As parents, we've all found ourselves in a situation where our kid has a toy on their wish list that, despite all our efforts, we can't get our hands on them. Parents have waited in lines for hours, had family members searching the stores near them, and we've put callouts on social media.
Whether it is the most popular toy on the market at the time or our kid has obscure interests and we have to go on a digital scavenger hunt, it's happened. And for pandemic parents, this year's hottest item — apparently for kids and adults — is Pokémon cards. That's right, the cards from our childhood are back with a vengance and they've been causing some major problems for retail stores.
Maybe we can just blame it on the pandemic
Due to the global health crisis and the challenges with physical distancing and production lines, some things have been harder to find this past year. Things like toilet paper and Lysol wipes, Nintendo Switches, and apparently popular trading cards like Pokémon, NFL, MLB, and NBA are hard to come by.
But instead of acting like adults, people are making things dangerous, and retail giants Walmart and Target have had to take action.
It was only a matter of time
According to Bleeding Cool, Walmart and Target are pulling Pokémon trading cards off the shelves and similar trading cards for sports teams, including NFL, MLB, and NBA, because people can't act like adults. The publication reports Walmart ordered vendors to stop stocking the cards for the foreseeable feature, and Target will quickly follow suit starting May 14 out of "an abundance of caution."
The action of pulling the cards off the shelves is due to purported "inappropriate customer behavior" due to increased demand and the fact that the cards are harder to come by right now. (Don't believe us? If you've ever noticed a curious line in front of your local Target at 5 a.m., that's probably why.)
Many people took to social media to share notes left on store shelves
On Twitter, people started sharing store notes placed on the empty shelves where the trading cards would normally be stocked.
So, I guess Pokémon, MLB, NFL, and NBA trading cards are no longer going to be sold at Target stores starting this Friday. pic.twitter.com/pUzbQ9Esey
— Alan Johnson (@TheAlanJohnson) May 12, 2021
"To ensure the safety of our guests and team members, effective May 14th, NLB, NFL, NBA, and Pokémon Trading Cards will no longer be sold in stores until further notice," one note posted in Target read.
Some Walfarts are banning #PokemonTCG sales. I don't think the scalping problem will go away until Pokemon is able to resume normal (or increased) printing production.
We covered the production problem last year: https://t.co/LZ8mqNnNRJ pic.twitter.com/T4nEcbedCo
— PokeBeach.com (@pokebeach) May 6, 2021
"The trading card categories have been removed from the sales floor, and sales of these items have been suspended due to inappropriate customer behavior and increased demand," a note posted at a Walmart location read.
This move seems to be in response to an incident at a Target location
According to Vice, an incident in a Target parking lot in Wisconsin broke out over a dispute over the trading cards and the challenges people have had come across them. The local Target location had restocked the trading cards on the shelves, and it ended with someone pulling out a gun.
"The man never fired his weapon, and no one was seriously injured, according to a police press release about the incident," according to Vice. "The incident [occurred] on May 7 at 8:20 a.m. outside of a Target store, which has a policy of only selling collectible merchandise at 8 a.m. on Fridays. According to the police report, four men attacked the fifth man when he exited the Target carrying a box of sports cards."
There are no details on when — or if — the trading cards will be restocked
These trading cards have always been a big draw for people. Still, when the pandemic hit, supply went down, demand went up, scalpers hit the stores and bought everything up, and that's fueling the drama of people not being able to act like adults.
"When Covid-19 hit, a lot of Gen X and Millennials were looking for things to do, and we found a lot of these guys and girls started playing Pokémon again because they grew up with it," Joe Maddalena, executive vice president at Texas-based Heritage Auctions, explained to Reuters earlier this year when the demand skyrocketed.
While we don't know if the cards will ever come back in stores, both Target and Walmart say they can now be purchased online — but something tells us they'll still be hard to find.
