Tcpi/English Pokemon doesn’t care about kids. I’m not being clickbaity, they just choose to not fix their supply issue. When the waifu bubble happened in 2023, Japan responded by printing more product, and adjusting future releases. To this day, Japanese boxes are much more balanced; every set has numerous print waves.
Meanwhile English has been in the same position for how long, a year now? Their own website (pokemon center) cant keep a single tcg item in stock. Distributors/shell companies are charging double the price from 3 years ago. Meanwhile everyone blames scalpers. Yet somehow japan found a solution to all of this in real time.
I do feel bad for kids whose parents can’t buy product normally. I just don’t think it’s a priority for pokemon. Their clothing offerings on pokemon center show their focus, 1,000’s of items for adults, and 30 or so for kids.
I’m not sure of any collector who’s going to pay $2k on a Destined Rivals BB years down the road when they have no memory of opening it when it came out because there was no product on the shelves to draw them to it?
I’ve heard this by many people and get the inclination toward this, but just thinking about my own experience. I never got a chance to open that many sets after original WoTC/neo… never opened Team Rocket returns, E reader sets, Legendary Collection etc. I would still loooove to open some. The price is beyond me and seemingly irresponsible at this point but just because I never got to doesn’t mean I wouldn’t desire it (if it were feasible/reasonable)
Completely agree with this. I could understand that they did not anticipate this recent boom when it started in late 2024 and were caught off guard for Surging Sparks and Prismatic Evolutions (I guess it takes some time to adjust print runs). However it’s almost a year now and still they are unable to deal with this issue.
Even worse actually when one keeps in mind that they were able to fix basically the same issue in 2021. Sets like Vivid Voltage and Shining Fates were printed into oblivion and saying their prices crashed might be an understatement. Even Evolving Skies, one of the most popular modern sets (that was hyped the weeks before its release) was available everywhere the weeks after its release (even for below MSRP at some places).
I think demand has, inexplicably, increased even further than 2021. I’m not sure how exactly when we’ve already gone through Pokemon Go and the pandemic as major external factors boosting overall interest.
I mean, at this point, who hasn’t heard of Pokemon cards or even Pokemon itself? How did Pocket find even more people to convert? Surely this is it (lol).
I can only think of the Gen 10 being a superb game that would get more converts otherwise I’m out of ideas. And having said that, I really enjoyed Gen 9 despite what the Internet has to say about it, so who knows.
Investors will ultimately sell to whoever is willing to pay at the market price. This applies to basically anything. No matter what one thinks, you’re making a bet on something when it comes to any type of investment. It could be stocks, crypto, Real Estate, Pokemon, etc. I recently sold off a fairly large investment I had that I thought was going to make me a lot more and cashed in what I could. I thought that after doing a ton of research, analysis, etc that it was going to be one of the best things I ever invested in.
It actually was for a while and I did well, but recently the market totally rejected it and I got out of it before it really broke down. Now the market is only willing to buy the investment for much less than it was selling for. Maybe down the line it will sell for more, maybe it will sell for even less. There’s always some type of risk, or there’s also no reward when it comes to investments.
So with Pokemon if the the market buyers don’t think a Pokemon card is worth $100 or $1000 or whatever price a card or product becomes down the line, then no one will step up to buy it and instead they will only pay less instead. We don’t know for sure where any of it will ultimately end up, which is why I believe it’s important to not buy Pokemon strictly as an investment, but to also enjoy the cards regardless of the financial outcomes that could play out.
As time goes on, a lot will change. Sports cards & other collectibles have seen massive growth (& busts) over time, and with lots of new people entering the market as time goes on. These trends have been going on for decades, and so we can probably guess that Pokemon will go through similar waves & cycles unless something really fundamentally changes with the hobby or collectibles as a whole. No one knows for sure, but it’s best to just enjoy the ride and have fun with it because no matter what anything can happen for better or worse anyway.
I guess don’t see those things as the same. I would imagine that stores knowing when to order more product, and that product then getting to those store in Japan would be mountains easier than it would be in America. I used to work overnight at Target and we couldn’t order more product until a certain amount of that product was sold already. So I don’t think there is a “overprinting” option that is big enough because it would literally be the same amount every time that Target could only order once the product is low enough. Because Target isn’t going to over-order, because then it would just sit on the shelves.
I also think there’s a difference in the amount of strictly resellers in the hobby. It’s not that they don’t have a job, it’s that their job is to resell things. They don’t just resell pokemon cards, but also thrift items and whatever else at garage sales or whatever. I have a relative who does it and it’s wild that he has just a garage full of nonsense items to sell on eBay eventually. And I think that sneaker heads and others coming to the Pokemon community is much larger today than however many years ago.
Even still, I would imagine that printing more directly to pokemon stores in Japan, with a population that’s a third of the United States, would be much easier to deal with than doing that same thing with a country as huge as America. You actually might know more on this, but I’ve heard that Pokemon is opening up more printing warehouses in America? Have you heard anything about that? If that’s true then I think that would be a huge help.
Woh, I didn’t know that about the clothing. That’s wild.
There most definitely is. Pokémon Center could have 5x the stock of new releases and still sell out on launch day. LGS are getting small allocations at release. They request 100 boxes, get 5 boxes. The Targets and Walmarts don’t matter. TPCi could go full direct to consumer on Pokémon Center and cut out the big box stores.
Japan printed properly in response. TPCi continues to use large collection boxes and ETBs with wasteful material to slowly trickle out packs.
I do feel bad for kids whose parents can’t buy product normally. I just don’t think it’s a priority for pokemon. Their clothing offerings on pokemon center show their focus, 1,000’s of items for adults, and 30 or so for kids.
I’m not fully convinced by this argument that Pokemon Center has little shirts for kids → TPCI doesn’t care for kids. There’s definitely arguments to be made that the Pokemon Center targets an adult audience and TPCI may or may not care about card print counts for whatever reason, but a lot of the Pokemon Center merch does also appeal to kids, such as the plush or the books designed for younger target audiences. Additionally, the Pokemon Center isn’t the only place for shirt merch. I visited the regionals last week and saw plenty of kids in shirts you’d find at Target or Walmart, at least one kid in this sweater (which to be fair might have TPC to blame), and several in the new regional shirts. While there’s only one explicitly kids size, there were definitely younger people wearing the Gardevoir and Azumarill shirts in what I assume to be the men’s/women’s smalls.
I am somewhat curious if TPCI has ever said if the non English languages have gone up significantly as well, though I believe some of the European stuff was getting moved to its own facility in Europe as well.
The disparity of over 1,000 items for adults compared to 30 for kids is just wild. I’m not alone in shopping on pokemon center for friends/family birthday gifts, I’m always astonished how there are so few options. I think it’s safe to say they clearly prioritize their biggest customer, adults.
Opposite of me, the first Pokemon Center purchase we ever did was a plush for my sister when she was younger. It was also only ~$15 before shipping or so.
I guess more anecdotal evidence, but also every time I’ve gone to a regional there’s always been vendors selling both marked up Sitting Cuties ($25, recent prices on the site are $13-16) and various import plush (anywhere from 30 to 100+), yet I always see parents asking their kids which plush they want or buying a plush for their kids.
The disparity of over 1,000 items for adults compared to 30 for kids is just wild. I’m not alone in shopping on pokemon center for friends/family birthday gifts, I’m always astonished how there are so few options. I think it’s safe to say they clearly prioritize their biggest customer, adults.
I’m not arguing against the fact the Pokemon Center site is targeted to adults; I’m just not convinced that’s a solid indicator that TPCI only cares about adults when there’s so many other avenues of merch.
I understand! I just wouldn’t be surprised if they are targeted their biggest spenders. It’s not unique to pokemon and I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong, Disney adults come to mind. But I do feel bad that parents can’t buy cards for kids. I’ll give pokemon center credit, they do a better job with restocking sitting cuties.
I don’t think demand in the sense of number of participants in the market has to increase in absolute number terms but rather that:
as the average age drifts higher , there is more expendable income entering the market. Those that joined the boom say in Covid 2020 in there early 20s have probably doubled their salaries in their jobs now they are in there mid 20s for example. I myself and everyone around me in late 20s in 2020 driving to early 30s have much more income to spend for the same level of “demand” or desire for cards. So prices drift higher yet my demand is the same.
The longer prices hold or increase, the market solidifies and people get more comfortable to spend meaning even more money expenditure.
Many more avenues have opened up for grading, people in say the U.K. like me feel nervous with all the various paperwork , taxes and duties to send to PSA but now there are so many middlemen or more people being more confident has again turned this element of the collectible market more sophisticated.
The rise of gambling culture , whatnot, card conventions has been huge the past 5 years all resulting in more people but again the same crowd having more convinction in the hobby.
Can name lots of other reasons - but simply put I don’t think the market has to have 1 off big impacts for it to grow but rather a lot of the scene is set for growth to continue long in to the future as we are well past the points of late 2000s early 2010s.
I came to realization that I am priced out on way more cards than I should be. Feels rough that every new modern chase SIR is like $300+. I still really really want a Cynthia’s Garchomp ex SIR or SAR but its too expensive for me at the current pricepoint
