GameStop announced it will reopen "select" stores it previously shuttered, a move that coincides with more than $20 million in insider stock purchases by CEO Ryan Cohen and a board member.
The video game retailer posted on X on Sept. 10 that certain closed locations would begin reopening the following day, Sept. 11, the New York Post reported. A company spokesperson told FOX Business that "at least one" store, located in Brooklyn, Ohio, was part of the initial rollout. GameStop did not publicly name any other locations or say how many stores it plans to bring back.
The announcement lands after years of aggressive downsizing. GameStop has shuttered hundreds of locations as the brick-and-mortar retail model buckled under digital competition and shifting consumer habits. Reopening even a handful of doors marks a sharp change in direction for a company that had been steadily shrinking its physical footprint.
On the same day the reopening was announced, federal regulatory filings showed Cohen purchased 1 million shares of GameStop Class A common stock at a weighted average price of roughly $20.38 per share. The total outlay: approximately $20.4 million. Board member Alain Attal bought 5,000 shares the same day for about $100,000.
When a CEO writes a personal check that large for his own company's stock, the market notices. Insider purchases disclosed through federal filings carry weight precisely because corporate officers have the clearest view of a company's internal trajectory. Cohen and Attal chose to buy, not sell, and they did it the day before stores started reopening.
Neither Cohen nor Attal offered a public explanation for the purchases, and GameStop did not provide a stated rationale for the timing of the reopenings.
The reopenings arrive as GameStop's sales mix looks nothing like it did a few years ago. Collectibles, including trading cards, accounted for 45.1% of the company's net sales during its most recent quarter, up from roughly 29% for all of fiscal 2025. That category surged 57% compared to the same quarter a year earlier.
The shift matters. GameStop built its brand on used video games and console trade-ins, a market that digital downloads have steadily eroded. Trading cards, figurines, and other collectibles give physical stores a reason to exist, customers want to browse, handle merchandise, and buy in person. A store that sells cardboard and plastic has a different cost structure and foot-traffic profile than one built around shrink-wrapped software.
If the collectibles boom holds, reopening stores to meet that demand is a straightforward business decision. If it fades, GameStop will be stuck paying leases on locations it already closed once.
The store reopenings are only one piece of a much larger play. Cohen has positioned GameStop as a potential acquirer on a scale few expected. The company launched a roughly $56 billion takeover bid for eBay, offering $125 per share in a mix of cash and stock, Breitbart reported. GameStop began accumulating eBay shares in February and now holds a 5% stake in the online marketplace.
Cohen told CNBC that "eBay has the second largest commerce franchise and there's a big opportunity to do something much larger." His plan envisions GameStop's roughly 1,600 U.S. stores serving as drop-off and shipping locations for eBay transactions, along with live sales broadcasts featuring eBay products from GameStop locations. The proposal includes $2 billion in annualized cost cuts within a year of closing the deal. EBay confirmed it received the bid but said it had no prior contact with GameStop before the offer arrived.
Taken together, the picture is of a CEO who is not managing decline. Cohen is reopening stores, buying millions of dollars of his own stock, and making a multi-billion-dollar bid to reshape how Americans buy and sell goods online and in person. Whether the strategy works is an open question. That he is swinging aggressively is not.
GameStop has not disclosed how many stores it intends to reopen or where they will be located beyond Brooklyn, Ohio. The company has not said whether the reopened locations will emphasize collectibles, traditional gaming merchandise, or some combination. And no one at GameStop has publicly explained why now, why reverse a yearslong pattern of closures at this particular moment.
The lack of detail leaves investors and employees guessing. A single confirmed location does not constitute a national retail strategy. Until GameStop names more stores, sets timelines, and describes what the reopened locations will look like inside, the announcement amounts to a signal, not a plan.
Still, signals matter. Cohen backed this one with $20 million of his own money. In a market full of executives who talk about confidence while quietly cashing out their shares, that counts for something.