Everyone Is Selling Pokemon to Each Other... The Big Reselling Business

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Hey, what's going on everybody? DJ from DJ's Poke Center here. So, I just finished the alpha investment video. It was a Pokemon video, which is great to see. And I believe it was titled the world's largest Scarlet and Violet Pokemon Collection, $17 million.

[00:00:15]Something to that effect. Maybe it's not in the right order for the title.

[00:00:18]Mindblowing. If you've not seen that video, wow. And, you know, it definitely spoke to me in a lot of ways. It really just helps you articulate your thoughts and the the way he says things and obviously he's been doing this for what two decades now or pretty close to two decades. It helps it helps me think and I think I'm going to title this video something like is running a Pokemon business good for you or selling Pokemon good for you or something to that effect. I'm not sure. But it really sparked a lot of ideas in my mind and as you know I talk about churn and burn, right? because I need cash flow for the business. It's a brand new business, right? I just started this business in October and we did just get our first DRO package. Now, no, no, no Pokemon cards or anything like that, but if you want to see a video about that, I would love to do that for you, but only if people are really interested. It's going to be like toys and other stuff that I got, right? That sounds interesting. Let me know. But he mentioned churn and burn. I'll probably churn and burn is not the best way to make money. And obviously, as someone who's turning and burning, right? meaning I buy and I sell and then I try to replace that very quickly and then sell that again and repeat this and the quicker that you can get rid of this inventory the better.

[00:01:36]However, if you end up sitting on this inventory if if you know things aren't selling as fast like for example Sword and Shield it doesn't sell really fast depending on what it is. There are some things like Brilliant Stars but you know Fusion Strike I have a really minty Fusion Strike box on the store and it doesn't sell even though it's like 10% undermarket. it it doesn't sell very fast, right? This Destin Rivals, uh, well, actually, I sold the other Destin Rivals yesterday. This one I haven't listed because they just don't sell really fast at $600.

[00:02:04]But the idea is to get to where a price to where you can flip it very quickly.

[00:02:09]You understand? Because if not, if if you invest $1,000, $10,000, $5,000, whatever it is in your business, and you're not selling it and and you just continue to hold it and hold it, I mean, that's great and all. That's great, right? But that's not really turning and burning. You understand? That's like buying and holding, which is two different things. So it's like, what are we doing here? Are we running a business? As Brian would say from Poke and E, are we running a business or are we just trying to invest to have some fun and collect? These are these are very different things. We must be able to separate the two. And as Rudy mentioned in his video, turning and burning is great if you need cash flow.

[00:02:47]the people who are going to do really well, the people who don't need cash flow, more, you know, a little deeper, more more uh seasoned in their business to where they can still sell some of the product that they get, but they can also hoard some of the product. So, thinking about that, that's like, dang, you know, obviously I'm not even close to that where, you know, we haven't even hit a year yet. But I do eventually want to get to that point where maybe I get 10 cases and I hide, not hide, I hoard two of them. You know what I'm saying? for like a little bit longer term and eventually get to the point where I I get 20 cases and maybe three or four of them. You know, I keep for a longer period of time and get some of that upside, but at the same time, I I do think about that and I say like how far away is that for me? I think that's really far. I don't think at least for me during the bull run that's an option that I would want to do personally. I respect everybody's decision, you know, if it's good for you. Oh, look at this.

[00:03:43]We pulled these today. Okay, we opened these with the kids. Well, me and the kids. We pulled the freaking Mewtwo from Crown Zenith. Oh my lord. Now, I know these packs are expensive, but I have never been disappointed from Crown Zenith. And the sleeping mu crazy, dude.

[00:03:57]So good. Crown Zenith. The best. If you want to open up some packs, the best, man. So good. Fantastic. Anyway, so getting sidetracked.

[00:04:06]it really get the gears turning of like why are so many people trying to make money in Pokemon you know when I go to shows I have one more show which I'm vending next weekend and that's probably it for for me for the year maybe one more at the end of the year probably not though everybody now is like running a business it seems to be that's what most of the customers that are spending a lot of money are doing so for example ideally if you're vending you want people to buy for market, right? That's fair. That's fair because you're probably buying these cards depending on the card 80% 85%. You might get some junkers, you know, some $5, $2, $10 cards for like 70%. But I'm not going to really count those cuz that doesn't make up a lot of money. But generally, you're going to probably buy things for, if you're lucky, 75% up to like 85% if it's really expensive, maybe even more, right? So, you really need to be close to that market number. What I've noticed is a lot of businessto business or streamer to vendor or whatever, vendor to vendor, they're trying to get a big deal, right? So, they don't want to pay full market. They'll try to bundle it.

[00:05:11]They'll say, "Hey, can I buy 10 of these cards off you?" And we do 85%. And then you got to say like, "Uh, not really, man. I'm trying to sell at market. I'd love to sell to collectors. I want to sell to people who want to, you know, keep the card, right? who who inspire or aspired to keep the card and just want to throw in their binder and stuff. But then the liquidity becomes an issue at that point. Like, can you really find a whole convention full of people that are just collecting? I would say in the modern era, I've done some pretty big shows in Virginia now, man. No, I don't I don't think there's, you know, 100 people coming around to buy a hundred of your cards at full market or even close to market. Like even 90% and above. I think 90%'s pretty fair. Generally, depending on the cost of the table and everything, you you might want to be a little more than 90%. But I've also noticed this with my customer base. Let me know people who buy from my store. Do you open these packs? Are you buying these ETBs just to simply hoard them? I know I sell a lot of cases. Like I got Twilight Masquerade on there. I got Black Bolt, White Flare sealed cases of ETBs and stuff like that. You know, they're expensive, but it also cost me a lot of money to buy. I'm curious to know how many people online buying from me are running a business because I've called a lot of these people, you know, people that I would consider like dolphins or whales when they order $5,000 worth of Pokémon. I give them a call, make sure it's, you know, real cuz I'm sorry, I'm not going to send you $5,000 worth of Pokemon unless you answer your phone or and you I can see this is a real phone number and real email address, right? A lot of risk involved in that. It's basically like buying a mini collection at that point, right? And I ask them like, "What are you going to do with it?" Just out of curiosity. I don't care. I'm just curious. and they're like, "Oh, I run a rip and chip or I have LGS." You'd be surprised how many people that have an LGS that buy my product for very close to market or full market and then they'll just add 10, 20, 15% in their store. I know a lot of people, they're running vape stores, right? I I have a customer that I think two customers that run a vape store and they sell Pokémon in there and they don't mind paying full market because they put another 20% on top. But I'm curious, you know, when I look at like what's selling, it's not that often that I sell like one ETB or one booster box or, you know what I'm saying? Like I just put Chaos Rising on there. Um, that's been selling pretty well actually. It's been pretty selling pretty nicely. It's also just came out today, like officially, right? So that makes sense. A brand new set sells really well. Um, how well will it sell for over the long term? I'm not sure, but I know Chaos Rising is popping off right now for sure. It makes sense. It's the new set a lot better in perfect order, at least from what I can tell.

[00:07:37]Um, and we opened some. We opened a booster box today. We kind of got cooked. We did get one SR. It wasn't the best, but it it was fun at least with the kids, you know. I'm curious how long the business to business how long the like everybody's running a business mentality will last cuz that's the vibe I get. It's like, hey, can I get a discount for this? It's not cuz can I get a discount this for this to open it. It's can I get a discount for this because I also have an online store. You'd be surprised how many people go to Brian's store or my store or other online stores like Safari Zone and they want to buy it off their store, mine, and then put it on their store online, which I'm not mad about. I don't care. Do your thing. Hey, if you can make a buck off me, that's great. But it's interesting to me, and I wish there was like a direct number to know the percentage or or again or even a number of how many people are actually just buying the stuff to enjoy it, buying this stuff to invest in it for 5 to 10 years. That's the meme we all know. As Rudy loves to mention and everybody mentions that is the meme five to 10 years. But how many people really do it?

[00:08:40]How many people are buying this stuff looking at it like prismatic evolution right now? ETB is like what 175 or something maybe 180 170 whatever it is.

[00:08:49]It's all kind of the same at that point.

[00:08:50]And how many are buying it because they want to invest in it and they're looking at this at the next bull run? They're looking at this at the next cycle. And how many people are simply just buying it to do what I do, which is churn and burn. It's an interesting concept because if you think about it, buying from me, I'm probably like the third person down, right? So you got obviously Pokemon, they send it to Dro or maybe it comes from Walmart or Target at that point. We're going to call those like the same level just in the chain, right?

[00:09:21]Then it goes to either the botter at that point or it it goes to wherever it goes before it comes to me because I'm not getting it directly from DRO, right?

[00:09:29]So there's at least three people or three entities before me and maybe I'm the fourth entity that you're buying from. And then if you're buying for your store's inventory from my store, you're like the fifth entity. And then I'm curious, the people buying from these people from either their online stores or their their LGS, are they opening it or are they becoming the sixth link in the chain? I don't have the answers to these questions. I just think like is there a seventh link? Is there an you know what I'm saying? Like when does it stop and at what point does it get opened? I know a lot of Pokemon's getting opened. It's very obvious. You can see that on rip shippers. You can more Pokemon's being opened than ever, right? Especially compared to what's being hoarded. It just makes sense, especially when the majority of the Pokemon is either going to bers who then the botters keep the price super high, sell the toen shippers probably, I'm just guessing 90% of the time, and then they open it to their viewers for stupid amount of prices. I see people on eBay right now. I I checked eBay just for fun and watch the live. Guess how much I'm selling these Chaos Rising ETBs for?

[00:10:32]$90. People are spending 130 on eBay live.

[00:10:37]130. What are you doing? What are you doing with your life that you're spending $130 and you're even on eBay?

[00:10:44]You could probably buy it on eBay for 100 bucks, but you'll intentionally go out of your way to spend an extra 2530 bucks cuz you're buying off a streamer and they won't even open it for you.

[00:10:52]They're just going to send it to you.

[00:10:53]You probably have to pay shipping on top. So, it's probably like 140. What are you doing?

[00:10:58]Something Rudy said in his video. I did time stamp it on his video if you check it out. But, man, it's so freaking true.

[00:11:06]The amount of work that people will put in to save 20 or $30 is crazy. the people that will sit out there to camp four hours, six hours, eight hours, 12 hours to save $30 on an ETB when you could put that same energy, that same time, and probably anything else and get far more money and not be exhausted the next day at work or not lose a bunch of sleep or still hang out with your loved ones or whatever.

[00:11:38]the amount of people that surf the internet to find 10 bucks off an ETB, 20 bucks off an ETB because that's all it is, right? Chaos Rising Market's like 95, right? Okay, Walmart's 60 bucks, wherever, Amazon 60 bucks, I don't know, plus tax, whatever that is, right? To save 20 or $30, people will literally surf the internet for hours, if not days, if not weeks. Check Discord groups, check Twitter, check Instagram for for this is coming out and this is launching. And when you add it up, dude, it might be like 10 to 20 hours of your time wasted gone. We're only on this earth for a very small time. So that way you could get MSRP one time. The amount of time that people will waste to save a buck.

[00:12:31]Crazy to me. Now I get it. Times are hard. I understand. Trust me. Gas is like 440 in my area. It used to be 280 not that long ago. I swear it's cra I get it. Times are hard. Times are hard for everybody. I get it.

[00:12:45]You could literally do almost any You can make a YouTube channel with those same hours and make way more money. What does Brian say? People are making more money like Kira O Possum Bud and all these other great content creators.

[00:12:58]They're all goated, right? They're great content creators. I'm not saying they're not, right? They're they're doing great.

[00:13:03]But complaining about the problem will make you more money than participating and trying to get MSRP to just showcase other people at vending machines. You can make stupid amount of money off the ad revenue. A stupid more than you could at your job.

[00:13:21]You get 30, 40, 50,000 views if you work hard for a couple years. You know what I'm saying? Like I get it. You don't want to work hard for a couple years.

[00:13:27]Fascinating to me. Fascinating to me. I recently got these. The YouTuber Cardinal Gaming OG.

[00:13:36]We got these elite mystery things from him. I paid for these, by the way. I paid for these. I put these on the site.

[00:13:41]I haven't sold out just yet. They've been selling pretty well, actually. We sold another one today. I do want to open these live on stream. I'm hoping that we can get one of these big chases for y'all. Now, I would say I've opened what, five of these now for people and one for myself.

[00:13:58]And the worst card, the worst card value in total was probably like $120, which is great for a mystery. I mean, you know, I've opened some GameStop mystery for I think 140 120 and I got like $10 back. I'm not even kidding. 10 bucks, you know. So, I don't know uh you know, if you're going to hit one of these couple thousand cards like a bubble mu or something. I have no idea. But I can tell you from what I have seen, you won't lose the full 200 worst case scenario. I think worst case scenario, you'll probably make back like 110, 120.

[00:14:28]Worst case scenario, worst. But best case scenario, you know, make a bunch of money. Those are on the store. But again, more importantly, it supports Cardinal Gaming. And uh I just I just love helping people, man. I I love supporting people that do good things in the Pokemon community. And I think that's really important to support people who are are doing positive things, who are maybe you don't consider Mystery Slabs positive. I get it. But overall, he's doing great things on YouTube in general, right?

[00:14:54]I will always support people that I would either consider friends or people that I watch their content anyways because I think it's really good. I think it's important and there's a lot of bad people in this world. Choose your money wisely. Spend your money wisely.

[00:15:10]Not saying it has to be on mystery slabs. Maybe that wasn't the right example for that, but you know what I'm saying. I I like to spend my money with people uh that are doing good things.

[00:15:17]Life is very short, my friends. If you watch to the end of the video, I might go live later tonight. I'm not sure. Let me know if I should. #coke hashcoke. I appreciate y'all. Think about it, man. Think about it. How many people are just buying to sell and then that person buys to sell? And how how long does this go for? And I don't know.

[00:15:37]Is turn and burn the best for everybody?

[00:15:38]I'm not sure. It is for me. Peace out.