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
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