In the dynamic world of mobile resale, consistency can be elusive. Market shifts, device launches, and consumer trends constantly reshape pricing and demand. Yet, GameStop’s mobile trade-in and resale business has managed to stay not just profitable, but predictably so.
Behind that success is a three-person team: Jon Haes, VP of Pre-Owned; Lyann Fortner, Product Manager; and Daniel Pan, Refurbishment Operations Manager. Together, they’ve built a finely tuned resale funnel for GameStop that merges automation, data, and customer insight into a high-performing machine.
In this Q&A, the team walks us through how they’ve refined trade-in pricing, implemented automation, and optimized resale performance through their partnership with B-Stock, turning what used to be an inconsistent, manual process into a reliable profit engine.
Jon Haes, VP of Pre-Owned
On the topic of trade-in:
How has GameStop’s trade-in model evolved over the past few years, and what key decisions or shifts drove those changes? Our mobile trade-in business has evolved significantly over the last few years – partly out of necessity to accommodate our desire to run a lean organization, and partly to allow us to run an extremely predictable and consistently profitable business. With a small team, we’ve refined pricing processes to account for both future predicted resale values and competitive pricing pressures. We’ve automated the pricing process in some ways to be accurate and efficient. We have also overhauled our in-store trade-in process and installed new technology from Phoenix Innovations in stores to facilitate the trade-in evaluation process. This helps ensure that the store process for both associates and customers is completed accurately and efficiently.
When evaluating trade-in pricing or promotions, what market signals/metrics (e.g., secondary market ASP trends, competitor offers) carry the most weight for you? The most important thing we consider when we’re pricing trade-ins (base trade-in pricing and promotions) is what price we can sell each device for at the point in the process where the device will be available for sale. This requires us to have good line-of-sight to future resale prices and we leverage our own historical pricing curves, B-Stock’s pricing forecast tool and other sources to accurately predict this. Once a store takes a trade-in, it takes a few weeks for the device to arrive at our facility for processing and wholesale lotting, so we have to be confident in where we think pricing will land by the time we can sell it. We consider competitive pricing in our process, but it’s certainly a secondary factor in our decision making.
How do you and Lyann ensure trade-in strategy aligns with processing and resale outcomes? Are there regular checkpoints or data reviews that drive these decisions? Yes, we fully reprice our entire catalog each week. Some weeks there are few changes due to steadiness in the marketplace, other weeks prices change significantly due to impending product launches or other events in the business.
On the topic of processing:
In last year’s interview, you mentioned automation could let GameStop expand into additional product categories. What criteria will you use to decide which category comes first? Yes, and we’re already down that path. We piloted a Macbook trade-in program in select stores in the spring and successfully launched the program in all stores this summer. We also are launching an AppleTV trade-in program in September in all stores. The introduction of the in-store trade-in solution from Phoenix Innovations gives us a lot of flexibility to add new product categories.
On the topic of resale:
Beyond RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) rate and customer feedback, what signals tell you your resale process is performing at its peak? Are there benchmarks or trends you watch closely? RMA rate and customer feedback are important for us. Also, if we see consistent growth in auction bids and new customers that’s a good sign for us as well.
You have a lean 3 person team. If you had to teach someone your resale process in one day, what would you emphasize as the most critical steps or decisions? 1) Nail down an effective pricing process that provides value to consumers and the business. 2) Operate efficiently on the back end to ensure fast product turnaround from ingestion to disposition. 3) Be extremely precise in the grading process to meet or exceed customer expectations, thus improving customer satisfaction and reducing RMAs.
Lyann Fortner, Product Manager
Questions on trade-in:
How do you balance trade-in pricing and promotions with expected resale performance (e.g., ASPs, demand signals) to avoid over- or under-incentivizing? Offering cash payout to customers same day everyday is our top incentive. This business model means we can offer competitive trade-in pricing and maintain a predictable stream of inbound inventory at expected margins. Within the cash/credit pricing structure we can run promotions to incentivize mobile device trade-ins at a similar frequency as the rest of the trade-in business (i.e. video game products) and benefit from increased trade activity.
When you stepped into this role without a mobile background, what data or benchmarks helped you quickly understand how trade-in connects to resale performance? My prior category management experience in retail helped me to quickly lay out my initial 90 days. “The right assortment, at the right price for the Gamestop customer.” With that plan laid out I was able to dig into each component of the tech trade business, break a few processes, build new while ultimately learning in real time how each decision in one area impacts the total business. Once I had my foundation built, I turned to industry experts to fill in knowledge gaps.
Daniel Pan, Refurbishment Operations Manager
Let’s talk processing:
What impact has automation had on your team’s ability to scale, refocus on higher-value tasks, or speed up decision-making? Automation has taken over two of the most time-consuming and skill-intensive steps in our process – cleaning and grading. This has significantly reduced the training and expertise required for these roles, making hiring and onboarding faster and more efficient. As a result, our team can scale more easily, reallocate resources to higher-value activities, and respond to business growth opportunities with greater agility.
Based on your experience, what advice would you give about sequencing automation investments to get measurable impact quickly? Focus automation investments on high-ROI areas – particularly time-consuming tasks that require extensive training – since these deliver the fastest measurable impact. Additionally, ensure automation is seamlessly integrated with existing systems to keep physical operations and digital workflows aligned.
What was the tipping point where manual grading no longer scaled? While there are always methods to scale manual grading, it becomes increasingly challenging when rapid scaling is required and when attrition or turnover impacts the ability to maintain consistent production quality. These factors ultimately drove the decision to invest in automation.
How do you ensure processing priorities (e.g., grading speed, lotting readiness) stay in sync with trade-in and resale needs? Effective production planning is essential to keeping processing priorities—such as grading speed and lotting readiness—aligned with trade-in and resale needs. Production should be designed to scale to the maximum forecasted requirements, factoring in space constraints and automation capacity. Continuously pursuing innovation to enhance efficiency also creates additional buffer capacity to accommodate higher volumes when needed.
Beyond automation, what other process changes have made the biggest difference in accuracy, speed, or team focus? The implementation of the Shop Floor Controller (SFC) has been one of the most impactful changes beyond automation. It has enabled us to optimize workflows, maintain accurate real-time data, and seamlessly integrate process improvements alongside automation initiatives.
Let’s talk about resale:
Before moving all trade-in through B-Stock, you managed some buyers directly. What were the biggest challenges? The biggest challenge was managing individual buyers/orders. The overall volume of our business means we had buyers with multiple open requests that compounded week after week. Consolidating sales to B-Stock streamlined our sales process considerably.
How have improvements in disputes and shipping speed changed your day to day? The focus to improve our overall resale business through automation and consolidating sales to B-Stock had downstream effects that resulted in better shipping speeds and big reductions in customer disputes. We are now seeing record low dispute rates and that’s a tribute to our operations team and the improvements we have made with automation and internal processes.
How do you know when your resale flow is performing at its best? Are there signals, metrics, or customer behaviors that stand out? Customer dispute rate is quick pulse check to see if we’re meeting customer expectations. With Phoenix Innovations software solutions we have our inventory dashboard and resale performance is optimized when we see inventory moving without delays.
You were new to mobile when you joined. If you had to teach someone your resale process in one day, what would you emphasize as the most critical steps or decisions? The foundations of retail arbitrage can be applied to any category- this means understanding the product, the profit potential and the marketplace. Followed by the basis for all decision making, are we doing our best for the customer? Offering competitive trade values to the in-store customers, all the way up stream to the marketplace customers, ensure they are receiving quality auction lots that adhere to the standardized grading criteria.
GameStop’s three-person team has built more than an efficient resale funnel; they’ve created a repeatable framework for predictable, profitable growth. By combining automation with resale market intelligence from B-Stock, Haes, Fortner, and Pan have built a resale engine that scales efficiently without losing precision. The result: a resale funnel that’s not only profitable, but remarkably resilient; a testament to what focus, insight, and strategic partnership can achieve in a lean operation.
Today, the team is seeing record-low dispute rates and an 11% YoY increase in auction bid activity, proof that operational changes directly translate into marketplace performance.
To see exactly how the GameStop team structures every stage of the resale process– from trade-in and device processing to resale optimization on B-Stock– explore the full infographic.
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