Is there a rough estimate of a print run on a promo like this?
Shush, don’t tell them that! How else will I acquire the Pokémon Center products they’re offering to part with!
I can confirm that the postcards were still in plentiful supply when I was there yesterday, even three hours after the opening shop raid. I imagine they are by far the easiest product for the museum to produce / acquire more copies of and keep in stock. We’ll see as the collaboration continues. Though do note that the postcards at the museum and the ones from Pokémon Center appear to be different, as I described in my post above.
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Well that is typical, I am happy with my own museum set, and if people want I could try to get more. The pens also seem to be plentiful, other merch is still available, but you need to be lucky to be there during a restock.
Whatever one shows the full artwork is better
Who’s going to put a $50 card into a phantom display case? 
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Refresh a website a million times/lose all my pride tripping over people at a museum to get a promo everyone’s going to have OR buy the promo on eBay for $75 in a month. Seems like an easy choice for an adult.
12 and under I get it - we all did it when we were kids when that new game came out, etc.
But I struggle to understand adults (even parents, just wait and buy later). And “scalpers?” - dumbest thing ever - all that time, energy and scumminess to make what - $100, $1000? Not worth it.
Is everyone forgetting that this event will be available for many, many weeks? There will be restocks of the cards and merchandise. Pokemon isn’t going to leave that kind of money on the table - to sell out in 3 minutes and not restock when literal months are left in the event.
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just asking…
is the merch gone for good or will I get another chance at the snorlax goods
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According to TPCi, the merch is gone for good. They mentioned wanting to distribute the promo specifically again in the future but they didn’t say anything about the merch.
Good news is since people probably bought a crapload of merch they won’t use just to get a card, maybe eBay prices will be reasonable.
What I don’t understand about all of this is how the hell the company that generates the most money on the entire planet with its IP has been unable to foresee this, limit sales to one per person from the day 1 and above all, not have the skill or capacity to print thousands or millions of cards when they know there is enough demand to sell them all. Sometimes, I think TPCI has less management capability than the fruit stand in my neighborhood…
That being said, I understand that if they don’t restock the promo, its price will go up because the ones that are already out there are in circulation, right? Another one I miss out on, just like the stamp promos from last year ;_;
It’s pretty insane that Pokemon didn’t have a massive amount of product ready for this, especially given the lessons of the past couple years and the way scream promos have done recently. A lot of the stuff I’ve been hearing about people’s behavior at the museum is sad, but definitely unsurprising.
The Pokemon center release actually went pretty well for me, a lot of people are saying that bots bought out everything but that was certainly not my experience. I was able to get 4 orders through for most of the merch items I wanted. I think almost all of the people on discord who were there when it went live were able to get legit orders through and get at least one promo. Eventually the site just broke down, but as long as you had the links, you were good.
Seems like many people haven’t learned the 2021 lesson yet, which is that the only way to stop ““scalpers”” is for Pokemon to print to demand, whether that’s modern cards, museum merch, etc. I honestly don’t even think there are too many ““scalpers”” to begin with, mostly just fans buying their limit and then offloading a promo or two.
Hopefully Pokemon will make more merch and/or more promos for people, and will learn for the future. I love these collabs and the unique stuff we get from them!
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That would be up to your tastes and personal preferences. Do you want to see the art up close but cropped, or in full but letterboxed? The difference is most dramatic on the Corviknight artwork - here’s a scan of my Van Gogh Museum Shop postcard and a mock-up of the Pokémon Center postcard (based on this official image);
Van Gogh Museum postcard:
Pokémon Center postcard (mockup):
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Going off @fourthstartcg’s post, can someone explain what a link is and how it works? Is it basically going to a listing and avoiding the search function? Does this allow people to get a jump on adding items to a cart before they are activated to appear in a search query?
Also, is it basically impossible to stop a bot?
Yes, for releases like this usually you will need a direct link to the product page. It takes time for the products to load in search functions or in the Pokemon center’s “Van Gogh Collection” page, and if it’s in high demand it may be sold out by the time it’s fully loaded on the site. That happened to a lot of stuff today, but not all. Notably the sleeves restocked a couple times once they had loaded in to the collection page.
Completely stopping bots is hard, but based on what I’ve heard in discord from people who actually use bots, Pokemon Center has effectively the best possible bot detection and blockage. I don’t think you’re ever going to fully stop the usage of bots, but the fact that many people could get legit orders through shows that bots weren’t too much of a problem today.
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I think the limit of 2 items probably should have been lowered to 1.
I know lots of us buy one to keep and one to use or sell at a later date but it would have been nice to see more people get product.
This is coming from someone who was too slow to get anything so there is definitely bias. I would have put 2 of most things in my cart if I could have lol
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really disappointed with the lack of supply of the merch. tried to add items to my cart this morning but kept getting errors at checkout. it’s unfortunate to miss out if you happen not to be online for the 20-minute period the items are available. hopefully resale prices aren’t too insane
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You had direct links to products that weren’t completely listed so I think your experience is not average 
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I tried the direct links to order in discord and wasn’t able to purchase anything. Even the eevee tote which was probably the least attractive item was sold out by the time I tried to checkout.
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i actually saw quite a few people who wanted the eevee tote more than anything else
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It was the only item available when I clicked all the links. The plush was priority but that was van gone!
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