Trainers All Over are Having a Hard Time “Catching ‘Em All”
Some Pokémon Trainers are taking the catchphrase “Gotta catch ’em all” a bit too literally, and it’s leading to shortages and skyrocketing prices for the collector’s item and regular stock all over the world.
In Saint John, stores are limiting purchases of Pokémon cards because of the increasing demand for the collectors items soaring in value during the pandemic.
“We’ve had to start limiting it to two per person (products) because there’s been a lot of thefts. It’s been crazy,” said a local Toys R Us employee.
At EB Games, they’ve limited the merchandise because of scalpers clearing out their stock, as well as have it under lock and key so thefts don’t happen.
At the start of 2020, when the coronavirus hit North America, collectors of the cards and sets were worried that they wouldn’t have enough to make a living on, as jobs and other sources of income were dwindling. What had happened was the complete opposite, a boom of Pokémon, if you will.
Old fans and new alike were selling, auctioning, and buying as everyone realized the prices were actually rising. “I’m fairly new to the Pokémon community.” new trainer Cole Healy said. “I saw everyone else open packs and get excited to get some sick cards that were worth money, I wanted to get in on the hype too.”
When one product becomes popular and the sales start to jump exponentially, there has to be a plan in place to keep the revenue generating and stock to continue arriving. A plan The Pokémon Company did not have. This led to where we are now, a community full of greed, selfishness, and without patience.
Sellers are increasing the value of card sets by as much as 150$ CAD. Select Elite Trainers Boxes, most of which have eight packs and Pokémon memorabilia in them, retail for $64-$80 depending on the card set and cards which could potentially be pulled, are now going for $150 and as much as $220 on Amazon and eBay. Much of the confusion in the community right now is caused by new buyers not realizing that these prices are inflated, combined with regular buyers who have FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out.
A more recent adversity that the Pokémon community has had to deal with, along with the PS5 and XBOX community, are scalpers. Scalpers are people who buy all the stock at a certain store for retail price, let’s say Toys R Us, and then proceed to sell the product at a higher value to desperate customers, for profit of course. It is an issue that has plagued local and big box stores all over Saint John.
After realizing the massive problem, Pokémon Company tweeted:
“We are aware that fans are experiencing difficulty purchasing certain TCG products due to very high demand. In response, we are reprinting impacted products at maximum capacity to ensure more fans can enjoy the Pokémon TCG.”
