Yesterday I went to the mall and passed by a Pokémon card shop. My kid and I ended up getting into the hobby with our first set of Pokémon cards.
After doing some research, I’m really curious about three things:
1) They say this stuff is random—so why, among 8 packs, all the rare pulls are Eevee? And why did we also get a SAR ultra-rare? Is it because we bought an Eevee box?
🔹
So that would mean the pull rates can be controlled by humans?
2) The clerk said if we buy single packs, it’s only the Japanese version. I wonder—are Japanese cards priced lower in China? And are they sold at the original price in Japan? If I take the China version to Japan and bring the Chinese version back home, isn’t that arbitrage?
🔹
Off-market cross-border OTC? Wouldn’t that be even more profitable than doing Japanese proxy shopping?
3) Pokémon rare card prices are available in English, Chinese, Japanese, and other languages. Is there a website that can look up a single unified global price? The key is that nobody publishes bids.
🔹
This quoting market feels like a big business.
✅
I’m really impressed—an animated series has managed to build one of the top global trading card markets, with Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh clearly not able to match Pokémon IP in Asia. Little kids genuinely love it.
As long as the anime is still airing, it can keep bringing new people into the game. This card business model is pretty much perfect.
After doing some research, I’m really curious about three things:
1) They say this stuff is random—so why, among 8 packs, all the rare pulls are Eevee? And why did we also get a SAR ultra-rare? Is it because we bought an Eevee box?
🔹
So that would mean the pull rates can be controlled by humans?
2) The clerk said if we buy single packs, it’s only the Japanese version. I wonder—are Japanese cards priced lower in China? And are they sold at the original price in Japan? If I take the China version to Japan and bring the Chinese version back home, isn’t that arbitrage?
🔹
Off-market cross-border OTC? Wouldn’t that be even more profitable than doing Japanese proxy shopping?
3) Pokémon rare card prices are available in English, Chinese, Japanese, and other languages. Is there a website that can look up a single unified global price? The key is that nobody publishes bids.
🔹
This quoting market feels like a big business.
✅
I’m really impressed—an animated series has managed to build one of the top global trading card markets, with Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh clearly not able to match Pokémon IP in Asia. Little kids genuinely love it.
As long as the anime is still airing, it can keep bringing new people into the game. This card business model is pretty much perfect.
