“Pokémon TCG (Pokémon Trading Card Game)” has become a collection craze in recent years. Popular card packs are sold out almost as soon as they are put on the shelves. It is no longer news that scalpers resell them at high prices. But what makes players most stunned now is not that scalpers are raising prices again, but that even large retailers have been questioned and started to join the “price increase bandwagon”!
According to reports from Kotaku and Polygon, American chain retailer Target has recently discovered that it has quietly increased the prices of some popular “Pokémon TCG” products. The prices are even nearly 20% higher than the official suggested retail price (MSRP), without any prior announcement, which has triggered criticism from many players: “Are even stores starting to be scalpers now?”
We have just cracked down on scalpers, but now we are raising prices ourselves?
The most ironic thing is that Target has just launched a number of anti-scalper measures a while ago, including limiting purchase quantities, removing product seals, and even requiring ID cards to be shown in some stores, hoping to prevent people from scanning goods in large quantities. As a result, it has now been discovered that the price of popular products such as the “Ascended Heroes” supplement pack set has been quietly increased from US$29.99 to US$31.99 (approximately NT$945, HK$252, RM136); while the official recommended selling price is actually only US$26.94 (approximately NT$797, HK$226, RM115).
Players are angry: It’s not about beating scalpers, it’s about becoming scalpers
Kotaku said more bluntly that in the past, scalpers were criticized for taking advantage of the imbalance between supply and demand to make profits. Now, retailers seem to have begun to realize that since the supply of popular products exceeds demand, instead of letting scalpers make a profit on the price difference, it is better to directly increase the selling price themselves. Target has not officially stated the reason for the price adjustment, so the outside world is not sure whether this will become a long-term strategy. However, after the news was exposed, many players have already criticized this approach, which basically violates the original intention of cracking down on scalpers.
The scalpers haven’t disappeared yet, but the players are defeated by the official price first!
In recent months, the “Pokémon TCG” market has been in chaos, ranging from scalpers’ raids and purchase restriction measures to various preventive policies implemented by stores. Now, even the retailers themselves are involved in price increase disputes. It can only be said that players originally thought that their biggest enemy was scalpers, but they did not expect that the first person to push up the price would be the store where they buy cards every day.