The Exchange — Local services in Fairlawn

I've been going here since it first opened. I can't believe it's still open to be honest. I am happy a place like this can stay open these days, but at the same time I'm fairly certain I know how they've managed to remain open all these years...and it's not flattering.

They've always offered worse than or equal to Pawn Shop prices when buying goods from anyone selling. So that is to say, awful prices. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't blatantly lying when they say they won't make much money on item X or Y because they don't think they can sell it for much. Yet the reviews (and my own experiences over the past) are filled with people who later came into the store to see the thing they just sold them going for a 70% or more mark up. That's ridiculous plain and simple.

I was shocked to see how high their prices were for buying things as well which is why I went in yesterday. "Retro" game systems, out of production games, records, and collectibles I can sort of understand. However, Xbox 360 games that are in that sweet spot of not being rare in the slightest yet too old for most people to be buying frequently should not be going for $20-40 still when I gaurentee they bought them for like $2-5 max.

Other options exist like Ebay and even other online retro games sellers who offer much better prices. Yes, I understand the exchange is brick and mortar and thus has overhead costs....but the service isn't even very good so why would I go there and spend my money? I want places like the Exchange to exist, but price gouging the community they've existed in for over a decade or so is just as unfair as me deciding to pay a fraction of the price for the same item online 🤷.

Either have better service, better customer shopping experience, or better prices. It's...

Would give 0 stars if I could. Just tried to exchange a product and I watched the employee play multiple games on my system and then never told me he was finished inspecting it. I was waiting for an hour in the store and finally had to go ask another employee if he was still working on mine and he had finished and no one let me know. He ended up telling me he wouldn’t exchange my product even though he clearly was playing games on it. I heard another employee ask if he could do anything for me for the long wait and he did not. I went in with the intention of trading in my system and making a purchase so I still asked about the price of the item I wanted. I asked about signing up for a rewards card because it offers a discount. He told me it wasn’t my birthday month so I couldn’t have 20% off. Literally a terrible experience, couldn’t give me any sort of a discount for wasting my time and being in there over an hour. Definitely won’t be back and don’t encourage anyone to go there. Employees clearly don’t care about their customers experience here. I wasn’t upset about them not taking my trade in, it’s the fact that he felt no remorse for the wasted time and wouldn’t offer anything to make it right. I don’t even play games I was trying to get my grandma a Christmas gift on a product that isn’t made anymore....

My wife purchased a new switch and several new games from this location. The only used game we purchased used was a Just Dance game. I ended up returning it because it didn't have an activation code. They took it back with no issues at all. I was then asked if we were on the rewards program and after checking mine and my wife's info in their system we determined were not. Apparently with purchases you get points for discounts and future purchases. I signed up and when I got home, I called the store to find out if I could put our recent purchases on the card to get credit for them. The associate (Josh) simply couldn't be bothered with the questions and stated it couldn’t be done. I was surprised since it was around $500 worth of items. When I pressed him to understand why that was, he simply got shorter and even more rude. After looking at receipt for the original switch purchase his initials are on it so that explains why we were never signed up in the first place to the rewards program. He is just simply a bad employee (or not well trained). Even after speaking with a manager (Kathy) she stated their systems couldn’t go back to add past purchases for rewards and there was nothing that could be done. I am very tempted to just return everything and give my business to Game Stop or another...