Walmart and Target Suspend Sales of Pokemon Cards for Safety Reasons

[Daenerys 6,064]

 

US retailers Walmart and Target have suspended in-store sales of Pokemon cards and other trading cards, due to safety concerns caused by a huge upsurge in demand.

That demand has led not just to bad behaviour, but real crime. Vice reports that a fight related to trading cards in a Wisconsin Target parking lot recently led to a gun being drawn, but thankfully not used. Last month in Brunswick, Maine, News Center reports that $20,000 of sports trading cards were stolen.Those increasingly serious events have clearly led to the suspension of sales. Bleeding Cool received a statement from Target saying: "The safety of our guests and our team is our top priority. Out of an abundance of caution, we've decided to temporarily suspend the sale of MLB, NFL, NBA and Pokémon trading cards within our stores, effective May 14. Guests can continue to shop these cards online at Target.com."

Similar notices have reportedly been issued in Walmart, with a sign shared in a Facebook Magic the Gathering group noting that "the trading card categories have been removed from the sales floor and sales of these items have been suspended due to inappropriate customer behaviour and increased demand." The note suggests that stores have been asked to no longer stock trading cards like Pokemon ahead of "further direction from management.""]

Trading cards have seen a massive boom over the past year. There's been a surge of renewed interest as rare pack openings and trading card content has flooded onto YouTube and Twitch. In January of this year, a Pokemon TCG Booster Box sold at auction for $408,000, and McDonald's also had to "strongly encourage" its stores not to sell multiple packs of Pokemon 25th Anniversary cards to customers in February to prevent scalping.

SOURCE: https://www.ign.com/articles/walmart-and-target-suspend-sales-of-pokemon-cards-for-safety-reasons

 

[Daenerys 6,064]

Personally I’m a Pokémon TCG collector and active player of the game itself. This entire year has been so insane with all of these scalpers cleaning the stores out. I’ve been trying my best to hold off on buying second hand for 3x MSRP but it’s so tough when i just really want to complete my master dex. 

[Bonkers 28,761]

So it's safe to go in now?  I've been waiting outside
 

Spoiler

 

[HuffsAhoy 7,433]

There was a recently an undercover Pokemon card theft ring busted in my rural ass hometown Walmart. It's insane how much something as simple as a trading card brings out the worst in people. 

[littlepotter 74,741]

They can simply sell them online

[BlondeQueenOfGGD 25,454]

8 minutes ago, littlepotter said:

They can simply sell them online

I wish they wouldn’t sell out within 30 seconds  

[PartySick 151,591]

Can confirm that people are going crazy over these things  we carry them and they're sold literally as soon as they hit the peg/shelf. Sometimes before then 'cause people will just jack them from our stocking areas

Then for days after you have the same weirdos come in "DID YOU GET ANY CARDS?!"

"Um they're sold out"

"YOU F*CKING-"

People get pissed 

[Daenerys 6,064]

4 minutes ago, PartySick said:

Can confirm that people are going crazy over these things  we carry them and they're sold literally as soon as they hit the peg/shelf. Sometimes before then 'cause people will just jack them from our stocking areas

Then for days after you have the same weirdos come in "DID YOU GET ANY CARDS?!"

"Um they're sold out"

"YOU F*CKING-"

People get pissed 

I was at Barnes & Noble last week getting a Stephen King book and these two men were SCREAMING at two workers because the limit was 1 per SKU and they were trying to take them all. INSANE! After the fiasco the workers took all of the decks and moved them behind the cashier counter. 

[PartySick 151,591]

1 minute ago, Daenerys said:

I was at Barnes & Noble last week getting a Stephen King book and these two men were SCREAMING at two workers because the limit was 1 per SKU and they were trying to take them all. INSANE! After the fiasco the workers took all of the decks and moved them behind the cashier counter. 

I believe it

We just decided "first come, first served". People actually learned our truck schedules and they'll sit and wait until we unearth them

It's f*cking toilet paper and Lysol all over again

[Kadikaado 4,302]

That's ridiculous! People are really drawing guns because of trading cards? SHOOKETH!!

[RahrahWitch 6,985]

I've no idea what's going on with card games but seeing all the old pokemon cards I had as a kid selling for so much money is just 

[Killa 16,844]

To think i gave mine away. The money i wasted

[Daenerys 6,064]

Logan Paul really ruined it for old and future collectors. 

[GagaSine 7,464]

I also gave my pokemon card collection away, definitely should have kept it!

[Lion Heart 15,041]

I think I threw my old cards away 

 

I have not been able to find them.