Target, an American retailer, is reportedly going to stop selling physical Pokémon trading cards due to ongoing problems with scalpers. In recent years, scalping has been very popular in gaming and a variety of other industries. Late last year, with the arrival of the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, reselling became a minor market in its own right, and even the UK government felt obliged to take a stand.
Physical sales of playing cards, oddly enough, are just one aspect of the market exploited by Pokémon card scalpers. They’re also notorious for sabotaging McDonald’s Pokémon Happy Meal sales, which reportedly prompted the company’s UK chain to implement new policies to stop scalpers.
Cereal boxes, it seems, are no longer healthy. People stockpiled the promo cereal and sold the limited edition cards online for exorbitant prices due to promotion between the Pokémon Trading Card Game and General Mills. It’s a shame that both Happy Meal and cereal box card collecting, which are aimed at children, have been tainted with the plague of unnecessarily selfish adults.
Pokémon TCG fan account Pokémon Drops announced yesterday that Target will stop selling Pokémon and sports trading cards for an unknown period of time. According to photographs posted by fans online, the sales halt will occur on Friday, May 14, as reported by Dexerto.
The pictures themselves show an in-store announcement from Target stores around the country, all of which say the same thing: “To ensure the wellbeing of our visitors and staff members, MLB, NFL, NBA, and Pokémon trading cards will no longer be available until further notice, effective May 14th.”
Hybla VA pic.twitter.com/f07Z2JawvQ
— TheMainVoli (@themainvoli) May 12, 2021
Despite the uncertainty that some retailers are now seeing, the retailer’s latest approach is entirely reasonable. If consumers camping out wasn’t bad enough, a Target in Brookfield, Wisconsin, called the cops after a guy brandished a gun during an altercation earlier this week. After leaving the shop with a freshly bought package of sports cards, the gun owner was allegedly targeted by a group of men.
Although no one was seriously hurt in the above-mentioned incident, it’s fair to say the scalping situation has spiraled out of control. And, once again, these questions aren’t exclusive to collectible playing cards. Game consoles and shoes are still much too included in the mix.
