Card shops really don’t make much money and can’t sit on product, Australian vendors like John Dougenis and co. need to dump product at the lowest prices in order to make anything. It costs too much to sell these boxes through ebay and Australian shipping for 1 box is $15.
(It at least helps people like the Ellis brothers shill their raffles)
Then you have people like EB Games who are haemorrhaging money and are shutting down stores worldwide who are stuck with excess product.
They had huge demand for the longest time and now it’s decreasing like the interest in the tcg.
The unlimited print of booster boxes takes forever to come out and only if demand is excessive. The unlimited print run comes out 5-6 weeks after booster boxes are initially released in a product called a special edition, even then the 1st edition print is easy to find.
Sets rarely sell out or become difficult to find. It’s you can find 10+ year old product at the same price it was on release. Most old sets don’t really break $150 a box because the collector culture is tiny and most cards in a given set have no real value.
There’s too much of it
There’s too many wannabe vendors undercutting each other
Collectors don’t want it
Pokemon’s TCG participation is pretty weak outside of regional events
The Pokemon Go hype is dead.
Now I don’t think Pokemon Go has created a bubble for graded WotC but it’s easily a contributing factor for the saturation of new product. The execution and production numbers we see now are the fruit of decisions made at least 6 months ago, but probably longer (I have no idea what TPCi’s schedule would be like or how many wannabe vendors decide to jump into flipping boxes).
I think we’re going to see a lot of people start buying up old product, even if there’s a lull atm for some WotC cards in non-mint/gem mint grades.
Well people with real jobs and sell new product as a side hustle aren’t panic selling but I know a lot of small stores/sites really aren’t happy and are stuck with product they’re making less on.
And it’s just an observation, the raffles are being pushed and people will use their money on them instead of buying sealed product when new sets keep offering people less and less. The example isn’t to single out John, just that there’s too many people like John. Anyone can sell product and that’s what is making it less and less appealing to bother with it.
There’s just too much competition. It feels like every month there’s a new person paying for a pre-built template store taking pre-orders for the next set when the demand for all these vendors just doesn’t exist.
Then we have franchises like Mind Games and Good Games… I’ve even spoken to people managing Good Games stores and they aren’t aware of these people as their competition and especially in the case of GGs, they have no online presence and and can’t a
afford to meet ebay/fb prices.
And when was the last time you posted with Australia post? Costs rise.
You’re paying about $13.11 for registered and $15.58 if you’re using the prepaid satchels and buying them in bulk which I’ve found is cheaper than using my own packaging.
I can’t tell if you are serious or not. I’m very aware of how all the Aussie pages on FB are run and what’s going on. People buy what they want to buy, if they prioritise raffles and auctions over sealed product, who cares?
When was the last time I shipped with Australia Post? Well I sent out 14 satchels, Express Post, on the 19th of this month. 1kg satchels most of them, costing just under $13.50 each (that’s just the satchel component though).
I send a lot through AusPost. In fact, in the last two weeks alone, I’ve spent over $400 in pure postage alone, not even counting the insurance etc.
if I was really focused on Pokemon I’d be putting up raffles for days instead of selling boxes. They can control the amount of raffles they put up because the mods have to approve every one.
It’s good to have a healthy mix of everything though.
In regards to that last post, I thought I’d add some of the reasons being offered up by people. A lot of these people are vendors themselves (most notable of the commenters is card kingdom). The summary of thoughts are:
Distributors or their family members are making eBay accounts to sell more product. This is one that was supported by a few large vendors and the one that seems to make the most sense.
Stock is getting sold under the table by distributors or it’s getting stolen from warehouses. Apparently the stolen stuff is happening for sure but people disagree the scale is big enough to allow so many people to sell so low.
One vendor had spoken to one of the low sellers about why they sell so low and the answer was “We sell these boxes at a loss so we can show the loss and get a tax deduction for it.”.
The general consensus was it’s not mathematically possible for the sellers to be making a profit selling through eBay after fees and shipping if they’re buying through distributors, even at large volume discounted distributor pricing. It’s likely something dodgy is happening, the buy price to make a profit at $80 a box on eBay with free shipping would need to be in the 60s per box, which a distributor won’t sell at for a new set.
Personally I highly doubt multiple businesses are taking strategic losses throughout the year. If that is the goal, there are plenty of easier methods.
Something shady is definitely going on. I also don’t buy the theory of the stolen stuff.
It’s also possible you buy say 2000 boxes, sell 1000 at $5-8 loss and the other 1000 for $10-15 profit at the usual $90 rate. I’m just throwing random numbers here, but I’m pretty sure these sellers make some money one way or the other.
Your 1st theory makes the most sense. Scott brought it up before regarding a ebay seller that was selling new Pokemon product at $79.99 or less.
It’s not sustainable and it’s a shame for most other dealers, especially local stores. I can honestly say I’d rather give $10 extra to support a reputable seller I trust than pay some of these high volume loss leaders, but I’m probably in the minority.
It has to be mostly 1. Maybe a little of 2. Very little 3. @pierce I don’t know if the ordering was intended, but good job on going from major factor to least major factor IMO.
3 can make sense in the Gamestop style situation. They sell tons of product all year for normal profit and year end before they need to make room for new goodies they fire sale it all. They’ve made so much throughout the year that having a loss leader product won’t take them overall into the red anyways for the year. That is not what we have seen this year though. We have seen EVERY SINGLE SET all year from time to time go sub $80. This is not a strategic singular loss. This is not moving dead product. This is presale on every new release. This is an ongoing habit. They are making some money however slight because the product is not going through the proper channels. Every time my distributors reach out to me I send them screenshots back and they aren’t happy about it.
I hear GTS Distribution is the reason for the shady shit happening with the lower than distributor priced boxes being available on the market across TCGs … along with some other dodgy stories, anyone else hearing anything similar?
