There’s no reason (other than utter incompetence on the part of those in charge of the supply side) that 25th anniversary card sleeves and playmats should be listed as “sold out” on the Pokemon Center online store within 10 minutes of them going on sale.
I can understand booster boxes and special box sets being sold out almost immediately. But card sleeves? Especially when they are limited to one pack per customer?
Demand is too high. A happy problem for them. They can make more later.
Except they never seem to make more later (at least when it comes to the sleeves and playmats).
I have to wonder what their obsession with that that family deck is. I can only only imagine that they printed 10 times the amount of what they actually needed so are now desperately trying to offload the stock. Some terrible business decisions going in the background there.
Meanwhile it’s possible to pick up sealed 2001 New York Pokémon Center Grand Opening sleeves on Mercari Japan for under $30. There’s a weird obsession with modern product at the moment whilst older products seem to be in lower demand than they’ve ever been.
I think FOMO has a lot to do with it.
It’s probably a good thing to have a cheap entry product readily available for people that have never played the game and want to try it out.
I agree. And I actually really like the family deck packaging.
That’s *your* problem, no? Since when is insane demand (so high, that you sell out of a new release in MINUTES) a problem for manufacturers?
Serious question…do people flip playmats and sleeves???
By this logic, grading companies like PSA wouldn’t have any problem since their service is in insane demand (while the current difficulty in sustaining that demand clearly is a problem)
Just an idea, but with the way the world is, could there be an issue with supply of plastics, resin and such to make the products?
It isn’t *my* problem. The ability to buy a pack of sleeves or a playmat has absolutely no affect on my financial well-being.
The Pokemon Company, on the other hand, risks losing customers who grow tired of being disappointed time and again that they can’t buy the company’s product. The inability to consistently meet customer demand has led to the dissolution of countless businesses.
‘The inability to consistently meet customer demand has led to the dissolution of countless businesses.’ … you want to provide some examples of companies that mirror the position TPC is in right now? Aftermarket prices are soaring at the moment – I’ve seen Celebrations ETBs run upwards of 2.5x retail on my local Pokemon Facebook groups. Expectation != demand
People may be pissed, but I’d wager the vast majority of folks who are angry enough to care aren’t the type to step away from the hobby over something like this.
Difference type of problems, no? An increase in submissions by several orders of magnitude sounds like a good problem to have (if managed correctly), in the same way that selling out of your inventory within minutes is a “good problem to have”.
These are not good problems to have. It is piss poor management, specifically for PSA, taking on so many submissions and creating its own 1+ year backlog. And for Pokémon, they are leaving $$$ on the table by not printing to demand. They need to invest in more printing facilities, or if raw materials is the issue, correct it immediately.
I get that. But it is literally the only modern Pokemon card product you can buy right now at MSRP, and the only product you can buy in stores. They have 80,000 of them ready to go for for the stamp box too. Complete overkill.
I think there are times when TPC lists an item on their website and it is listed as “sold out” before people can even buy. I have seen the same thing happen with sleeves too. I have been constantly refreshing that website the past few weeks trying to get celebrations product and one time I refreshed, no sleeves, refreshed again, and all the sleeves had been listed but displayed as “sold out”. This was a matter of seconds so I don’t think bots scooped them up.
Same thing happened today with the UPC. I am convinced that the American Pokemon Center website gets priority for new products and international products get uploaded later. If this is the case, it would make sense that product is “sold out” as soon as it is listed as Americans got first dibs to purchase before others. Not sure how true this is, just an observation I’ve made since I use the Canadian Pokemon Center site.
I also notice sometimes people on Instagram post a product that had been listed on Pokemon Center, and when I go check the Canadian site it is not there.
*if managed correctly