The Question of the Day is a way to facilitate community discussion to help members ponder the unanswered questions of the world that are somehow relating to the hobby. Questions are many times open ended and up to interpretation. Feel free to post your thoughts in as much or as little detail as you’d like.
Helpful Considerations may or may not help some people focus their answer, these are blurred to not bother those who have their own ideas.
Today’s Question: QotD: Distributors holding, Pokemon not printing, scalpers botting. Who is to blame for the mess we’re in?(This was a suggested question to rustle jimmies)
Helpful Considerations: Influencers? Hoarding collectors? Sneakerheads? Straight to the top manufactured supply issue by a company that brings in billions yearly? Poor bot protection at drops that could be raffles?
Pokemon, for sure. If they were really printing to demand, every set wouldn’t be seeing 2x-3x markups at launch. There would still be a premium but not like that
I’d lean towards sealed collectors/investors. I have no issue with people spending their money however they want, but I have to think that was the one aspect TPC probably underestimated in their demand projections.
The amount of posts I see with completely random retail product sitting on someone’s shelves is surprisingly high. If the average buyer is buying 2-3x what they typically would to keep it sealed, and is also product agnostic since they see it as an “investment”, it’s going to limit availability.
I don’t know who is to blame, but TPCi is the party who has the ability to solve these issues. They can tell distributors to stop hoarding product, and they can meet, or get closer to, demand.
If the printers are turned to 11 and they can’t print any faster, then they can space out releases more so there isn’t some hot new set every couple of months.
Also, make pull rates better with less bulk. If you can complete the set by opening a couple of boxes then people will have less incentive to buy it. That doesn’t necessarily mean TPCi’s sales will decrease because they’re not even the ones capturing all of the demand—a lot of it goes to the secondary market.
How do you square that with the official game format? You cant really space them further apart without seriously effecting rotation schedules and tournaments.
The Pokemon Company is solely responsible for bringing product to market.
Do they consider it a mess though? Or does market chaos actually help achieve their goals? Cyclical market conditions that fans consider a “mess” could easily be resolved if it was in Pokemon’s interest to make it happen. Very few businesses own a product that even comes close to selling for above MSRP on the secondary market right after release. So long as these market conditions last, Pokemon guarantees unlimited liquidity (for themselves).
Pokemon already bought MPG and they could buy more, if it was in their interest to do so. They could overbid for printer space at other printers too. This is a problem that money could solve. “But the printers are full!” is propaganda to appease the low-spending consumer.
I might be missing something but I think that would only be an issue if they wanted to release the same number of sets per rotation.
For example, instead of 12 sets with one coming out every 3 months, maybe 9 sets with one coming out every 4 months (numbers are just to illustrate the idea, might not be accurate).
I realise sets are locked in well before release, so it wouldn’t be a short-term fix. It’s also difficult to plan something a year or two ahead based on current demand, but the downside in that case would be that product is too available, rather than not available enough.
In my opinion the current situation causes this, not the other way around. Similar to the scalper problem. If there were enough product to go around, there would be fewer investors and scalpers, and those that would still invest wouldn’t really affect the market. So much product is created, the hoards of people with a closet like a Target shelf shouldn’t even be a drop in the bucket. And the people that invest Rudy style are so rare, they can also be ignored or counted as another of the hundreds big box stores that sell product.
I think the issue is simply supply combined with this wild culture going on now around hobbies, especially collectibles, doubly so for those that can be speculated on. People struggling in the current economy and the greater saturation of gambling has helped push more and more people to try to turn these hobbies into a revenue stream.
TPCi is to blame from this aspect: Any card product that isn’t Battle Academy sells out instantly. Tins, collection boxes, anything. TPCi should only do booster bundles, booster boxes, and check lane and 3 pack blisters, and ETBs could be shrunk by not having energy cards. These collection boxes with excess packaging isn’t a great ratio of product received vs energy to produce that product. Pokemon does not need good marketing to fight for retail sales. Just put Pokemon on it and it will sell, atleast in the short term.
Summary - print fewer junk cards (energy, code cards, etc) and print more hits. Cut down on packaging and space required to ship something.
Its a chain of people at fault. TPCI is trying to print, but it always needs to be more. Distributors want their share of profits, and make it difficult for LGS’s to sell at a reasonable price. Investors are a big problem because of the sheer amount of sealed product they buy which creates a environment for the scalpers. Then we have the scalpers which create FOMO, and drive up prices in general. A real issue is that people want their own share of the greed, and people want to point fingers at another party Ive mentioned. I believe it will all work itself out in time. Unraveling the chain, and prices will be where they should be which will get rid if the artificial hype alot of people have. Money can be a scary thing sometimes.
Im not sure there are tons of sealed investors (Surging sparks - Destined Rivals)
Just because its not really possible to be hoarding like they did last year. I mean if they’re forced to be paying market and market is 275$ for DR, all of the people I know who did/do this would cut back a good amount.
I dabble in modern sealed stonkage and I have cut back to like 5% of last years buying
(This means this is the best era to invest in since sliced bread)
(Lurkers please done listen to me, I am kidding)
It has to be frustrating for TPC too. Im sure the goal of any business, much less Pokemon is to make money, and not let others take advantage of their product. With alot of people trying to essentially be their own niche money maker Im beginning to wonder the lengths at which TPC will go to stop alot of it. I read somewhere that the vending machines are going away in specific areas. I wonder why
They just couldn’t let the Hobby die a peaceful death after 2003. Because a minority group of tuff nerds kept it alive, we now have the Hahbee. #strongnerdscreategoodtimes
This is a great take! I only disagree with the propaganda bit, as I think printers are genuinely full, it happened during the 90s boom, but I completely understand what you mean, and agree with the sentiment. Pokemon simply doesn’t prioritize this as an issue. They ultimately benefit from this fever demand. There is no downside for them.
As for addressing the QOTD, every other villain in the food chain only exists because of shortened supply.
