retail gaming outlets?

"Let's start with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart sells about 20% of the games in the industry, and GameStop sells about 20%. Those are the industry leaders. When you go to Wal-Mart there is zero customer service. You need to know what you want to buy, and sometimes you have to wait until you find someone to give you the product to buy. I don't have to talk about how unattractive that is to gamers."

"Even when you go to GameStop, they are obviously doing something right. They have 5000 stores, and they're a $5 billion company. Even then, most of the stores I've shopped at have very minimal customer service. You come in, it's very clustered, there's a lot inventory all over, and it's crowded. Sometimes the employees are knowledgeable, sometimes they are not."

"By comparison, it is a completely different program with our stores. Our stores are more spacious, with a very beautiful design. They're very attractive, and very unique. I would compare our store layout to an Apple iPod store. We have the full experience. We have the terminals on the sides where people can play games. The store is very interactive; it feels like an arcade, it feels like a club, versus a retail box where you buy the game and go home."

Q: In closing, what would you like to tell our readers that we may not have talked about today?

"We have a footprint from Guam to Puerto Rico to Canada and anywhere in the United States. We're going to expand internationally very soon."

"I really encourage everyone to come in, just to experience shopping, or more of a club environment, versus just going and getting very poor customer service, or going and not finding what you want."

It sounds like Play N Trade is definitely someplace I'm going to be checking out soon. You can see the new look of their stores in the photos in this Q&A. If there's a Play N Trade near you, go give it a look, and let us know what you think. It might just be THE place to get games in the future.