For being the most profitable media franchise in the world, The Pokémon Company sure has a terribly constructed system for selling cardboard to their intended consumers. Sets could easily be manufactured to order/print to demand, but they’re deliberately choosing not to.
Attempting to purchase on PokémonCenter’s website only to be met with queue screen mail bag Pikachu north of thirty minutes – until you’re finally granted access to a webpage of sold-out inventory? Attempting to walk into a store to buy cards only to be met with empty shelves? Inflated aftermarket prices everywhere you look? The Pokémon Company is to blame; change without recognition isn’t happening.
The Pokémon Company is enabling these scalpers, the sense of FOMO, and the hysteria with a lack of supply. It’s an opportunity to capitalize and profit – they’re seizing.
I see plenty of posts and comments a day of people upset with others flipping products, but far too few posts addressing the company responsible for the lack of supply.
by PencilandBrush
24 Comments
Buddy said “out of stock”
pikachu taking all the stock.
Dont forget to alot of fraud is coming out soon youll see people getting arrested and pokemon pallets at police auctions. But mj holdings is going to be investigated because they arnt even shipping what theirs supose to be to their own restockers. Talked to my local guy for a bit the other day they havnt sent him any thing since prismatic. Everything he was putting out was back stock until now and hes got nothing. Maybe their lying but im betting not
https://preview.redd.it/mu8ug2f6htxe1.jpeg?width=986&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8362e947de31056417a2c28a72599feb8a9869cc
Lmfao
Settled for eBay slightly overpriced products 😡 luckily was able to snag a 6-pack for like $25
I don’t have the energy anymore to check local stores or wait in line…
The most annoying thing to me is when I do finally manage to get through and the site just doesn’t work.
When the Destined Rivals ETB first dropped, I had one in my cart but literally couldn’t get the cart page to load, and today, I couldn’t even get the page with the TCG products to load, though I’m sure it was all sold out already.
It’s legit making me hate Pikachu, that little shit.
The true killer of the hobby and he’s called
Pikachu – helper of bots
Only job is to keep the regular folk out so the bots can strip everything
I want this as a tattoo personally.
Need to make it a plush
I honestly got more things off the site before they invented this queue. Now I open up the link and then my phone refreshes and I lost my spot.
Agreed. Total shambles. They know how popular it is but simply don’t print enough. I’m sure there’s a lot of shady stuff going on as well with them behind the scenes. I’m just sick of waiting in lines and getting nothing, mean while someone’s in their house with x4000 booster bundles of 151 haha. They need to sort a better system out for sure. Its just very painful trying to get anything.
Still haven’t bought anything but singles from TCGPlayer so far this year.
I lost a box of bulk cards and needed some basic energies in order to play a new deck with my kiddo. I even ended up buying those on the secondhand market. *shrug*
I also got a very nice proxy of that one Umbreon card so I could play with it kitchen sink for under $3 instead of, like, $1400+.
If people refused to buy from price gouging resellers…???
I’ve pretty much stopped collecting, but tbf, I have my old cards from 2000+ incl. base set unlimited Char.
I waited 2 YEARS to buy a Squishmallow at retail I had wanted, due to resellers snapping up stuff. That’s no mean feat considering how old I am (60’s) and have had several cancer scares over the years. No one has the patience to tough it out and wait, they cave to the jacked prices for… cardboard? Or a puff of poly fiberfill?
Hope these people drown in cards, it was not pleasant seeing other collectors and little kids leave the store empty handed these past few weeks where I watched 3 college age guys load about $1000 product into 3 Target hand baskets and check out with literally everything the Excell guy (whom I know from years of having shopped his stops–and BTW NO he does not make arrangements with resellers or I wouldn’t be in the cold either, I never ask, he never offers, which is how it should be!) dropped on release day. One young guy came with his girlfriend and she wanted “the cute ones”–nothing. One father came with his young son, nothing. One father came with his young daughter, nothing. Price gouging resellers are just scum. I always though eBay was for items you’ve had an no longer wanted, not for fresh stock shelf-clearing price gougers. Ah well, capitalism *eye roll*.
https://preview.redd.it/e003vz2xztxe1.jpeg?width=893&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e4a46ac11e4daac7bd513872bc15df2d073c9ea
I have the plush version of that pikachu and it’s gonna give me PTSD now.
I joined the site and was added to the queue before it was posted in the Discords I’m in. I ended up stuck in the queue for nearly an hour anyway, and saw other people who came in AFTER me somehow get quicker positions in the queue and managed to check out. I didn’t get anything
It frustrates me to no end that the biggest franchise in the world doesnt have a shop in Europe. Why do you hate us? Let me give you my money, you weird company
The TCG stock aside
Pokemon center just has the worst customer experience compared to most online commerce stores if an issue comes up.
Literally ordered some stuff (mix of TCG and non-TCG). Had a non-TCG item under 30 bucks missing from the order. Contact them.
Almost a month goes by without them following up.
Contact them again they’re like we’re working on it
Contact them a week and a half later the guy is like
Oh ya everytime you call we close your previous ticket and open a new one
??????? WHAT?
Filed a chargeback with my CC after that.
*Lottery system is the only way forward.
Seeing this guy is just as bad as getting a call for a vehicle extended warranty.
All the “proactive” steps that the Pokemon company is taking is not working. I don’t even know what is the point of the queue system when they should already know that there is scalpers with bots. One scalper with one bot can easily create thousands of artificial queue to help them line up and automatically purchase products. Now imagine thousands of scalpers with the same bot, that’s easily hundreds of thousands of bots queueing and buying out all the products before a legit fan can buy one product.
I don’t know why they can’t have like a raffle system with a specific requirement ~ such as the account has to be a certain age and if the account has previously bought other products before allowing the account being enter into the raffle.
They gotta make the Pokémon Center “You’re Never Getting Through This Queue” Pikachu into a full art card.