We’ve reported on the situation at the Pokémon Center London a few times now, and things have gotten pretty hairy of late. First, there was the news that queues had to be cut short due to the insane level of interest, and more recently we’ve been hit with the news that there may not even be enough stock to satisfy everyone for the short time the pop-up shop remains open.
Now, we’re seeing the logical end result to this (Pocket) monstrous level of demand – scalpers. Exclusive items that are only available from the London store are popping up online for insane prices. Typing in Pokémon Center London into eBay brings up plenty of items purchased from the store, the most pricey of which is the range of hoodies which are being listed for between £150 to £200 (that’s about $260 at the upper end). The large Snorlax plush is also a hot item at the moment.
Of course, there’s no guarantee that the sellers will get these astronomical prices, but a quick glance the ‘completed items’ filter shows that many are indeed changing hands for more than they were originally purchased for just a few days previously.
Have you taken to eBay to pick up some swag because you can’t get to London? Do you think the people who scalp these items are simply fulfilling a demand which Nintendo and The Pokémon Company should be better at satisfying? Should the buyers be blamed for these inflated prices? Let us know with a comment.
[source usgamer.net]
Comments 24
And in other news Teddiursas are found to have defecated in the woods.
Why do they close it? It obviously creating tone of money
I was there yesterday with the family in the disabled queue, 2 adults 2 kids, we got up at 4am and was in the store relatively quick but upon going in we were told as we used the disabled queue we were only allowed 5 items that cover the disabled person and carer only and that our 13 year old and 10 year old would not get any limit at all, safe to say the we cut our limits and the kids had 2 items each
To be fair it was hard to see this coming.
Nintendo is charging too little for the product, and the market is taking corrective action.
Either Nintendo should increase prices or increase supply.
In other news water is wet.
@TheAwesomeBowser do you have a source for such a strong accusation?
people selling things online for a profit.....shock!
Wow buyers and poketendo be damned.
It's like they don't want money.
I can wait I am going for the game first and pokey stuff later.
This kind of thing always happens when companies make artificial rarity.
Like, I totally understand that you don't want to make too much product and end up with a bunch of stuff left in a warehouse, but Nintendo and Pokemon often seem to grossly underestimate demand.
Scalpers are the scum of the earth. The only thing worse are video game collectors who sell second hand games for more than they bought them for.
The scalpers are aholes, but some people that doesn't live close to London get the chance to get the hold of these items now, even though the prices are really high.
If people don’t buy from the scalpers, the scalpers don’t win.
Sometimes if you wait long enough, prices will drop to decent levels. Just keep an eye on the market. I picked up the Club Nintendo Japan SNES controller for $30 (typically $80), Japanese Pearl and Marina amiibo for $20 each (usually listed for $60+ each), and I really wanted a physical copy of Ace Attorney for the Switch. Once the digital copy released in the US, physical copies dropped to roughly match the digital cost.
If Nintendo would just do away with pop-up shops & commit to going the Apple route by opening Nintendo Stores and/or Pokemon Centres in major urban centres across the world, then this situation would be greatly reduced. Yeah there will always be scalpers but Nintendo & The Pokemon Company could cut in to the scalpers business by actually meeting the demand of their fans. And if they won't open physical stores then at least expand their online retail footprint to most countries. The Canadian online Nintendo store is a joke, mostly just sells replacement power cables & adapters....maybe the odd cool nick nack but really it's rather pathetic.
Were people limited to only one/two of each thing at a time? Selling what you have is one thing, but buying up everything before people who actually want to own it is a dick move.
I went the first day and second day of opening and I still didn't manage to get the exclusive pin. Also because the Lapras plush wasn't available when I was there I did order off eBay and it cost over double of the normal price.
In hindsight, this was always going to happen. A limited run time, exclusive items, Pokemon being at it's highest popularity since the early days thanks to Go. Actually really poor planning whoever was behind this store opening up. The fact that they didn't anticipate demand by supplying even more stock is an incredible own goal. They're now eeking out the remaining stock of pins so thinly they only had 20 in store this morning. 20, for an average footfall of 4000+ daily. What a joke.
This was happening since literally day 1 of it opening. This isn’t a new chapter in the saga of the London Pokemon Store.
@antdickens Indeed I do.
@TheAwesomeBowser haha, excellent! Thanks for the tip
@antdickens Always a pleasure talking with admin!
I know it's not against the law, but personally, I think scalpers are despicable, and I use the word "despicable" because the best term is not something NintendoLife staff would approve of.
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