Sadly, it's no secret that sealed Pokémon products can be incredibly difficult to get ahold of. Due to overwhelming demand causing supply issues, many legitimate Pokémon players have been left disappointed following recent releases. Thankfully, it now appears that the Pokémon Company International (TPCi) is making a positive step in the right direction toward diving this pervasive problem.
Changing the Status Quo
Looking to change the status quo a bit, the Pokémon Center in Singapore has officially announced that it is removing the shrink wrap on its Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) products upon purchase.
Sadly, it's no secret that sealed Pokémon products can be incredibly difficult to get ahold of. Due to overwhelming demand causing supply issues, many legitimate Pokémon players have been left disappointed following recent releases. Thankfully, it now appears that the Pokémon Company International (TPCi) is making a positive step in the right direction toward diving this pervasive problem.
Initially, this might seem like a weird, or even bad move, that makes buying second-hand Pokémon products significantly riskier for players. After all, without the protective shrink wrap, it's less clear if a product has been tampered with and potentially released. That's undoubtedly what TPCi is counting on, as this should affect the business of scalpers.
Unfortunately, it's no secret that scalpers have been plaguing the Pokémon markets for a long time now. Whenever a new set is released, these unscrupulous sellers flock to stores to buy out everything before anyone else can get there. This means honest players have little choice but to go to scalpers for their cards, paying their overly inflated prices.
Now, without the official shrink wrap, the authenticity of the products from scalpers is going to be thrown into question. While it's less common nowadays, there's still a lot of concern about buying unprotected sealed products due to potential tampering. If a scalper's products look like they may have been tampered with, then Pokémon players will hopefully refuse to buy.
Ideally, if enough Pokémon players are put off by this possibility, the business model of the scalpers will crumble, since no one is buying. Whether or not this will work, however, remains to be seen, as scalpers could still control the market and not give players any other option. If it does work, hopefully TPCi will roll out this policy to more regions, in order to stop the scalping sourge.
Other Tactics Being Implemented
Thankfully, while sealed Pokémon products may now look slightly less secure, booster boxes do have their own security measures. A few years ago, TPCi implemented a change in its booster box design. No longer was the box a standard flip-top design but one where the customer would need to tear along a perforated line.
This was done to make it obvious that a product had already been opened by someone else. This made it harder to obfuscate attempts to hide any product tampering.
Outside of retail store initiatives, it looks like TPCi has started to cleverly implement anti scalping measures to vending machines as well.
Across the United States, the Pokémon TCG vending machines have been programmed to randomly release a certain amount of products every hour.
Alongside a warning against loitering, outlet stores are being given tools to make product scalping a lot more tedious and eject ne'er do wells who think it’s a good idea to take advantage of a vending machine’s lack of personnel presence.
It remains to be seen how much these strategies will work. Scalpers still have a lot of influence over the market despite attempts to combat such a situation. Unfortunately, players don't have much choice if there is already a lack of supply.
Those wanting to get their hands on a product may risk going for overpriced and probably tampered products in the hopes that having something is better than nothing at all.