Target Employees Told to Call Cops on Pokemon TCG Scalpers
The chaos surrounding the buying and reselling of Pokemon cards has driven Target to tell its employees to consider involving law enforcement.
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Category : Pokemon
The Pokemon Trading Card Game or TCG is currently experiencing a massive boon in the United States, brought on by a renewed interest in the hobby and compounded by resellers. The ongoing chaos surrounding the buying and reselling of Pokemon cards though has pushed Target to direct its employees to consider calling the cops on customers who do not comply with the store’s policies.
Being one of the United States’ largest retailers of the Pokemon TCG, Target has been inundated with demand for the cards by flippers, hardcore fans, and parents. Already Target has instituted special policies for Pokemon cards that mandate all stores only restock cards at 8 AM on Fridays and that each customer can only buy one item.
Those Pokemon TCG policies have not been enough apparently, as customers still regularly form long lines outside of Target stores before they open. To combat this, Vice has reported that some Target stores have begun posting policies that direct its employees to warn customers lined up outside to leave and that if they do not, employees should “determine next steps and if law enforcement engagement is required.”
The Pokemon Company previously stated that it will continue and try to maximize the printing of the current sets that are driving demand, namely Shining Fates, which features dozens of shiny Pokemon. The most notable card from Shining Fates is a full-art shiny gigantamax Charizard, which has an estimated pull rate of less than one percent and is currently selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay. But in weeks and months past, that card sold in the thousands, so clearly The Pokemon Company is slowly meeting demand.
The current commercial success and stock shortages of the Pokemon TCG is an amalgamation of multiple factors. The Pokemon franchise as a whole is currently experiencing its 25th anniversary, prompting old and new fans who have also largely been at home looking for new hobbies the past year to collect. Celebrity influence is also playing a role, as people like YouTuber Logan Paul have been showing off the TCG to their audiences of millions, bringing more people into the fold.
Pokemon cards are not the only product whose supply to consumers is being strangled by resellers. A significant portion of the PS5’s stock has been sold to resellers who charge premiums of hundreds of dollars on sites like eBay. Other tech too, like NVIDIA’s new 3000 series of graphics cards, are experiencing unheard-of levels of scarcity, exacerbated by manufacturing issues with the semiconductors inside of them.
Source: Vice
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