GameStop to Hire 500 Employees in South Florida to Boost E-Commerce
By Julia Echikson September 20, 2021 5:57 pm
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Video game retailer GameStop announced plans to hire up to 500 employees at a new call center in Pembroke Pines, Fla., to beef up its e-commerce operations.
The new customer care facility is expected to open by the end of 2021. A statement from GameStop did not reveal the center’s address, only mentioning that the company had recently signed a lease. GameStop representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which ravaged brick-and-mortar retail, coupled with the emergence of online shopping, GameStop has struggled, reporting annual losses for three consecutive years, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Grapevine, Texas-based company has 4,816 physical stores worldwide, including 3,192 in the U.S. as of this January, according to regulatory filings. Since August 2020, the retailer permanently closed 480 locations.
GameStop’s stock shot up as investors from sites like Reddit pumped money into the company earlier this year. As of Sept. 20, shares have lost roughly half their value since peaking at $347 a pop in January.
The Pembroke Pines facility is part of GameStop’s digital transformation led by its new chairman, South Florida-native Ryan Cohen. The executive has sought to improve the company’s online business by enhancing its customer care with more distribution facilities to speed up deliveries, per WSJ.
Cohen co-founded another e-commerce company, pet retailer Chewy, which recently moved its headquarters within Broward County, Fla. He left the company in 2018.
