No more sports cards at Target

[mrmopar]

If I had not kicked myself of the pack habit years ago (maybe 99-00), as it literally was nothing more than a gambling addiction, I would have been done this year for sure if I somehow even managed to make it the 20 some odd years.

I'm finding a number of converging factors that have sucked nearly all the fun left out of collecting. I should have started selling 6 months ago, but not organized enough and didn't want to give ebay more money either.

[tulsaboy]

This is also, I think, to a certain extent the fault of the manufacturers. They have worked quite hard to create a lottery ticket mentality with new product. When every single card has a literal rainbow of parallels, signed parallels, etc., buying packs and boxes becomes just gambling. During COVID my wife and kids and I had fun grabbing packs and some blasters and, for the first time in years, putting a set together from packs. It was wildly inefficient financially, but the process was a hoot. Baseball packs usually weren't difficult to get, but football and basketball became super hard because folks were swooping in seconds after they were stocked so that they could resell them on the secondary market.

The manufacturers know all of this. And could simply ramp up production to meet demand. They won't, though, because they benefit from the perceived scarcity of their product. Panini Football or basketball cards aren't scarce at all. They are everywhere. What has happened is that by flippers buying Target and Walmart out seconds after the cards are stocked, folks perceive the product to be scarce and thus are willing to pay the higher prices. It is ludicrous. The chances of pulling a $25,000 card from one of the blasters is almost nil, but the thrill of the possibility gets people to pay $150 for that $20 blaster. Just dumb.

The folks this decision actually hurts are kids and regular folks in towns without card shops. In the 1980s cards were everywhere- at grocery stores, convenience stores, book stores and Target and Walmart. They disappeared from the gas and convenience stores in the early 1990s, and even from Target and Walmart for a while. Now they are disappearing from those two retailers. Sadly, it will greatly limit the ability of average folks to get a pack or two of cards. When you make things hard, you change folks' willingness to buy. This will limit casual folks from buying cards, which is bad for our hobby. I don't blame Walmart or Target for doing this, I blame idiots who are looking to make a quick dollar and the manufacturers who have facilitated it.

kevin

I read it also in the news this morning. Guns and tracking devices. Geez. People say the good old days weren't as good as we remember. Ha. Never saw people fighting over baseball cards. I still think they were pretty good.

[Rich Klein]

Let's remind everyone it's not ALL cards.

Instead it's baseball, Football, basketball and pokemon.

You will still see Racing, Magic, etc at Target.

The point is to eliminate the cards being sold which triggered the near-fights and other events such as the gun being pulled (and from what's been reported rightly so) at the Wisconsin Target,

For the small amount of revenue cards bring in compared to other things, why subject everyone to this potentially dangerous situations.

Rich

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

...gun being pulled (and from what's been reported rightly so) at the Wisconsin Target...

From what I've read/heard:

• Four people assaulted someone in the Target parking lot
• The assault occurred for reasons that included sports cards
• The victim of the assault had a legally obtained firearm and valid concealed carry permit
• He produced the firearm in response to getting assaulted and defended himself without firing a shot

Media outlets fixated on the "gun in a Target parking lot" portion of this story. Yet, in my opinion, the person with the firearm did everything correctly.

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by Eric72

From what I've read/heard:

• Four people assaulted someone in the Target parking lot
• The assault occurred for reasons that included sports cards
• The victim of the assault had a legally obtained firearm and valid concealed carry permit
• He produced the firearm in response to getting assaulted and defended himself without firing a shot

Media outlets fixated on the "gun in a Target parking lot" portion of this story. Yet, in my opinion, the person with the firearm did everything correctly.

Apparently he cut in line which is what started the fight. Not justification for jumping the guy. I think we don’t have all the facts on this one yet.

[Jim65]

Originally Posted by Eric72

From what I've read/heard:

• Four people assaulted someone in the Target parking lot
• The assault occurred for reasons that included sports cards
• The victim of the assault had a legally obtained firearm and valid concealed carry permit
• He produced the firearm in response to getting assaulted and defended himself without firing a shot

Media outlets fixated on the "gun in a Target parking lot" portion of this story. Yet, in my opinion, the person with the firearm did everything correctly.

Wait, are you implying the Media twisted a story to push an agenda? LOL

[deweyinthehall]

Originally Posted by tulsaboy

This is also, I think, to a certain extent the fault of the manufacturers. They have worked quite hard to create a lottery ticket mentality with new product. When every single card has a literal rainbow of parallels, signed parallels, etc., buying packs and boxes becomes just gambling. During COVID my wife and kids and I had fun grabbing packs and some blasters and, for the first time in years, putting a set together from packs. It was wildly inefficient financially, but the process was a hoot. Baseball packs usually weren't difficult to get, but football and basketball became super hard because folks were swooping in seconds after they were stocked so that they could resell them on the secondary market.

The manufacturers know all of this. And could simply ramp up production to meet demand. They won't, though, because they benefit from the perceived scarcity of their product. Panini Football or basketball cards aren't scarce at all. They are everywhere. What has happened is that by flippers buying Target and Walmart out seconds after the cards are stocked, folks perceive the product to be scarce and thus are willing to pay the higher prices. It is ludicrous. The chances of pulling a $25,000 card from one of the blasters is almost nil, but the thrill of the possibility gets people to pay $150 for that $20 blaster. Just dumb.

The folks this decision actually hurts are kids and regular folks in towns without card shops. In the 1980s cards were everywhere- at grocery stores, convenience stores, book stores and Target and Walmart. They disappeared from the gas and convenience stores in the early 1990s, and even from Target and Walmart for a while. Now they are disappearing from those two retailers. Sadly, it will greatly limit the ability of average folks to get a pack or two of cards. When you make things hard, you change folks' willingness to buy. This will limit casual folks from buying cards, which is bad for our hobby. I don't blame Walmart or Target for doing this, I blame idiots who are looking to make a quick dollar and the manufacturers who have facilitated it.

kevin

This is pitch perfect - I feel like I could have written it myself. Thank you.

For myself, and probably a fair amount of others, it was cards that actually got me interested in the sports and not the other way around. In the spring of '78 I learned all the teams and the players before I'd ever watched a game.

What we're seeing was inevitable, and it's terrible. I'd love to know what is being said in the company board-rooms about this - because you know they're talking about it.

A few years back, after the glut of the 90s and 00s, sports dialed back on the licenses and that helped restore some sanity to things. Wonder if there's a chance the current situation will make manufacturers rethink anything about distribution. If two giants like Target and Wal-Mart cease selling, they'll probably need to.

[toppcat]

If I'm not mistaken, I believe the halt is temporary. Open ended, but temporary at least for now.

Someone else said a Target employee told them it was permanent on sports cards. Can't blame them. People have been acting stupid on this for a while now. It was only a matter of time.

[Bigdaddy]

Originally Posted by tulsaboy

This is also, I think, to a certain extent the fault of the manufacturers. They have worked quite hard to create a lottery ticket mentality with new product.....

The manufacturers know all of this. And could simply ramp up production to meet demand.

They tried this starting in the mid-80s and you see what happened - the junk wax era. Seems like the manufacturers can't figure out a stable production/price level. Either too little and the secondary market goes wild or too much production and the cards are worthless. Certainly in the long run the hobby doesn't want the only cards that are worth keeping be the chase cards and all the rest are practically worthless - seems like that is where we are now. And even then, many of those chase cards will fall off in value over time as today's hot prospect goes the way of Joe Charboneau. I'm not sure we will ever see anything resembling stability in the hobby regarding modern cards anymore - it's too much of a lottery, win big or lose. And I don't see how that is good in the long run. But hey, what do I know? I didn't buy Apple or Tesla.

[Mark17]

I'm just glad no fights broke out while buying toilet paper at Target last year. I assume Target would've stopped selling that too.