I was at Borders today in hopes of getting the latest xxxHOLiC, but another thing caught my eye: A Garchomp (Pokemon) card tin. To my knowledge, this is the first time I'd seen Pokemon cards at Borders, and with a coin toss to decide between the the cards or the manga, the tin became mine.
The thing is, this made me realize exactly how much my local game shop, The Zone, sucks. There are a number of reasons that I say this, but the one that really gets under my skin is that they do not carry Pokemon.
Yes, you read that right. They do not carry a card game tied to a multi-million dollar franchise that has a fun video game, a T.V. series (practically an advertisement), and is from Japan. The only CCGs I've seen them sell are Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and the odd box of Duel Masters (maybe Naruto, once). They have some old Pokemon cards there from retired players, but that's it.
There is absolutely no reason not to sell Pokemon packs, at the very least. Not selling the tins I can understand - they take up space. Not selling anything from the franchise, however, may as well be a sin. The games still sell well; newcomers to the franchise want the new Pokemon; Pokemon has an extremely high nag factor, and the cards make great Christmas, birthday, or anytime rewards.
By not selling Pokemon, The Zone is failing to keep up with other retailers. Not only do Target, Wal-Mart, and other non-hobby stores carry this popular series, but they have more variety than the local hobby store. That is NEVER a good thing; hobby stores need to offer something that huge retailers can't.
Thus far, they are failing to do that. Hard.
NOTICE TO ALL
10 years ago
When it comes to local stores, they tend to try something once and then drop it if it does not sell well enough. I know a lot of card shop owners, and Pokemon never moves.
ReplyDeleteI have run into this problem many times when contemplating selling Geek Fight to stores, as well as when I repped for other companies.