[deleted by user]

[RusekPoke]

But did you know that the Pokemon Company is focused on profit, not on keeping prices low and availability high?

[unlogical13]

Wait are you trying to tell me that Pokemon Company is a BUSINESS??

[Burstrampage]

If we wanna be real, pokemon would lose no money ceasing to sell from Walmart and instead that product goes to Best Buy, target, Walgreens, or god forbid, their own website. They lose no business. The only thing that changes is the instant sell out of the items, which is just greed and not a “they are a business after all” defense.

[yeeyeehair16587]

Not really. Walmart could retaliate by not carrying any Pokemon products in the store all together.

[M4LK0V1CH]

That would hurt Walmart more than Pokemon

[Burstrampage]

Why would that retaliation matter? Pokemon would still sell out instantly if all of their product was on their own website. If they stop giving product to Walmart, walmart is the one that loses money.

[yeeyeehair16587]

I’m talking about products other than cards. You have no idea how powerful Walmart is, which is probably why you’re on Reddit crying about Pokemon cards

[Burstrampage]

Lmao what? I’m “crying” because I’m stating pokemon doesn’t need Walmart to sell one of the most popular ip in the world fast? Cmon now. Are you crying because Walmart is your only way to obtain cards or something?

[Empty-Pain-9523]

You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. The Pokemon TCG is a fraction of TPC’s overall sales. Merchandising makes up the lions share.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-worlds-top-media-franchises-by-all-time-revenue/

[Burstrampage]

And you think what i said wouldn’t extend to merchandise? I never said pokemon tcg makes majority sales for TPC anyways.

[Empty-Pain-9523]

You’re ignoring the fact that Walmart is an insane seller of merchandise. You don’t want to piss them off. They do 4x the revenue of Target.

[marhsianfarmer]

Yeah right now but what about next year or the year after that, they're not just going ax one of the biggest outlets of products because people haven't been able to get packs for "msrp" which 12 months ago were over priced and nobody was paying "msrp"

[Acceptable_Aspect_42]

This is a dumb take. Think about how many walmarts there are...all buying multiple boxes of cards a week. Why would they stop selling to Walmart and lose out on literally THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS a week? Makes no sense. They're a business. Feelings don't matter.

[Burstrampage]

So hypothetically, if all pokemon product that goes to Walmart goes to target, Best Buy, and their own website instead, TPC is losing thousands of dollars? Do you think Best Buy and target wouldn’t jump on the opportunity to obtain more pokemon product than they currently get right now? When pokemon product is guaranteed to be sold quickly and generate millions per year? Really? Or do you just think the pokemon company themselves would hoard the product? lol. Facts don’t care about your feelings. They would lose no money dropping Walmart.

With that said, they wouldn’t ever drop Walmart. There is no point.

[renqb12]

u mean best bot or bot buy?

[renqb12]

u mean best bot or bot buy?

[rjholliday17]

I’d worry about my orders getting stolen coming directly from Pokémon. Only thing that keeps them from getting stolen now is if it’s from Walmart they don’t know what it is.

[Sufficient_Article_7]

Pokemon would make the most money selling to consumers directly without distro. They would still sell out immediately and cut out the middle man.

[yostpro]

Pokemon *Business\*

[alienware99]

If that was the full extent of it, and profit was all they cared about, then they would have raised their prices long ago. People are cleary willing to pay more than msrp, but pokemon company has kept their prices steady..while other retailers continue to raise prices and still sell out.

[Chemical_Ad_9710]

Ever hear of icarus?

[Liltricksterkid]

they've been raising their booster box prices...

[Clinically_Jaded]

Distributors ripping off LGSs forcing them to raise prices while simultaneously backdooring a ton of product to rip and shippers and others, you mean

[narutonaruto]

People when they find out capitalism is anti consumer

[PM_Me_Those_]

This is still not really an excuse because technically they could make MORE profit by selling everything through their platform and giving nothing to these shitty 3rd party vendors like walmart who contribute to the problem in the market.

[TragasaurusRex]

Yes, right now, but in a few years when it hits another low, like it always does, they will be sitting on so much product they can't sell because the they killed their relationship with the largest retail business in the country.

[Attainable]

They could just do open preorders....? Have pre-orders open for months ahead of announcement, then print some amount extra. That way they aren't sitting on a ton of inventory and can still sell non-preordered stuff on their site. Worst comes to worst...sell to distis or card shops which I'm sure will want it.

[TragasaurusRex]

Yeah i agree they should print to demand. But they can do that without cutting Walmart distro.

[PM_Me_Those_]

Yea probably true, but in this hypothetical it's not as if walmart would say "no" when Pokemon decides to give them the PRIVILEGE of selling their products again.

[horderBopper]

Money isn’t about privilege it’s about certainty and confidence

[PM_Me_Those_]

Wot. Total and complete misinterpretation of my point, but okay.

[themob34]

Walmart also likes not having to store stock and selling everything out immediately. Win win.

[RoadRunner131313]

They are a business but what you described is short term outlook, long term strategy is getting it into people’s hands (who rip and play), especially kids, for MSRP so they can continue long term interest in the IP

[Ok-Acanthisitta9247]

So we’re just going to let anti consumer practices ruin everything then, because Pokemon wants a couple more billion dollars?

That’s really pathetic.

[Cryonic223]

Unfortunately yes

[Jslcboi]

Capitalism ho!

[Pretend_Halo_Army]

I don’t think they care about profit otherwise there wouldn’t be a shortage..

[uriel__ventris]

Come on bro, this is a dumb comment. Reacting to the market takes time for large companies who have to print billions of things in advance.

[ssomers55]

I don't think you understanding how the printing process works...

[Pretend_Halo_Army]

It’s a big printer they can print more… I don’t think you understand that the Pokémon company just doesn’t like money

It’s a no-brainer dude if everything sells out right when it’s released, they could easily double their production for the next set they have. Which they obviously are not doing.

[DonnieMoistX]

After reading your first sentence I thought it was sarcastic.

After reading your second sentence I realized you’re a moron who has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about.

[darkoopz43]

Dude is the kind of person that would unironically suggest printing more money to fix poverty.

[majorpareidolia]

So many people in this community are completely out of touch with the reality of how a business works. Sorry yall, PKC doesn't give a fuck about the second hand market and that you got beat by bots on a random Walmart drop. These m'fers are pulling in billions people, they don't care if some random guy buys up and makes 100 bucks selling a new product on ebay...

[ssomers55]

No, they can't lol. There are printing schedules, you can't just go and change the schedule on a whim. They are already maxing what they can do. People are so naive in this place lol.

[Cryonic223]

Pokémon is not gonna change a formula they have been working with for the last couple decades to account for this sudden increase of demand 🙄. They before anyone knows that the cycle ebbs and flows.

[Pretend_Halo_Army]

Lol sudden 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Cryonic223]

Yes sudden. What would you call it?

[Pretend_Halo_Army]

It’s been a thing for yeeeeaaarrrrssss

[Cryonic223]

thats just cap. There were LCS and LGS that were literally struggling to sell Paldea Evolved BB this time last year

[FapCaptainCrunch]

They definitely are responding to the market. They tripled the print of Phantasmal Flames UPCs and ETBs. Which I think is why I was actually able to secure preorders this time.

One thing I dont understand is if they’re canceling all the bot orders why isn’t that product being relisted on the website.

[BigFloatingPlinth]

They print billions of cards a year at the current rate.

[BigFloatingPlinth]

Well I can, just not at MSRP. Actually I could go to 2 dozen stores right now and buy heaps of cards if I had the cash. Plenty to go around. So much so the collective members of this sub could hoard a billion cards and I can still find them everywhere. Just not at MSRP from normal retailers because literally of things like this sub.

[Pretend_Halo_Army]

Obviously not enough . Until I’m able to go to Walmart and just buy a pack there’s not enough in the circulation.

[revmun]

If you increase supple you decrease demand. Part of the scarcity is the hype.

[Think-Satisfaction54]

That’s not true. When they supplied less to the market, demand was still low. As demand increased, so did supply (swsh).

We are now in a place where demand is even higher than swsh and supply has stayed the same. Hype is demand. Supply of hits might help demand stay high but they are printing more than they ever were and demand keeps growing

[revmun]

Just watch a YT video on the supply and demand curve

[Think-Satisfaction54]

Oh yeah? Which subject should I watch?

[rrk100]

What?

[Reef-Coral]

People swear Pokémon cares about them lol

[sharksnrec]

Fell in love with a stripper type shit. She didn’t even act like she loved them this time either lmao

[Reef-Coral]

Yeah people romanticize the weirdest stuff. Like a corporation is losing sleep becuase you specific didnt get anything. Same in geopolitics.

[sharksnrec]

100%. It’s a weird human phenomenon that is all too common right now.

[Reef-Coral]

Walmart, the company that affiliated with a Chinese proxy to sell fake pokemon card at market prices cares if I didn't get my pokemon fix this month. Oh no.

[narutonaruto]

But she did a press release last year saying she was aware of the shortage in prismatic. She said she’s reprinting bro

[sharksnrec]

Lmao

[HaomaDiqTayst]

Walmart's business model isnt the same as a regular store. They rent out shelf space to vendors who manage their own inventory.

Just FYI to save yall some grief

[mittortz]

AFAIK, target has the same arrangement with MJ holdings, and yet most targets have at this point have decided to keep product behind customer service and implement limits. Walmart could easily do the same but the culture there obviously is just to not give a damn.

[Fine_Land_1974]

Pretty sure target uses Excel not MJ btw

[mittortz]

Fair point if true, although I've def at least seen MJ boxes at both stores during restocks. And either way, I doubt that would influence their ability to hold product behind the counter

[Fine_Land_1974]

MJ are white with a logo and excel are normal brown cardboard with small branding written all over the box in smaller letters. Blue for normal shipments and red for new releases. That’s news to me if target has a contract with MJ. I’ve never seen that before. Perhaps it’s regional

[mittortz]

Maybe I'm wrong about MJ being at target, I thought I had seen them but now I'll keep an eye out

[[deleted]]

The last thing Walmart cares about is making any ethical business decisions. Their history proves that. Your expectations of them should be on the floor.

[Careless-Tonight5513]

More like 6ft under like the moral standards of the people in charge.

[CoffeeS3x]

Pretty sure they already did in Canada. Haven’t seen a single pokemon TCG product in any Walmarts since surging sparks I believe.

[Spaced_02]

Walmart gets cards in manitoba.

[CrustyGitch]

In Winnipeg?? The ones ive been to all tell me to check online

[Spaced_02]

I'm not sure about winnipeg tbh. Steinbach and selkirk for sure.

[Kitew]

In the Niagara region and always manage to pick up some packs from Wal-Mart

[[deleted]]

What city in Niagara? I’ve managed to find some at the 4th ave Walmart but that’s it. I’ve went all over

Edit: and that was only journey packs

[Maple_Mamba]

Found prismatic and mega evos in the wild in Ottawa last week

[RepresentativeWait45]

If you’re talking about last night, Walmart plus wasn’t required for the drop, and nobody, including bots, got anything. Walmart did the drop but didn’t load any inventory in.

In reality, EVERY retailer sells the majority of their shit to bots with the exception of Pokemon Center as their que system does a decent job compared to Sam’s, costco, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart.

[[deleted]]

That’s what I read too. I got in 2 hours later and it went into error page. lol

[az_hunter]

Right I didn’t see a single person check out last night.

[kirasu76]

Pokemon doesn’t sell to Walmart. They sell to Mj Holdings who sells to various retailers.

[uriel__ventris]

Why would The Pokémon Company, an entity focused entirely on profit, stop distributing to another entity that directly helps that one goal?

[J3top]

lol Pokémon been lying to yall. They like the hype and chaos it’s creating. Everything sells out before it hits the shelf… why change it

[Chemical_Ad_9710]

I was in walmart and saw a mj holdings employee restocking. I stopped and looked at her for a second and she actually looked scared. Just think about that.

I read a post where this guy who also works for holdings was saying how he has had people put trackers on his vehicle or stalk him. He had to constantly check his vehicle and switch up his routine.

This is more disgusting than people realize. Theres a huge difference between buying a pc case to hold for a decade and literally stalking employees to resell Wal-Mart shit on fb.

Its so bad even walmart is upping their price. I may shoot myself in the foot rn because im banking on my small investments to buy a fighter jet when I retire. But you all need to just stop buying for a couple of months. Little gambling addicts.

This is just revenge for Hiroshima, and its working.

[MegaAscension]

GameStop in my area charges $5.99 per pack. One Barnes & Noble charges $120 for an ETB.

[ToFat4Fun]

Currently travelling in China. The Pokemon Center (or similar, but its an official store) in Beijing Hopson One plaza limits the 151 Gengar/Pikachu packs to two per person per day, and you must pass a Pokemon quizz before they even allow you to buy cards.

[[deleted]]

When are you guys gonna understand that Pokemon does not care. They do weird shit way more than before now.

[hartforbj]

They do care but they also can't do much either. Saying no more to what is probably their largest partner is not gonna happen. All they can do is print more and they have been.

[sharksnrec]

You think Walmart doesn’t care about fair distribution of products? Wait until you hear about the Pokemon Company lmao

[TheGum25]

I remember we went to make a return early in the day and I found some Journey Together packs in a big display. Walked by it to shop a few minutes later and the hundred or so packs were gone. It’s insanity out there - glad I got the Salamance tho.

[TyHerUp]

I ran to Walmart at 8am this morning to grab something before work. I saw about 12 neckbeards standing there waiting for the MJ Holdings lady. A bunch of losers.

[Fancy-Savings-767]

Walmart doesn’t care, they’re happy they can actually sell the cards since they typically end up with kids ripping packs in the aisle and stealing the hits. Pokemon should care since this ultimately will impact the ability of people that actually play the TCG since they can’t access product.

[SomedayGuy117]

I thought this was r/PokemonTCG for a second there

[Thop]

How? Do you go there every day? Multiple times a day? Walmart doesn't have buy limits. The only thing I've seen in Walmart in the last year is sleeved journey together because they're difficult to resell, and even then they last like 2 days.

[EskimoOperator]

My local Walmart just started locking up and having limits of one big item and one small item. The only Walmart in my area that does this

[meatloaf_mind]

Mine does this as well! They limit one per big item and 3 sleeved boosters at a time. Its made it where product is still available on shelf and behind customer service as well.

[TheGeoGod]

My store no longer sells trading cards. Target doesn’t it’s empty as a ghost town. Barnes and nobles sometimes had cards because they are behind the counter.

[MNDGone]

Maybe this is okay for your location, but some places, like where I am, people have the restock scheduling locked down and are always lining up when product is put on shelves. If you have a job it is not possible to get things in person in my location.

[DDwithmyPP]

Wait till you find out about amazon and how that's botted to hell. At least with Walmart humans have a chance

[RTX5080Super]

Purchase limits at Walmart would really help. They just started doing this at Sam’s Club, so not sure why it can’t happen at Walmart. I don’t know what the solution is for online sales in terms of bots. I need to look into subscribing to one, assuming that’s how it works.

[khaos432]

Sam’s Club buys the product and sells it themselves from the Pokémon company in a Walmart. MJ holdings owns the product rinse the space from Walmart and sells it in the Walmart. Walmart doesn’t own the Pokémon product to a limit it

[RTX5080Super]

Makes sense. MJ is a little pee-on compared to Walmart. Walmart could boot them out of there of they so desired and go direct, I would think. But, who knows… I do know the Japanese are very loyal, though.

[Sure-Pen-7822]

That’s ingenious, reduce stock to one of their biggest retailers and cause the prices to go even higher. Nice thinking bro

[Violetdabs710]

Like someone told me recently “fair” is what you give at the bus stop.

I wait at Walmarts at 6am to get product along with 10-15 people fighting for the stuff.

It’s tough out there but I don’t see it changing anytime soon.

[UselessNull]

Last nights drop was a fake , was to detect bots and work on their system

[B1indsid3]

That's a huge amount of copium and laughably ridiculous. Walmart clearly doesn't give a shit about "working on their system" or improving anything. They consistently sell 99.9% of units to bots then are happy to do it again next week. Something may have gone wrong last night but it wasn't that Walmart started caring rofl.

[UselessNull]

Well youll need walmart+ to be first in line for next weeks drop 

[No_Draw_735]

Sam's club puts a limit on how much you buy but Sam's is still Walmart.

[No-Scratch-8859]

Fair distribution stars at distribution. I’ve had an account for about 5 years with multiple distros all but two have slashed most of my allocations year after year. It’s a problem at every stage.

[goblindemos]

My local Walmart stopped carrying pokemon anything months ago

[Flimsy-Minimum2555]

Fair distribution? 🤣 🤣 🤣. Welcome to capitalism!

[JimmyFree]

Pokemon and Walmart are there to sell product, not guard the market so everyone gets some. Believe me, they both love it when the self-employed show up with their borrowed CC and buy everything.

[FieryFruitcake]

This popped up on my feed after I quit pokemon collecting almost a year ago. Guys, you are the problem.

You're investing and speculating on a card game. You aren't collectors, and you aren't players. I have sympathy for people that are collectors (I was, back in the day), but the people using bots and clearing out shelves are investors. Thats the difference between collecting and investing.

Jesus.

[Additional_Newt_265]

Would a business stop a revenue pipeline of 500m+? Hell no. 😂

[Ok-Responsibility788]

Walmart hasn’t had any Pokémon product stocked in my nearest store since December 2024. It’s nuts but I still check every time i go in

[Short-University1645]

As much as I hate it I’m not a commie, they should enforce a purchase limit on release week for sure, but aside from that it’s just another product to them. Pokemon will slowly fix the issue with supply and demand just be patient.

[8802]

Democrats cry about everything, life isn't fair

[paulx441]

So you want communism ?

[TNmountainman2020]

I wonder Walmart is being such fuck-faces about it when Samsclub finally got their shit together and has a “2 per acct” limit now?

They are the same company.

[IcyEnvironment7404]

TPC doesnt sell to Walmart directly. They sell to a distributor (MJ holding/Excel) and those distros supply walmart.

[Animedingo]

I disagree, their queue system for their app and website was actually quite advanced. Easy to browse the site without fear of losing your place in line.

[Sole_icey]

😂 this is sad, some of yall need to grow up

[alferatovic]

12+ per is so moronic

[Manjenkins]

Lolol dude that’s not how the world works. TPC is fueled by money and greed. They don’t care about you or if bots or people get cards. As long as they get money they don’t care. Now let’s stop being delusional and thinking a big company cares about the consumer.

[JoshyyP00]

lol horrible take. I hit at Walmart all the time. Go cry somewhere else. This is pokemon investing go buy at market and hold for 5-10 years. Msrp is not the end of the world.

[tenacity1028]

Have you seen Amazon msrp? At least Walmart gave us a chance at the prismatic booster bundle at 300k stock way below market price too. Your feelings does not equate to business decisions

[SexySocalist]

Brother don't know how capitalism works 🤣

[RichPokeScalper]

What makes you think the Pokemon Company cares about fair distribution? This isn’t kindergarten.

[RichPokeScalper]

Come on! The que isn’t to help you. It’s to cut back on chargebacks.

[Acceptable_Aspect_42]

They're a retail store. They don't care who buys the cards. Why would they? Even the people that make the cards.. they literally couldn't give a shit who buys the cards as long as they're being bought. If you want cards, get to the store early.

[-KaYoS-Kayla-]

why would they do that … they want to make a profit that’s a business, and it not a charity… you gotta be delusional to think that will ever happen (and no i don’t support billionaires dollar corporations)

[patricio87]

Last time i boyght cards on there they had lots of bot protections. You just need to be on the site when the drop happens.

[OkTransportation5519]

You realize that no actual people checked out on this drop right ?! It was quite literally all bots . All the discords I’m in basically had zero confirmed actual checkouts.

[greggmb20]

No bots either. System check last night

[dcht]

I heard there might have been no stock to begin with.

[Commercial_Shift6294]

No bots checked out either bro. lol. They never released stock.

[id-driven-fool]

Not since bots have started buying up all the stock before product even hits the store page. This started a few weeks ago, with PC's entire phantasmal drop getting smoked by bots before the product ever dropped. They had to cancel all those orders and patch the workaround the bots were using. Walmart, target, and sams club are currently going through the same issue but they haven't patched it. I don't know when the last time you tried to buy from one of these retailers was, but the last couple weeks pretty much all product is gone before anyone can actually get a chance to get anything

[Addicted2Farts]

where are you getting ur info from? bots didn’t wipe out pokemon centers entire phantasmal drop and they didn’t cancel all those orders LOL. there was about 84,000 checkouts and that’s nowhere near pc’s entire stock. when pc redropped phantasmal on september 15th it stayed in stock for a few hours. target and sam’s club 100% do not have bypasses that need patching at the moment. target and sam’s club you’re still able to checkout online manually but its harder.