I went to the Target x Pokémon 30th anniversary drop in person this past weekend, and was sorely disappointed to discover that the scalping problem hit a merch drop that was intended to celebrate fans from across generations.
The collection, announced back in April, released in stores on Saturday before becoming available online Sunday. While I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the in-person drop, I’d heard enough about the bloodbaths of TCG restocks to show up at my local D.C. Target at the strike of 8:00am.
Because I was mostly going for vibes, I spent some time with the greeters handing out the notorious free Pokémon buttons at the store’s entrance. The workers I spoke to mentioned that they hadn’t played Pokémon since they were kids, but could tell the collection was a big deal.
After much deliberation, I picked a Charmander button. My location, at the very least, was pretty adamant about restricting these to one per person.
What wasn’t restricted, though, was pretty much everything else in the collection. By the time I walked upstairs five minutes later, any evidence of an Ascended Heroes restock had been cleared out, alongside the collection’s Kanto Starter Jackets. I showed up too late to actually witness any lines that had formed before the store’s opening, but that was enough evidence to confirm their existence.
I asked another worker about the Starter Jackets, who explained that the store had only received one of each size, amounting to just five total. The worker seemed just as frustrated at this information as anyone else. I’ll highlight sooner rather than later that every Target employee I interacted with was unbelievably kind and patient despite the level of stress they were clearly under.
Everything else in the collection had roughly one “bulk box” worth of stock. This was my first time going to an event like this in person, and I discovered it’s not that hard to discern who’s there for what reason. Some folks were scooping up as much as they could into their baskets, clearly not paying the slightest bit of attention to what they were actually getting. It was all just going to end up on eBay.
I managed to pick up one of the mystery water bottles (scored a Magikarp version, if you’re curious), a Jigglypuff tumbler, and a set of Butterfree hair clips. Completely outside of the collection, I also picked up a restock of the Lego Eevee set that my coworker Jacob Kienlen built earlier this year.
Unfortunately, based on the swarm of folks I saw at 8am, it doesn’t surprise me that plenty of X users who went to their local Target later in the day found completely empty shelves. The collection is entirely sold out online, and everything it includes can be found on eBay for a significant mark-up. As it stands, the Kanto jackets, which retailed at $130, are now being resold for upwards of $300. The Charmander pin I got for free has listings starting at $25.
Pokémon scalping is nothing new, but seeing it extend from trading cards to an otherwise standard merch drop truly shows how bad it’s become. Unlike other 30th anniversary drops, like the Puma collection or BoxLunch, the Target collection was almost entirely under $30. Most of the items were also clearly designed for younger fans. The majority of the clothing was in children’s sizes, and the notebooks, binders, and even bag accessories were giving “Back to School” vibes more than adult collector’s items.
Pokémon 30th Anniversary Collections
I can’t imagine it was that expensive to produce the collection, and I truly believe everyone involved would benefit from having more stock. I understand supply and demand, but it’s obvious that this degree of limited stock on otherwise budget-friendly items means very little of the collection would end up going to the fans it was clearly designed for.
This is the mystery of the Pokémon situation to me. Sure, The Pokémon Company benefits from the increased value of sealed TCG products. But they definitely don’t benefit from people scalping limited-edition Pop-Tarts on eBay. The only people that seem to really benefit from this absurd situation are the scalpers themselves.
It doesn’t surprise me that some card shops in Japan are confronting scalpers by giving “quizzes” to potential customers, but it’ll take a lot more than individual stores implementing ad hoc restrictions to fix this mess. As a grown adult who showed up at Target at 8am, I don’t necessarily think the solution is limiting these drops to children. That said, whatever the situation currently is clearly needs to change if TPC wants to show it cares about its fans and not just the scalpers.
Blythe (she/her) is an Audience Development Coordinator at IGN who spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.
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