Scalpers became the Pokemon supply chain

Añadido: 2026-05-09

[00:00:01]A year ago, even more and this is going to be a very self-serving video. Year ago, we started to see a move towards increased amount of product going to big box stores, more going to Walmart, more going to Target. And stores could see this. There was a decrease in allocations, decrease in the type of products that were being restocked. All the restocks were going through Walmart, going through Target, and oh boy, wasn't it a wonderful thing that they were able to sell it at MSRP and all the scalpy stores. Um, they didn't have supply, you know, they couldn't buy from distribution.

[00:00:43]Distribution pumped the prices up the market. They couldn't get it below MSRP.

[00:00:48]Great though, great for the end consumers. They could get it at Walmart and at Target.

[00:00:53]This would be great if Target and Walmart and Costco did anything to stop people buying multiple.

[00:01:03]One of the things that you've probably seen, you haven't picked up on it yet, is that when there's a big drop, Costco, when there's a big drop ETBs, uh, destined ETBs at Walmart, there are people out there who will announce, I'm buying X amount at, let's say, 80% of market, more than the MSRP that we're that people were getting. So they'll announce this on Facebook groups, you know, and this was the way it was a year ago.

[00:01:38]People would do that. You'd see a big Costco drop. And I'm buying at X, buying multiple at X. You see this all the time um in the Facebook groups. But I'll tell you, it's also something that's happening behind closed doors, so to speak, in the big circles.

[00:01:56]When you're hearing about stores um buying collections, big stores, the collections are like 100 ascended hero ATBs. You consider that a collection they're buying at large quantities from people who don't have distribution.

[00:02:17]What's that all about?

[00:02:20]These the large this is tinfoil hatty guys. These large large collections are the output of consolidated botting and consolidated organized scalping. Um the car loads of people who run trains at at Walmart if there's a limit or just completely um take all the pallets. There is a huge advantage to like new stores to existing stores to you know vendors to skip over distribution these days.

[00:03:03]You don't need distribution to have a store. Everyone's making their 10% margin. The person who's sourcing is sourcing at large scale. And not just that, they're sourcing the primest of products. If you don't have to go through distribution, you don't have to buy everything. You just have to buy the top products. And you'll hear this a lot. You'll hear this um only buy the top products. Only buy the best. I'm not going to buy, you know, people are talking, do I buy prismatic?

[00:03:34]Do I buy send it? From a distribution point of view, you don't get those decisions.

[00:03:41]You have to buy everything. you have to buy uh um you have to buy tins, you have to buy sleeves, you have to buy collection boxes. You don't hear the big guys talking about that. They're talking about buying collections. And then they say, "I'm not going to buy a collection that consists of onesies and twzies and collection boxes. They only want ETBs and booster cases and, you know, large scale."

[00:04:06]It's because sourcing is completely changed because of this push of product to the big box stores who don't filter how many people how much can be bought that allow botting and allow large scale purchasing. So, what you end up having is a chain of um and you you'll have a chain of bots. Uh and I know I've said there's no big scalping issue, and I'm I'm starting to realize that it's not really a scalper. It's not the guys who are and it's a little bit of the guys that are vending machine camping and and sitting in front of uh clearing shelves. They're a little bit of a fault. And and this is maybe I only focused on this for a little while, but I think the bigger issue is probably the largecale online single product purchasing.

[00:05:00]It's botting out a particular product across many many vendors. You're seeing the buyouts on TCG Player. people just sweeping the floors, sweeping the shelves at a large scale through platforms, through online, buying out, buying things at 90%, at 85%. Getting their 3 or 4%. Once you get 3 or 4% but at a large enough scale, the benefits are there. It's it's that's what what's happening. So the focus on big box stores has actually taken product away from allocation, away from stores, away from restocks at DRO.

[00:05:39]And I'm telling you, us stores, we're the poor boys.

[00:05:42]We're we're um the stores are not making bank. They're surviving and struggling and trying to make advancements. You don't see uh stores getting fancy.

[00:05:53]You don't see play stores rolling out, you know, gold carpets, red carpets, etc. You don't see that.

[00:06:00]who's making the money. Um, large single product, the only the best product, large scale, single product warehouses, um, are likely where a lot of these price floors are being set up so deep and so strong because large money, large amounts of purchasing power and focused, there is no uh, I got to move this set of collection boxes. It's less of a worry. The biggest of the guys are not worried about, you know, moving battle decks that are going to be allocated next week. They're not worried about that because they're not even going to go through distribution.

[00:06:44]They're going to buy 100 ETBs from some ber who's able to sweep up as many of the sources, the online sources that exist, sweeping out allocations from those stores into a single consolidated warehouse and then selling it to as sourcers. Um when people are buying collections they're buying large scale large numbers of single products single types of products highv value products and they're paying 90%. So this is how this focus on big box stores has actually created a problem um in prices never coming down.

[00:07:31]We we used to see um three or four years ago where reprints would do their job and you see that a little bit with surging sparks, you know, reprints kept it from going crazy, but reprints used to, you know, destroy prices, bring them way down.

[00:07:49]All we've seen from surging spark reprints is like stabilization.

[00:07:54]So no matter what, if you don't get these stores where, you know, honestly, Rudy will tell you they're they're they're broke ass Timmy's, so to speak.

[00:08:05]Um, if DRO doesn't get product to stores cheap and stores can't fire like a bunch of Timmy's, you're not going to see prices go down because there's now a swooping large arm army of bots that are buying up everything both from the little stores um, but mostly the best products from the big stores.

[00:08:30]And the stuff that's being left on shelves, um, onesies and twoosies, that's where the small scale flipper skipper flippers and scalpers are surviving. And this is probably what you'll see. I haven't seen an ETV on the shelf for ages. Most of the time, it's those big products that are swept up um the the big, you know, the juicier products that are being cleaned out from the big box stores with no limits and things like that. So when I say to you, you know, buy from the scalpers, what I'm really saying is that there's this this arm that you don't we don't have control over. Uh it's this arm of this force of the market where stores can't source from proper channels, allocation, distribution, restocks, they can't do it. A lot of the big stores have said, "I can't source from Pokemon. I can't buy can't even buy Japanese now. And they're now they're saying collections collections. And uh if you haven't clued in, these are code words for uh middlemen, people who buy up inventory across large uh sweeping organizations, do all the work to collaborate or co what's the word? Coalate into a single uh pallet of ETBs. and big sourcers are sourcing from these uh coalators of the best product.

[00:10:00]And that's how these big guys are maintaining and building their positions on these hype sets and buying out, continuing to consolidate. If they have it, you don't. If they have it, we don't the stores. And then we can't be a Timmy and and fire sale for for barely anything. um they're able to control and able to execute largecale control in the market and it's because of the focus Pokemon has on big box rather than allocation rather than distra. So um it's a bit of a flip but you'll see it all the time.

[00:10:42]someone posting they're buying the new Costco drop at X. They're buying the new uh Walmart exclusive or Sam's Club exclusive at X. These are the people that are collecting everything and putting it in one spot and then you have large scale uh purchasing. This is this becomes the major source for organizations to buy the best product without going through allocation going through DRA. So this is the impact.

[00:11:11]That's the impact and we need to be talking, you know, we need to be saying that uh if you ever want prices to return to normal, um something has to be done about the big box stores, they can enforce limits in store, but until there's a really strong effort like they're doing with Pokemon Center to try to limit efforts, limit limit quantities, um bot armies, these biotes, these TCG players these co you know coalation of only the best product and therefore you know centralization that's going to keep prices high. So what do you guys think? Have you seen these people who are buying all the ETBs at 90% of market at large quantities 100 plus only? Have you seen these guys? Um, I've actually received emails from international companies who are looking to buy from me. They'll send me an email asking if they could buy 60 booster boxes of Fantasmal Flames from my back inventory.

[00:12:21]They're they're trying to find they're trying to find the sources. They're trying to find the the people who are collecting all of this product.

[00:12:31]Now a lot of it is being ripped but there's also largecale movers that are being the source the being the middleman before the end consumers um taking over the role that distribution has played but only for the best products and that's causing things to go crazy. Um hope you guys uh I would like to know what you think. Um do you see this happening? Do you think it's more prevalent than what we hear on the YouTubes?

[00:13:05]Let me know in the comments. Thanks.