It’s no secret that new releases from the Pokemon Trading Card Game have become a big pain to collect. Demand has been extremely high over the last year or so, and retailers have struggled to obtain stock. We’ve seen The Pokemon Company take active measures to ramp up production, and get cards to fans, rather than those that are trying to flip them on sites like eBay. One of those measures has been a queue system on the Pokemon Center website, which is meant to prevent bots from being used to scoop up products when they become available. Now it appears Costco is following suit.
As noticed by Pokemon Alerts & News on X/Twitter, Costco seems to be testing a queue system on its website. While we don’t know for certain that this is in response to high demand for Pokemon cards, it does seem likely. Costco has offered some notable card bundles, and they have a tendency to sell out pretty fast. It’s hard to imagine the queue system being put in place for anything other than Pokemon cards, but there’s really no way of knowing for sure until they do some kind of restock.
Obviously this will help with online orders, but it won’t do anything to settle the problems that have been happening with in-store restocks of Pokemon cards. Over the last few months, there have been multiple reports of fights breaking out in Costco stores and the parking lots in front of them, as a direct result of Pokemon cards. It’s all very surreal, but it shows just how highly demanded the products have gotten among both passionate collectors, and resellers looking to take advantage of the situation.
If the queue system ends up working out for Costco, it will be interesting to see if other retailers follow suit. At the end of the day, slowing down resellers is important for The Pokemon Company. The last thing that anyone wants is for fans to abandon collecting Pokemon cards altogether because it’s too difficult to get them at their normal retail price. The longer this situation drags out, the more that becomes a real possibility. If The Pokemon Company is getting its retail partners on board with these types of measures, that’s a huge step in the right direction.
The Pokemon Trading Card Game has a big release coming next month, so it’s possible we could see this Costco queue in action very soon. On July 18th, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet – Black Bolt and Pokemon Scarlet & Violet – White Flare will be released at retailers. The “split expansion” is based on Pokemon Black and White, a generation held in high esteem among fans of the franchise. Like the mega popular 151 and Prismatic Evolutions, Black Bolt and White Flare are considered special sets, which means they won’t have individual booster packs sold in stores. That tends to result in cards being harder to come by, and that’s not even accounting for all of the increased interest lately!
Are you looking forward to the Black Bolt and White Flare sets coming out next month? Do you think we’ll see more retailers embrace queue system for Pokemon cards? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
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