Here’s a question that remains unanswered, what will happen to PSA submissions at GameStop stores that are closing?
So far there is absolutely no hint as to what is going to happen. In a couple of days we should supposedly find out from a GameStop meeting that’s on the 2nd? 3rd? Something like that.
But right now we just have to speculate about where all of our valuable cards are going to end up. Which is not ideal. You’d think so much customer value at risk would make GameStop be very cautious and straightforward with customers. I mean if GameStop loses track of thousands if not tens of thousands of cards all hell will break loose.
I think we’re likely to see PSA submissions stopped, stores that weren’t taking PSA will close up first, stores that were taking PSA will close up after all the submissions are returned. This would prevent GameStop from having to compensate PSA for having every single order sent through GameStop relabeled and sent out for home delivery. Sending cards back through home delivery will be less profitable than continuing the system of having cards sent off and returned in batches.
I just don’t think the manual labor of de-batching GameStop cards will be worth it. So I think we’re going to see an endless amount of store closures with PSA submissions being returned by store. But another possibility is that your cards will get shipped to a nearby store. In my case that would mean an extra 30 minutes of driving. In your case it may be even worse since entire geographic areas of GameStop stores may be getting wiped out. I think this is the less likely root than just making sure every card batch gets shipped back to the closing store before closure. I think we should be assuming they’re going to take a path of least resistance here.
Regardless of how our cards are going to make it back the current lack of transparency is annoying and if that continues after store closures are announced everyone will definitely have a right to be angry with GameStop. I mean they most likely already did have a right to be angry with GameStop but now they’ll have a right to be even more angry.
Cheers to you GameStop!