I'm a manager at a Kroger store in Washington state. We have a pokemon machine and we get product to sell inside the store. We get restocked weekly and for the last few weeks including today when we got restocked I've pulled a good chunk of it aside and held it at our customer service desk. I do this because we get anywhere from 8-10 people an hour for the whole day (6am-10pm} looking for cards. 80-90% of them are looking for pokemon and I would say 90% of those looking for pokemon are grown ass men who I see pulling out there phones and making phone calls or looking at prices for any of our trading card products. It's extremely easy to tell that they're reselling scalpers. My people up at our service desk can see who goes over to look at our trading cards and if we see it's a kid we allow them to purchase something from our hidden stock. Anything pokemon thats put onto the shelves is practically instantly sold out and frankly we're tired of scalpers Getting it all. First picture shows some of the stuff we put aside and second shows out current stock of items. So far I've made 2 kids extremely happy today.
by thedauntless1991
39 Comments
Bro is playing god with trading cards
What are those Halo cards?
This is something you should just keep to yourself man
It’s not your job to police the vending machine. Some of us are kids who grew up and never stopped loving pokémon. Not all adults are scalpers lol.
https://preview.redd.it/7ka4yxzr2rpe1.jpeg?width=286&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9c7cb2ee880fe9beaf3d97a0c154d5c123548c77
I’m pulling up to your store like this.
“Grown ass men…” So the ppl who grew up with pokemon? Some of the ppl who have been collecting for 25+ years?
Look, I hate scalpers, but not every adult man in the toy aisle is a scalper. Lately, there have been so many ppl in this sub hating on adult men who they can always “just tell” are scalpers.
I buy to rip, and I’ve collected cards since I was a kid. It makes me sad that I seem less welcome in this community now b/c of my age.
This is gonna end up with the reverse of kids asking adults to buy beer for them.
Your heart’s in a good place but I would say you need to rethink your plan.
1. Grown ass men are mainly the people collecting pokemon as well. Pokemon being for children was true in the 90s and 00s and this is why we’re here now.
2. Looking online at prices is not something only scalpers do. Personally I always check prices when finding pokemon products in the wild as they often are very expensive in retail where I live and are not really worth it. I also sometimes look up if there are any cool hit cards because I’m relatively new to this. And that’s from someone who has sold exactly $0 worth of pokemon and has spent thousands opening packs.
Cringe
This is 100% discrimination and illegal my guy. I know you think you are a hero… but Kroger would likely not approve of this practice.
As a public retail store your products/services have to be offered to patron equally.
I dislike scalpers, but gatekeeping pokemon cards from paying customers is just as bad.
What ever happened to purchase limits? I remember a few stores doing that, but not lately?
Just to be clear, you are taking a small portion of stock and holding it back for kids. There is still stock on the shelves (like you said instantly gets cleaned out) and then there is also stock in the vending machine.
If that’s the case feel like people are reading this post like you’re keeping ALL the stock back. If you’re over the age of 10 and you’re upset by this you need to grow up. We all enjoy collecting. We all hate scalpers. Majority of us wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t opened packs when we were kids and due to the recent frenzy of collecting kids are not able to even participate.
If you can’t get cards, move on. This craze will end eventually and we all should have the mental capacity and patience to let it blow over. For a kid this isn’t as easy to understand.
“We collect too” “it was ours first” “playing god” actual get a load of yersel it’s embarrassing. Read the post. Look at the pictures. They’re keeping like 5% of the stock back
I work retail and would be fired immediately if I did that, this post is wild 🤣
You are so dumb man, I get that you want to help but this is not the right way to do it, your store can get sued for discrimination & you can get fired for this. You are about to ruin your career over wanting to be CaptainSaveAPokemon.
lmfao gate keeping products from adult for self claimed righteous.
As much as I hate scalper buying out everything and resell to the ppl in line, what you are doing is not right either.
The right thing to do is to help enforce purchase limits.
You’re the person who hides Pokemon from me when I want to rip it myself at MSRP. Imagine gate-keeping pokemon from people that grew up with it.
Why wouldn’t you just set a buy limit instead of gatekeeping if you’re the “manager” of the store?? Seems sus, he took a pic of his own stash waiting for payday
90% sure what you’re doing is illegal
Plot twist, the kids are the scalpers
Wait till he finds out half the scalpers are the kids lmao
This seems like it shouldnt be allowed
Weird behavior for a store manager and grown adult honestly lol
Some Dad went to the store to buy Pokemon cards for his kid and just got profiled by OP because he pulled out his phone to text “hey do you want pizza??”
When I was just getting into cards, I would check the chase cards of the packs I was buying . To see if I would be sufficiently stoked if I pulled it
I am a grown man and I absolutely pull out my phone and make calls whenever I see pokemon in stock. The calls I make are to my family that have kids and want to collect. Not all grown men looking a pokemon are scalpers. We enjoy collecting too.
I promise you I’m one of those guys going in checking regularly and I promise you I’m not reselling shit. I am ripping every time. IF I even find anything.
While I understand how you feel, I completely disagree with what you’re doing. By your definition, a scalper can be defined as “grown man at the Pokemon section with his phone out” which encompasses far more than just scalpers.
And I’m not sure how you manage to see their screen every time, but let’s say you do catch them looking at card prices. How do you know they’re doing it for scalping? There is as much reason for someone to check card prices as there is to check prices of any other item in your store. And making phone calls. What about it??? Unless you hear them explicitly talking about reselling the cards, there are literally infinite possibilities as to who and what the phone call goes to.
Now I shouldn’t complain this much without offering a solution, so here’s a solution: implement limits to each customer. This is an easy and more effective way to prevent scalping. What you’re doing does reduce scalping, but also prevents the genuine collectors and players from getting cards.
Your kids?
Is this even legal? ×D
Not every person looking at their phone to compare prices is doing it to resell. I buy and rip packs, collect, play the actual TCG. I will still look online to compare because local shops often have ridiculous prices.
Also, how many kids do you think play the actual game the cards were made for? It’s mostly adults who play it because the rules are fucking complicated and elaborate. It’s not a children’s toy you think it is, lol.
Damn profiling is crazy……
Bros probably gonna lose his job over this☠☠☠
Just wanna throw it out: I’m not a scalper and check my phone every time I get to a machine, so, I can filter which packs are there and see which I still need from the sets(I use tcgplayer). Then, I pretty much take a second to weigh out which I’d rather pull and which I feel more likely to pull (Ive had p good luck with shrouded fable, so I’ll grab it over let’s say paradox rift) and buy that.
Cool that Kroger corporate approved this! Wait…corporate did approve of you profiling and unilaterally deciding who does and doesn’t get to purchase which products from your store, right?
lol this didnt land where you wanted it to did it? holding the product and not selling it to the people who want it is insane. whether you think you know whos a scalper or not.
Hey kids… you want to buy some cards?
Anyway, while I appreciate you trying to hold some for the kids who probably can’t check as often as others, I don’t think you should profile the people who do come by to look for cards. You simply cannot know their intentions, and it feels grimy to judge people off age and look alone. The majority of collectors is of the profile you described, and if not, it doesn’t immediately mean they’re scalping either. They could easily be looking for their kids too, you just can’t know. We’re all having a hard time out here, and while I do respect keeping the new sets alive for the kids, try to go easy on the judgement game.
just put limits on how many units of product they can buy. no need to stick your nose in what people may or may not be doing with those cards. adults can be collectors and children can be scalpers.
Put the groceries in the bag bro
Ok but adults collect too, and the way the market is, they may buy a bunch of it, and literally open all of it for their personal collection. Not all adults are scalpers. The majority of collectors are adults.