I saw a Japanese tourist buy a plushie from a scammer for $100. Their kid looked so happy and the scalper was all smiles like he did them a favor. It was a disgusting sight
I think we’re also ignoring the fact that the World’s competitors, who worked so hard just to make it there, don’t even get first dibs on the Pokémon Center merch. Instead they allow “content creators” to swarm the store first…
Yeah, the next time a temporary Pokemon Center like this goes up, they need to have extremely strict security, signs warning against scalping, and possibly even issue takedowns on ebay listings. It should be fun, harmless, and friendly to anyone who sincerely wants to expand their personal collection, or children wanting to start theirs. Not a mad frenzy to fight with literal adults who think they have nothing better to do. Scalpers should be harshly dealt with, and not given access to future in-person pokemon events.
@@RrevVHD wild, how do you presume? To track individuals when you have thousands coming in and out of the store everyday. My comment was strictly realistic, you have as much luck with that as you do with stopping fireworks on Oahu.
Considering this whole situation was invented to creat collectables and scarcity its never going to change. They could just post this stuff online like a normal business and have them shipped to the customer.
There was also a way to get into the center without a time slot. If you asked to use the elevator, a staff member would walk you over to it (through the center) but wouldn't accompany you through the elevator. So you could just ride it back down to the center and you're in.
Despite the measures put into place, they still set things so poorly. I had a reservation for noon, but was delayed and was only able to get in an hour later. By the time I got there, pretty much every single bit of exclusive merch except the plushies and a few other things were sold out. I’m happy I managed to get the plushies, but I was also hoping to get a T-shirt and hat, but failed to do so. The Pokemon Company REALLY should have created more stock, even if they had limits for the exclusive merch, the fact that most of it still sold out before noon is crazy, they really should have just had more stock in the first place.
Even if they have created more stocks the scalpers would have bought them all anyway. Remember peak Pokémon TCG hype? Even with more printed packs you still see the shelves of big box stores sold out quick. More stocks isn't a solution when every scalper wants to buy all of it.
@@Gigi-zr6hpIt kinda is the solution though. Modern Pokemon cards and products have largely dropped in value because TPCi has taken to overprinting everything. If you keep making a product over and over, more people will be able to get their hands on it and scalpers won't see an incentive to buy every piece of it. While I'm sure we'd still see some scalping at an event like this, having even just double or triple the stock they did would've made a HUGE difference
@@apperusenpai It would but it wouldn't, it would make it easier for some people to get it maybe so long as they were strict..but with a limited event like this people are still gonna want to scalp because they know eventually it'll be worth money.
I remember even in 2023 when I worked in retail they only started putting Pokemon TCG cards back out for people to physically touch around the fall, and I would always fund empty bags in the aisle and have to report them individually if I couldn't move fast enough away to pretend I'd never saw them before a supervisor could wave me down.
as a lifelong pokemon collector its honestly really miserable to be in the hobby right now. the new games arent particularly impressive (just mildly fun), much of the cool merchandise will never be obtainable to me, tcg sets are getting bigger and bigger, and there are so, SO many people whos only interaction with the franchise is for money. i wish pokemon wasnt popular.
yea they screw up monster high stuff too. sad to know that they affect transformers figures as well. its hard to be a collector who genuinely loves the things you collect these days.
@@dontread12 Nobody is buying from those scalper losers! Those listings are still there. All we need to do is report the listings to Ebay so the scalpers can get banned! That happened to people scalping the Shantae collector's editions reselling them for 10 times the normal price. We reported them then the scalpers accounts and the listings vanished.
You can't prevent people from setting their own prices for the wares they sell. If you think it's not worth what they are selling it for, then simply don't buy it.
Part of the problem is, although we all agree scalpers are bad, nobody sees themselves as a scalper. I know people who bought a few extra items, to sell to friends with a little bit of profit. They hate scalpers, and don't see themselves as scalpers. I know people who bought one of each item extra, to sell at a small profit that doesn't quite cover their travel costs. They hate scalpers, and don't see themselves as scalpers. I know people who went round multiple times, and bought multiple of each item to put online, because they think if they're not doing it, scalpers will. They hate scalpers, and don't see themselves as scalpers. For each of these people, the breakpoint of scalper is just a teeny bit above what they themselves are doing.
I think of scalpers more like people "making a business out of it" or whose solely purpose is massive purchases Why? Because they find ways to surpass the limit purchase, they try to go multiple times just to have "stock" That's way different than going 1 time, respect the purchase limit and bought something for a friend 😅
A buddy of mine that was good enough to qualify went to Worlds and brought back extra items to sell at a bit of a profit to cover some expenses. Thanks to him I was able to get a Honolulu deck box that I absolutely love and would not have been able to get it otherwise.
More and more I feel like the future of merchandise needs to be made to order. Especially for an event like this. Imagine if instead of reserving a time months in advance, only for people to show up at their time with nothing left, instead you just let people order what they want when they make their reservation. Then you just produce the amount needed and let people just show up at their pick up time. And then probably produce an extra few thousand for walk ins, which yes would be mostly scalped, but at least the people who know ahead of time that they want it could most likely get it.
See this is why I didn't feel right getting back to the Pokemon TCG anytime soon. As cute and cool this game is, it sadly became a collecttor's wet dream, to the point where I can barely find Pokemon tcg channels just focus on the actual competitive side
Scalping issue still a big problem in alot of stores, especially at Walmart. The Walmarts down here in Florida, I kid you not, have a "151 mafia " as anytime Walmarts down in the south Florida area (between the Broward & Miami-Dade counties) get in any 151 product, someone on the inside that sells any and all 151 products to a small number of vendors then those vendors resell the 151 products way above market price but everyone has to pay it or else no one gets any 151 unless they go through an offical distributor or the Pokemon company itself to get any 151 product. This has been confirmed to me by multiple vendors and resellers at various conventions and card shows Ive been to. The only time I've been able to find any 151 product at a Walmart was when I went to a Walmart in Georgia and they were loaded! You'll never see that anywhere in Florida even further north within Florida.
Still such a shame. As an art kid, it was like the best possible collaboration, and damn scalpers pulled that away from anyone who legitimately wanted to the enjoy the collection.
That was such a huge misstep from the Pokemon Center tbh. They basically did everything to guarantee its failure and probably damaged the chances of us getting other collabs like this in the future
If the company actually wanted to stop the scalping they would just produce more of the scalped items setting a precedent that limited edition items will get cheaper if you wait, hurting anyone who buys them at inflated value. But they probably like how everything they make sells out looks on their quarterly profit and loss so they're never gonna do that.
People don’t understand is that the problem is not with the scalpers, it’s with the people buying the overpriced products, if nobody is willing to buy a 300 dollar backpack the scalpers would’ve all stayed at home.
The actual problem is people are paying so much because its limited and they want it, but these people buy the entire stock because they can and they know people want it Its NOT the people who want it thats the problem, they're just paying the high prices because there's NO other way to get certain items and if they don't pay it, someone else will anyways. When the pokemon switches came out, I saw someone in a pokemon group on fb buy like 20 of them for $300 just to turn around and sell them for $600++++ because they were LIMITED and the person buying them, bought the ENTIRE stock out the second it dropped!! And i say the "pokemon SWITCHES" because this happened EVERY time a limited edition switch came out! It wasn't just one limited edition, it was each and EVERY one that came out!
All were sold out in 2 hours. I'm a local in hawaii. My friends and I visited the pokemon center at 10am (our appointment time slot). We didn't enter the pokemon center till 12:30pm. All were sold out. Even in our group, we can see groups of scalpers talking to each other on what to look for. Lol ...adding to the burn, these aggressive scalpers were selling the backpack for $600 along ala wai canal.
Pokebeach said a little kid asked him about what packs to buy that would be the best for the money. After he helped the little kid there was a worker that came over. He asked if he could get advise. He asked what boxes would resell for the best return. I do not believe he helped that dude. THAT should be a fire able offense.
I feel like there should be a thing where its illegal for scalpers to resell the items for alot more price than the actual price. And If they get caught, they'll face legal consequences (whether its the company suing the scalper to pay the SAME price that they tried to increase when reselling a Pokemon merch or whatever)
how can the person enforcing this new law prove what the original price was? Also the idea of buying something and reselling it at a higher cost is the entire reason that a national or global market can and does exist, banning that would pretty much undo the economy
@@THGMR-ox7sd why would it be illegal? Pokemon is selling their merchandise for less than market value. They could easily get rid of scalpers by raising the prices to meet demand, or at least enough to make the hassle of scalping not worth it.
@@HopUpOutDaBedThat would just piss off people to not buy said items, since we all know how much of a stinky Sony made by selling the PlayStation 5 pro for SEVEN HUNDRED BUCKS, with NO stand and NO disc drive and NO unique features besides looking a little more pretty and it’s so called quirk is just some reworded system in the previous PlayStation 5. The easiest way to prevent scalpers is to create an embargo period where it’s required to have actual paperwork to be present to where they are authorized the right to sell those during the embargo period. If they don’t, they can be reported for a HEFTY FINE (and a small cash reward to bounty hunt them), where they only have the right to ‘resell’ once the embargo period, likely several months after these ‘rare products’ were released. Also another punishable offense where the item cannot be inflated to a certain multiple of the market price until it’s been 1 year after its manufacturing, which would especially target things like price scalping consoles by say, you can’t go above 1.5x the item’s original price or you can be reported by the public and once again, fined, jailed and cash reward the reporter to promote the internet way of information handling. Ultimately, one needs to create a fear factor for immediate scalping and force them to sell the items FAR later into a product’s lifespan where limited collectible items would have far less availability to justify a mark up. But also create a situation where pricing too high once a product has been present for a LONG TIME and you are not some legitimate business, then you have to be forced to sell the product at ‘depreciation value’, since if you do not product the product’s manufacture date for that specific model, cannot provide legitimacy and you just have tens or even hundreds of a product in some ‘street stall stylized business’, then you can just get Wild West style obliterated as people report your arse for being sketchy as fk, which even if it’s a false report, was likely backed up by the fact you have some unregistered ‘tent’ probably in front of another location where some sign says no soliciting, aka no illegally setting up ‘stores’ to sell what could be snake oil. Since I’m rather familiar of reading news bits where people bought gaming consoles and were shipped empty boxes, older consoles, fake gaming discs/cartridges in ‘official’, game containers that had shoddy plastic covering and moar. Ultimately people these days need to relearn what the fear of electrified barb wire obstructions from dipping thar hands in cookie jars are like. Since it’s those kind of things I know back in the late 1900s, where restraint and good decision making were necessary and you were basically just asking for a guillotine like effect if you though it was totally ok to run into stores and brazenly grab stuff without even putting any effort to actually be sneaky and you could find yourself with a employee ready to employ some bare knuckle punishment or a shotgun to your skull if you didn’t wise up and actually pay for those things.
It’s easy this happened to the sneaker market … let the scalpers scalp I’ve seen so many get hit and bought 100 items and still can’t sell them… wait til the hype goes down that’s what I do for shoes $300 in a few months can go down to like $160 the market is what WE make it don’t buy at crazy scalper prices let them sit on 50 skateboards lol
Easier solution: Scalpers will be charged like criminals for ruining the event for everyone especially the ones selling the scalped items ON THE PROPERTY!!
why the hell would you go to a pokemon event just to resell things to make a “profit” honestly selling things like tcg cards that arent in the store is semi fine but straight up buying exclusive merch just to jack up the price by 500% is pathetic
It’s a practice called exploiting availability, if it’s nigh impossible to find then legitimately, then resellers just pull what Nintendo does with amiibos by forcing a black market situation except they don’t wait for the trigger(period of acquisition being over), by instead forcing it themselves . As things like the law create annoying particular situations and more people just got lazy due to things like ‘conviences’ and of course brain rot kick in even moar to where people could skip more and moar steps to ‘earn a quick buck’, it just lead to them taking more malicious ways of ‘getting that green instead.’ This is why restraint is the golden value for people, which also is going extinct again when trust becomes ‘less valuable’ to loads of people and also more difficult to enact, because when that’s thrown out the window it just seems so easy to ‘steal that apple’ from a stall when no one is looking and as you do it moar and moar, you don’t think about what went into making that apple, except it’s a product you got for free or you can sell a bundle of your ‘freely acquired apples’, to make money for effectively ‘free’, as far as your rotten mind now perceives. I mean, it just boils down to propel forgetting the saying of ‘Trust thy neighbor’, when they rather see the neighbor as someone they can finch stuff from instead.
Because they know people want these items, because their event items only and they know eventually someone will pay if they want it or "need" it for their collections. And people WILL pay it, if they want it. Its always been like this for pokemon merch and always will be. I'm in several fb groups dedicated to pokemon and collectors and merch and people do this ish ALL the time!! "I have 6 so and so limited edition plushies for $700" "wasn't it sold for like $80 when it came out?" "Yeah but it was limited and no longer being sold or made anymore, so $700 take it or leave it" is a VERY typical conversation in those groups (though the prices above are exaggerated to get my point across)
I was there and it was crazy. 9am Slot on the friday and most of the exclusive stuff was still sold out. I managed to get a bag for my freind and the tcg stuff for myself but no pin, no towels, no shirts (?!?!?). I could have gotten a ukelele but i didnt want one and didnt feel like becoming one of these scalpers. Atleast i got my freinds who couldnt make it a little excluive thing from the event.
A: I am surprised law enforcement didn't show up and go: "You can't sell this on the street, you got not business lisence or lisence to sell here." Seriously in America this is a thing and Hawaii is America. So why they weren't be fined thousands of dollars is beyond me. B: I think TPCI probably noted all these scalpers and have them on a list. Scalpers are just bad business, sure you get their money, but it's profit being pulled away from actual customers. It's like another reseller comes in between you and your customers. It just makes companies go: "Well we did get the money, but we could have gotten 300 dollars for Ukelle... Sure they won't but you know... And C: Good video as always :D
if they were literally SELLING THEM OUTSIDE THE BUILDING. JUST STEAL IT AT THAT POINT (or try to haggle back to the og price, but we dont want them profiting.)
Me: goes to work and don’t have time off until Sunday Scalpers: I’ll need to fit this Thursday off into my one piece TCG scalping at target restocking.
Speaking of Pokemon Centers, isn't it strange that the only Pokemon Center in Europe is in London? Why are there no Pokemon Centers anywhere else in Europe?
as far as I know, London one is a pop up? currently Official Pokémon Centers are located in all across Japan, one in Singapore and the newest one in Taiwan.
Maybe next time, suddenly make them available online for 1 week or 2 after the scalpers have taken everything.. so that normal people can buy directly.. and so that scalpers don't get to sell their merch and enjoy 5 ukelele
It's a blessing in disguise to like Pokemon but not be obsessed with Pokemon. I have a few Pokemon plushies that are most definitely fake, but they look like Pokemon and that's enough for me. And I'd rather make my own Wigglytuff plush than pay for TPCI's teeny tiny plush.
try goat format yugioh. way simpler version of yugioh. all the cards are released in old sets so only singles/lots are sold in groups. everyone has their own decks already. the tricky part is that in your own area or particular part of any city, you might have no goat format players. check for that first
So theyre selling a $60 ukulele for $300? That's only a profit of $240. That's a lot of work for only a couple hundred bucks, and no guarantee that anyone actually pays for it. Absolutely not worth it imo.
@weetjijwel050 No, I'm not kidding. I'd rather save my $60 than spend it on an item with the hope of reselling it online. Then you have to store it somewhere safe to make sure it doesn't get damaged and wait for someone to actually be willing to spend the inflated amount of money for it. Then you have to deal with shipping it to the buyer. Absolutely not worth it to me personally. I don't need to stoop to being a scumbag scalper for a few hundred bucks.
If i remember correctly the first day there was no limit on the number of exclusive items a group could buy, meaning if you reserved an early spot you could bring along 2 extra people along and they could aslo buy an exclusively 🤢
I got my first job ever a bit after Covid hit and because of the nature of the job I got some back pay from when I had originally applied a few months prior. I really wanted to buy some Pokémon cards but my local Walmart was baron and even now 4 years later they still haven't fully recovered to the level of product they had before covid
“baron” is a title/office a person can hold. The usual spelling of the word I think you mean is “barren”. (Trying not to say that spelling it “baron” is “objectively incorrect”, but, I highly recommend spelling it as “barren” rather than “baron”, as spelling it as “baron” greatly increases the chances that people will initially think you are talking about the title/government-position.)
As a Hawaii local, I've always wondered why people say "yookalaylee" instead of "ukulele". But yeah, they'd only restock between days, which sucked since the center was only open if you had a reservation. Mine was for Wednesday 7pm (did not get to choose) and by the time I got there, a majority of the exclusive worlds 2024 merch was gone. Did get a cool metal sign, poster, and drink glasses tho! Missed out on the card sleeves and ukulele tho... 😞
I'm a local here in Honolulu, and I had a time slot for the first day at 5. When I got in, most things were gone, but even I was one of the lucky ones compared to the other days. I was at least able to buy clothing items. But by the time I got in, the backpacks were sold out, along with the skateboard decks. We kind of already knew that the high in demand items were most likely only going to be restocked once a day, so I wasn't too surprised. And yes there were signs above items listing purchase limits. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean the staff at the registers were always doing their job and paying attention to these limits. Some people got away with buying more than one, depending on their cashier. Some who were doing their job would take things away from customers and put them in a bin to put them back out on the floor. It really just depended on who felt like paying attention to what people were buying. And supposedly many influencers that were given special entry were ones that got away with buying more than the limit as well. Like I'm not surprised at the special treatment for them, but like the least they could do is be a decent person and leave some stuff for the rest of us. And yes the scalpers were outside every god damn day. Talked to a guy selling the backpack for 1K. I shoulda just grabbed it and ran cuz fuck him. I do know that cops were called in at some point, but I have no clue if they dispersed the market or not. But people inside were also fighting over the products, pulling the mannequins down to rip off the display cuz it was the only one left, or if someone dropped their shopping bag and things fell out, others around them lunged for the items. And none of the workers stepped in to stop any of these things from happening, they just kind of turned a blind eye. And by the final day, basically all that was left were plushies. And that's just what happened inside the Pokemon Center. The line to wait was brutal, especially when you got in the parking lot. Packed like sardines, a large fan here and there. They had to start handing out packs of water cuz people were getting dehydrated just waiting. Idk how any of the past World's Pokemon Centers were but gosh this one was brutal.
The pokemon company could care less. Those scalpers still bought the items, so it doesn't affect their bottom line. I doubt they'd also care too much about the idea of losing any amount of good will cuz it's pokemon and people will still buy their product (including me sadly)
@@lucasmartinez8651 Pokemon Company only cares about money! They don't care about fans! This has been proven especially recently! Pokemon Company would be like "We're the richest gaming franchise in the world! What do we care if fans can't get product??" They're that bad
Another thing that occured was that people would have early morning slots, collect more than 1 of each item that were limited, and simply sit on the ground and wait until their friends showed up later. I saw a couple with probably $1000+ in merch just sitting in front of the surfboard display. Scalpers would also take multiple off the shelves in front of staff that did nothing about it, and literally sold it to people waiting in line to pay for their other merch. Imagine someone holding the fries at McDonald's hostage and independently selling customers the ability to buy the fries. I also saw some event staff arbitrarily pull out some merch from the back for midday restock but not others, and more egregiously, I also witnessed staff holding onto limited items and giving them to friends/buyers/people they were hitting on. I saw one employee walk into the back, and grab what looked like a pack of sleeves (that were completely gone) and gave it to someone who had obviously asked for them to do so in advance. There was also a girl close to me saying how an event worker walked up to her and offered her the limited edition picture frame to her (literally the last one for the entire day) because they liked their outfit or something. Sureeee. The only nice thing about the whole experience was a guy outside the store who came from Japan and had a sign saying Steenee was his favorite pokemon and was willing to trade holo promo cards for the free Steenee code that came with every pokemon center purchase.
I live on Oahu, I was able to go to the Pokemon Center the Wednesday it was available. The way the scalpers were operating was egregious. They started setting up shop along the canal behind the convention center. I got lucky getting a few $25 tanktops and scalpers were selling the same shirt for $100 each
As a low budget local that went to the Pokemon Center, of course knowing everything would be overpriced the scalpers did in fact have everything, very annoying to look at knowing they were Over-Overpriced. Still had fun taking pictures with the sets in the store with my dad.
If TPCi wanted to solve this they would. Truth is, there's a good chance they also benefit from this. How many scalpers are staff members, or connected to staff members? How many TPCi employees are secretly receiving a share? We'll never know.
One technique they use is having someone always in store, making sure to take every item as soon as they restock and wait for their other friends to make the purchase They ask people in groups to let them join, rotate the person waiting with the merch so they don't get kicked out, and the cycle continues... I saw this in Yokohama, people with bags full with all the stock of items with 1 or 2 limited purchase Either you are lucky enough to be there for restock, or that's it 😢
Security couldn't stop the people in "Scalper's Alley" because that area was actually public property. And a decent number of people in that area were actually selling their own competitor's kits or previous year 's merch.
This is a bad look for TPCI. Inside the Convention Center, there were tons of people selling the Ukulele and other exclusive merch for insane prices. The Ukulele was offered for as much as $500. Why they would allow this is a mystery to me. I even reported it to staff but they said there's nothing they can do.
LOL out of curiosity we asked one of the scalpers how much they were selling the skateboards that were parked right outside the line for the Pokecenter. Some of them were offering $1000! We're like, yeah best of luck finding a buyer there. We're gonna enjoy the rest of the weekend 😅
As a Pokemon fan and a Hawai’i local, it sucks that these scalpers did this. We rarely get major events like this and we want to get stuff for ourselves. Yet, mainland scalpers fuck us over.
This is why i don't buy pokemon merch or cards these days.. Well, pokemon cards i could still find in stores but scalping really turned me off on collecting and buying them
The only way I see to stop scalpers is not sell those limite editions or say something like: We see you liked this item so much that we decided to make it unlimited
The problem is that there’s no proper way to ban scalpers. All they can do is just get their friends or even “know people” who are working inside the Pokémon centre and get the stock from there. They can even just buy off some people at a $10-$30 markup while selling it on eBay a couple days later for triple. Only way to properly combat it is to have ludicrous amount of stock but then again it’s good profits for the Pokémon company regardless so why should it matter to them
Sadly I don't think setting security to prevent scalpers from setting up shop outside will be enough. They'll just go across the street if they have to.
Falling in line for at least 2 hours just to be welcomed with empty shelves was depressing. I am thankful I at least got a cooler bag that I love using when i do groceries and kids looks at them as i shop. 😅
I've heard plenty of stories about scalpers, but setting up their own store right outside the building? Geniunely how did they not get banned/kicked from the place, if someone even attempted doing that outside a store where I live you would be fined at the spot.
It was annoying you had to book ahead of time like by a month. Around the last day they had people with booked times who didn’t get in until and hour or 2 after booking. Once inside they had nothing 😢
I was there and we were waiting in line on a Thursday arvo, and my god it is true that half the shit was gone, couldn't even get the playmat we wanted. or dice.
That Ukuleles is a $5 chunk of garbage with cheap decals. You could make something way better for cheaper. No idea why you would feed the pokeBeast for a cheap thing with no input into it.
There is such a simple comeback - don't make it limited. Just have it there for the event and then for 2 years on the webshop. Heck, they could even troll people and be like "limited" and then just reprint and remake it into oblivion lmao.
So yeah this seems pretty avoidable if they just produced more supplies for wolrds with the assumption scalpers and other worlds goers will be purchasing that many. I feel most high demand areas with limited resources always will draw scalpers to get a flip but if pokemon produced a survey before hand or at prior worlds asking if people what inventory they liked that year and would like to purchase next year (and over adjust a smidge to avoid controversy) the limited items would still be given to those who went to worlds at the limits and restrictions already put on this years. Thats just my 2¢ and know that its more complicated that that but yeah more inventory really doesn't seem that hard or damaging for the company in any way.
