Target will stop selling Pokémon cards in stores from tomorrow

midian182

Posts: 9,662   +121
Staff member
In brief: Target has announced that it will no longer sell Pokémon cards as of tomorrow (Friday, May 14), a move it says comes out of “an abundance of caution” for both store workers and guests. It will also stop selling MLB, NFL, and NBA playing cards.

Demand for Pokémon cards has skyrocketed over the last few months. Resale prices have increased drastically, YouTube “card opening” videos are drawing millions of views, and retailers are selling out as soon as the cards are in stock. The Pokémon Company is frantically trying to print more cards to satisfy fans, but to little avail.

Incredible demand brings problems beyond not being able to buy a product. On May 7, someone pulled a gun during a fight over sports playing cards in a Target parking lot in Brookfield, Wisconsin. “It’s just kind of sad for the kids. It just sounds kind of ridiculous that adults got into a fight in the parking lot about trading cards,” said a shopper who was at Target during the time of the incident.

There have also been incidents of shoppers opening cereal boxes in stores to get at the Pokémon cards, and people were mass buying McDonald’s Happy Meals to get their hands on the collectibles. In Japan, a 28-year-old man was arrested after climbing down a six-story building using a rope to steal $9,000 worth of Pokémon cards.

The situation got so out of hand that Target started limiting the number of cards customers can buy to three and then one. It also threatened to call the police on those camping outside the stores overnight. Now, it has decided to remove them from shelves.

“The safety of our guests and our team is our top priority,” Target told Bleeding Cool. “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.”

It appears that Target isn't alone in implementing this policy. There have also been reports of some Walmart stores removing trading cards from shop floors due to “inappropriate customer behavior and increased demand.”

Image credit: ZikG

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Wow....I didn't realize people still gave a damn about trading cards.

Mid 80s to early 90s sport cards were booming. I used to frequent card shows with my older brother, we had hundreds of thousands of sports cards (MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL) worth tens of thousands of dollars. We'd drop hundreds of dollars on late 70s and early 80s, unopened packs of cards. We'd usually find a few top sport player rookie cards in these packs that would at least double (on the low end) our money we spent for the packs of cards.

We'd work on tracking down local sport players at training camps in our area and at games when we could go and get signatures on their rookie cards.

We subscribed to Beckett magazine for our pricing guide and talked with a lot of other card dealers about pricing.....it was a lucrative market for sports cards and memorabilia. Enough that as an 8 year old (up to about the age of 15) I always had hundreds of dollars at my disposal at any given time (I think I had more money back then than I do now working 40-45 hours a week).

Come along the mid to late 90s and cards just kind of dropped off and never rebounded (at least for sports cards).

So it always strikes me odd when folks talk about trading cards in this day and age or if you see stories about violence tied to trading cards.

Yes, keep removing the bread and circuses. I'm sure this will go over well.

Target isn't going to lose any sleep or money with what little they sell in terms of Pokemon cards. They will, however, lose customers if violent outbreaks keep happening over a very small item they sell.

It's better to drop the trading cards and retain customers for all the other factors that draws people into the store over losing people for something so trivial as trading cards.
 
Wow....I didn't realize people still gave a damn about trading cards.

Mid 80s to early 90s sport cards were booming. I used to frequent card shows with my older brother, we had hundreds of thousands of sports cards (MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL) worth tens of thousands of dollars. We'd drop hundreds of dollars on late 70s and early 80s, unopened packs of cards. We'd usually find a few top sport player rookie cards in these packs that would at least double (on the low end) our money we spent for the packs of cards.

We'd work on tracking down local sport players at training camps in our area and at games when we could go and get signatures on their rookie cards.

We subscribed to Beckett magazine for our pricing guide and talked with a lot of other card dealers about pricing.....it was a lucrative market for sports cards and memorabilia. Enough that as an 8 year old (up to about the age of 15) I always had hundreds of dollars at my disposal at any given time (I think I had more money back then than I do now working 40-45 hours a week).

Come along the mid to late 90s and cards just kind of dropped off and never rebounded (at least for sports cards).

So it always strikes me odd when folks talk about trading cards in this day and age or if you see stories about violence tied to trading cards.



Target isn't going to lose any sleep or money with what little they sell in terms of Pokemon cards. They will, however, lose customers if violent outbreaks keep happening over a very small item they sell.

It's better to drop the trading cards and retain customers for all the other factors that draws people into the store over losing people for something so trivial as trading cards.

Especially true since their only selling at MSRP. Scalpers have become a real cancer to the economy.
 
Now that I think back, over the past couple of weeks my kids pulled out Pokemon cards from a couple of cereal boxes. They opened the packs with curiosity, chatted about the cards (3 cards per pack, 6 cards total).....neither of them cared about keeping the cards and threw them out.

Now I've got myself thinking of my sports cards which I have very few left. I suppose I would need to send them in to get graded, but I wonder what my Ken Griffey Jr Upper Deck rookie card and my Lawrence Taylor rookie card would fetch. Wish my a$shole of an older brother didn't steal and sell most of my cards years back....used to have the rookie cards of the most iconic 49ers football players of the early to mid 80s; such as Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Dwight Clark, Ronnie Lott, Steve Young, Roger Craig.....sucks to think back on all the stuff my brother stole and sold in the mid 90s to feed his wannabe drug dealer phase he went through. Oh well. Had Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan rookie cards...Wayne Gretzky rookie card.....now I'm getting a headache, I should stop thinking about it.
 
This world needs Jesus even though I don't believe in his existence. Thats my 2021 in a nutshell.

Same thing here. The world is going upside down. And Jesus is allegedly in prison. At least it seems so, because most of ex-convicts say they discovered Jesus while in prison.
 
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