I have not watched many of his past videos. One or two maybe. I watched the entire video from the OP as well as the one I liked above.
Ok, wasn’t sure if you had seen his explanation as to why the box sets are his main focus.
His other videos show that he has indeed bought regular booster boxes though, quantity unknown.
Interesting to get that back story. I was not aware. I see many of his videos linked on the forum, but have only glossed over a few, these Pokemon ones are the first two I have watched (actually really only listened to) in entirety. It was interesting that it sounded like he may have mentioned us? Could have been other various forums he was talking about. Though it is cool to think he may read this thread.
Back to my point though, it sounds like he is fully in this for ROI/highest profit margins. He doesn’t seem to have a love for Pokemon at all, only really seeing it as a business opportunity, which is perfectly fine and I agree that it is. Considering that, I think he is making a mistake if these type of boxes are his main focus over booster boxes for the reasons I outlined above. Hobby or not, it seems his only goal is maximization of profits and I think he is missing out if going for these as his main target. Too high of holding/handling costs as well as lower ROI. Lower product recognition as well as who can name the boxes that came out 3-5 years ago? I can name all the sets and booster boxes, but I dare anyone say they can name all the tins/boxes.
@ozenigma I did catch that he was buying booster boxes as well, but seems more heavily vested in these collection boxes. His intrigue comes mainly from the fact that magic has no similar product to these must be. I think he made just a quick mention somewhere that he was buying 1,000 each of all new tins/collection boxes, and that he wasn’t yet settled on a quantity of booster boxes. I will be very interested to follow him along his journey into Pokemoon (eh pokesyn…?) and will be interested to hear his thoughts expanded upon about booster boxes.
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While my knowledge of these “newer” (Non-WotC) Pokemon Cards is VERY LIMITED; you seem to have a really “safe” strategy. The collection boxes do seem like a much “safer” investment as opposed to booster boxes - at least within the short-term. You purchase the collection box upon release and then piece-out everything (code, figure, promo, and booster packs).
While this is a great strategy for the short-term; what happens when the next Pokemon Set comes out and/or these cards stop being printed and loose there “tournament play” ability? Have you ever been stuck with a lot of back-stock? Take Rudy’s thinking - holding the collection boxes for a few years… I would assume the booster packs will hold there value fairly well - if not increase (maybe?). However, the code-card will become worthless eventually and I would think the promo and figure would drastically diminish in price after a few years and the “hype” of that promo / figure fading away.
I don’t know too much about figures, but are they good sellers, and more importantly, do they hold any sort of value in the long term?
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I cannot attest to long term value, but a quick google search of recent figures will hold your answers. They are a bit of a pain as they cost $2.60 each to ship and ideally go in a small box, but they easily fetch $5-$12 gross each ( for ~$12 think the mew/mewtwo super premium collection figure). Typically in the $7-8 range in my experiences.
@oldskoolpokemon I couldn’t tell if you were agreeing with me or disagreeing. Not sure if you watched the whole video or read my entire posts, but you seemed to reinforce my point with the promos, pins, figures and codes having a better shorter term market than longer term as so many more figure and pin collections are made and the older ones become forgotten or out of favor. This favors the “turn and burn” strategy that I employ over Alpha’s buy and hold. This is in contrast to sealed booster boxes where they become more scarce and valuable over time, lending themselves better IMO to the buy and hold strategy. Sure these collection boxes have the same idea where only a limited amount are made, and more are opened every day, there just isn’t the same demand out there for sealed collectors going after this type of product. Look at how 36 loose packs sell for each set such as phantom forces, primal clash and roaring skies in comparison to the sealed booster boxes. They outperform heavily.
No, I totally agree with your strategy! If I were to ever get into the “newer” Pokemon Cards I would do the same thing - collection boxes over booster boxes. HOWEVER, like you said, that strategy only works when you are purchasing the collection boxes right when they are released, breaking them apart, and selling everything off as quick as possible - because once that next Pokemon Set comes out, sales on the older stuff are going to decline.
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I think that he is more than likely aware that he could make the money now opening them but I think the point he was making is that the fact that just ONE of the THREE different packs needs to spike and he is in the money without having to go through the work of opening/listing/packing 1000 boxes worth of stuff.
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Pokemon overproduction? Boom and bust? Glut of current product? Interesting questions.
Can’t tell if “Char-lizard” is a joke or not. I know sometimes he says “poke-your-mom” as one, but he didn’t have any tells or smirks when he repeatedly says “char-lizard”.
I actually just recorded a video in response to these recent mtg guys talking about Pokémon. Basically it is not a fair comparison.
Mtg is based on players, and serious competitive play. Even the collectible cards in magic all stem from playability. Where in Pokémon, collecting is a separate entity. It is not dependent on playability.
Looking at graded cards alone, there is a more diverse range in Pokémon. The only real market for graded items in mtg are the older/original sets. Where in Pokémon there is a market for graded cards from 1996-2016.
Also, pokemon is simply a better brand. Everyone knows pikachu, it is a household name. Pokémongo, enough said.
Isolating if people are blindly buying new Pokémon Sealed product is a fair assessment, but it isn’t as destructive for Pokémon as it would be for magic. Magic is highly dependent on a new sets success. Where pokemon has a more layered market that isn’t entirely dependent on playability. The Pokémon brand and market is more diverse than mtg.
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I found Rudy’s first few videos of pokemon quite interesting, as I think he had something to teach most of us, particularly in purchasing mass quantities of collection boxes, because they contain a variety of booster packs, and a promo card/figure. And a price increase in one of the items should drive up the price of the entire box. It makes sense long term, as sets always go up in value over time, more than I ever realized, with the exception of the underwhelming BW base and emerging powers sets for now. However, I believe he makes it sound much easier and cheaper than it is, and I don’t like that, it feels untruthful. I understand that he is a large volume seller, but it still seems like he overestimates how much money he can make off the individual items within the boxes, and never mentions shipping costs. The storage costs are also completely relevant with these massive boxes, especially for how long he wants to sit on them. I guess I would just like to see him give a more realistic price break down of the product, to give the audience a better understanding of the profit margins.
I could go on about how I don’t believe it is as profitable as he claims (with non 20th anniversary products), because piecing out even in 5 years time won’t yield large profits in my opinion. I would refer to wowlootsellers on ebay for this, the seller has 36 booster pack lots, that aren’t tampered with. Some of the sets range from the DP series until now, but a ton of these lots don’t sell for anywhere near what a booster box of the same set would sell for, many of the lots are sold for $200 and less, even for plasma sets, flashfire, and the older BW/DP sets. This seems to be a decent way to sell off booster packs in bulk and save on shipping, as marketing them as 36 packs is also helpful. And although TPCi has done well with the varying weights of codes, I think that the future for loose booster packs is a lot worse than for booster boxes, and if it isn’t, you can just break open the box and sell the individual packs. Selling the bigger boxes should work out fine, I just don’t think he can move such a large quantity, without undercutting other sellers, which hurts the market value and shipping is still a pain. I like the concept of these boxes, I just don’t think they offer the best percentage returns, so I think he should lower the quantity purchase substantially, and look into product that is out of print, yet still available at a great price.
If he is going to invest so much money in pokemon, he might as well have a bit of all the sealed product, such as 3 pack blisters, ETB, tins, and sealed 3-card pack boxes (not so sure about the last one). If I were Rudy, I would diversify the purchases even more. I would definitely consider japanese sealed product, especially with the japanese “special packs” as they seem to do very well. If it is possible, getting the European exclusive jumbo card boxes would probably be smart. Maybe even the third party packaged mystery power boxes if they would end up at around $2.50 per pack or less. I would look into random stuff such as the DP collector’s box, I saw some at $15 a piece earlier, flashfire blister 144 pack cases, at $550, generations ETB if he can buy them for cheap (I’m not sure how it works with distributors, I would assume they are sold out of generations etb by now), but I was buying those at about 32 a piece, and would have purchased more if someone else hadn’t beat me to it, and I’m sure he could pay a less, buying in much larger quantities than I have done. He could also buy larger amounts of “better products” such as anything with generations, or sets such as evolutions that are hopefully bound for success, and scale down the amount of “crappy EX boxes” where the EX cards are non promo reprints of ordinary cards, with the exception of the jumbo card. And I’m not sure about Mega Collection boxes, as they do offer a great profit margin dollar amount per box, but not such a high percentage, and just like the tins, are available for a price far below retail during black friday, which largely affects the market on them in my opinion.
Overall I think his investment in pokemon is a great idea, but he has plenty of room to improve from varying purchase quantities on individual products, diversifying products purchased, and keeping quantities purchased private (unless he decides to make an option for patreons to buy sealed pokemon items from him).
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Alpha Investments does have some solid general business advice, but he doesn’t understand the Pokemon market. Buying a shit ton of the 4 pack boxes is not a good long term idea. Granted he gets them at a stupid low price, so there isn’t much risk. Even his concept of breaking them down short term is not entirely achievable. Nonetheless it is still a solid observation for businesses to attempt.
Booster boxes are the best route for new product. I think that is true for most-all hobbies. Whether you are a player, collector, or business, booster boxes have the most potential for everyone.
Ultimately I think Rudy buys sealed product to offset expenses from his other businesses. Which more power to him if that is the case.
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If it was indeed long term investment, this is just essentially what Gary did back in the day, though this is depending on whether in the future these current sets will have the same value to the current generation of kids as the WOTC does for us guys now.
Makes me realize how much of a risk Gary took in buying all those boxes of base set. Who was to know it would pay off in the long-run?
Generations ETBs for 35 and he’s not happy? That’s a better profit margin than all of the Magic stuff he mentioned. Lol
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I ran into this in the past. I ordered 6 cases or so of an ex collection and was a fan of the packs. Ordered 6 more cases the next week and had all crappier newer packs instead. They have done it with more than just the dragonite ones and they do it with tins here and there too.
reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/pkmntcg/comments/5sv8zq/psa_dont_buy_random_loose_sun_moon_packs/This must hurt the primary market as well right? Think it’s interesting what he says about such a company being unable to miss this. Especially since weighing packs is/was such a big deal.
I had left a comment on his video but of course it will get overlooked…
This was nothing new. You could do this in the past. It all depends on what case code you have. Not all sun and moon boxes will have that pattern. Just because nobody figured out how to do it with any of the other recent sets does not mean there wasn’t any order to the packs. They are inserted in somewhat of a pseudo random order so that to make sure a box has around the 12 holo odds per box.
Here’s a video of an older set for reference. In his other videos he even calls the exact specific cards he will pull before opening the packs. So yes, there is order to them, but it depends on the case code, and that will change depending on when it was produced.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_EaX3ibQxU
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@regigigagod I was going to comment similarly. I remember this was more pronounced in HGSS Triumphant. Not sure what will happen moving forward with S&M, if this would change, or if this would remain the same.
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