I have to assume the desire to remove the outer wrapping of products is related to the prevention of scalping and reselling, and ultimately deterring people from coming in and buying out all of the product so others don’t have an opportunity. The questions I have:
Is this necesssary?
Is it too far?
Will it actually work?
And most importantly…this is coming from Pokemon directly; is this something we should expect in the future for other Pokemon sealed sales and releases?
I don’t think it’s enough for what their goals are. If a set is good enough, like we’ve been seeing frequently recently, it will still sell out. Removing the wrap just shifts reselling from boxes to packs.
It’s a positive step in the right direction to combat the scalping. However, personally I wouldn’t want my merchandise that I purchased to be opened. Doing this in the USA will be challenging. We wouldn’t have to go through this if the people scalping weren’t so obsessed with making a extra 15 bucks off a etb.
This is right in line with what Pokémon Center Japan is doing to ensure all customers for new JP products are people living in Japan. I imagine TPCi will follow suit with phone verification and other measures in the future to deter botting
I think it’s fine that everything sells out, the issue TPCi has is too many are bought to not be opened which is the intended purpose. Consumption became a commodity
If only Pokemon owned Pokemon, then they could solve this recurring issue by printing more product, printing sets for a longer period of time, or space out set release windows. Until then, they will have to resort to second hand strategies like taking plastic off boxes.
Removing the shrink wrap is a band-aid solution for a larger problem of underprinting relative to demand. It makes people more vulnerable to scams on the secondary market, does next to nothing to deter resale, and ignores the fact that people may want sealed items for reasons other than immediate resale.
However, this is an effective strategy for what I assume Pokemon is actually looking for: redirecting blame for a lack of product availability to amorphous “scalpers” and “resellers” as opposed to their own failures to meet demand.
this will just annoy customers and ppl will still resell them without the shrink they will just make slightly less.
gamestop has done this exact same thing with “new” games for the past 30 years even though no one is gonna resell a game they just purchased and everybody hates them
another issue is that every single product absolutely must come with that cardboard tear off
otherwise the box can easily be opened. for example I’m looking at my prismatic surprise box and there is no such thing
imagine all packs are weighed for a huge outlier… like boom its a god pack so remove that
So easy to get scammed
and yes for resellers it’s worth the hasstle to them when you have god packs from sets like prismatic that are worth THOUSANDS. I understand this is Singapore but the concept remains
I’ve been seeing people say prismatic packs have been able to be weighed, but I haven’t seen much concrete evidence for it. Would you mind explaining this in more detail?
I have seen how you can theoretically x-ray packs with the right filters also.
Adding my 2 cents here: Dosen’t this make it worse?
Not only have we removed a layer of security, but we’ve also allowed easier resealing and switching of packs. Unless I’m wrong, this is used to deter people because of a psychological effect, but couldn’t this simply be forgotten as more and more people get legitimate products from non wholesale scalpers, allowing scammers to more than likely blend into this still occuring wave?
I think the reason that people can detect god packs with weight is because foil weighs a different amount then plain cards, this is why code cards were added to offset the weights and stop weighing as before you could just throw a pack on a scale and it would say 22 grams and you would look at and say well that has a holo, now I think god packs can be weighed I’m not 100% certain though so if someone can correct me if this is wrong that would be great.
Also X-raying packs isn’t practical as the machines cost thousands to get and it takes a lot of time to scan a pack, the original guy that found this made a great video about it
Also don’t forget the demi-gid packs. TPCi could just mass print everything and space out these sets. Seems like every 6 weeks a new set comes out in Japan then it starts the cycle all over again.
Anyway, in his video he talks about how it works and shows the whole process, unless if a godpack is already identified I don’t think they are going to scan it without reason as it takes a huge chunk of time and if you don’t have the machine you have to pay someone else to scan it for you
Well I wonder that too, however, if every source is providing boxes without the outer plastic wrap and if you suddenly come across a seller who is givng you a box with the plastic wrap then it would be highgly suspicious of it being re-sealed.
It worked! All resellers have been terminated, great work team. I heard people packed up their facebook groups and went home. Ebay currently in shambles. Whatnot on life support. Job growth hit double digits in the last 3 hours now that scalpers are going and getting real careers too. Incredible. What a great day for tru collectors.
