First Day of Van Gogh Pikachu Promotion Goes Smoothly, Limited Scalping, Even More Copies Coming

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Water Pokémon Master

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Today, Pokemon fans in the Netherlands could go to participating stores to receive the Pikachu Van Gogh promo card with purchases of 30 euros. According to dozens of reports we’ve received, it was not difficult to get the card.


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“Many stores sold out by 12:00 or 13:00,” told us one prominent store owner. “All [chain] stores gave out a maximum of one promo per customer. The big stores played it 100% fair.” He monitored one of the largest WhatsApp groups where customers were on the hunt for the card. “Most people are happy. Pokemon did a good job.”


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I’m from the Nederlands. I arrived at 9.50 AM at Game Mania Utrecht. There was a big line and it took me over an hour to reach the cash register. You had to have an store account and spend 30 euro to get the promo. Meanwhile my husband went to Media Markt and Toychamp. He managed to get two promo’s in that same hour. Media Markt was out of stock of Pokémon products before they ran out of promo’s. ? TC gave out multiple promo’s to customers with multiple kids.IMG_5851.jpegIMG_5853.jpegView attachment IMG_5854.jpeg
 
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I live in a smaller city and was at the store a bit before opening time just in case there was a line but it was completely empty :p The employee said they expected a lot more people to show up but as we rounded off more people started coming in for the card. Out of curiosity a few hours later I went to another (bigger) store just to ask if they had promos left and they replied that they had plenty. I'll probably go back on Monday to get a second promo. But yeah I had the same experience as stated in the article; everything went smoothly and was a pleasant experience. Would have still been nice to get it with the museum visit and not be forced to spend more money to get it but I'm happy I have the promo nonetheless.
Edit: just thought I'd add two details that were interesting. First, the employee said they received a lot of calls in the last week asking about the promo (hence the expectation that it would be busier), and secondly, he kept the promos in the register for safety. I thought it was pretty smart considering all the fuss. Luckily wasn't a necessary measure though.
 
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Hopefully it's a good ending to a bad story. It took TPCi a while to wise up, print a copious amount of this card and inform the participating stores they're about to receive dangerous goods so they can prepare adequately.
Still, I don't think having lines for this card and it being sold out in 6 hours means "everyone who wanted one got one". Everyone who bothered to race for one got one.
 
Apparently Game Mania Bruges (Belgium) received around 400 copies of the card, according to mutliple people waiting in line there.
I only saw 1 person that I assume was a scalper, he was angrily talking on the phone after exiting the store, empty handed, complaining that it was only 1 card per person lol.
 
Went to Intertoys in Utrecht, quite a few people in line, but calm atmosphere and easily enough copies for those who arrived around opening time. Funny that some stores (like Game Mania) attracted much longer lines and others (like Media Markt) attracted almost none.

I kinda expected some stores to run out of stock before running out of promos. Funny that that actually happened in some cases ?.

All in all, really happy to get the card without having to stress out and glad to hear they’re making even more available! Hope they can drive the price down to about €20 where it should be imo.
 
I flew to Amsterdam particularly for this. I went to the Intertoys near Amsterdam Zuid station (Gelderplein shopping centre) at 10.30. Absolutely no queue. I wonder how I got this notorious card so easily.
 
I only half understand why they did this promotion to extend to all the stores of Netherlands - like these locations/stores are not part of the Pokémon x Van Gogh collaboration at all in any way and it’s only slightly-regionally related but not specifically part so it’s a little confusing for me there but after doing the tiny drop on the Pokémon center sites why not another full/larger web promotion print run too? If they simply extend it to American and other nationalities stores too this promo right now will literally print money/sales for the company with its level of desirability…**shrug emoji**
 
Jdbeardsmith said:
I only half understand why they did this promotion to extend to all the stores of Netherlands - like these locations/stores are not part of the Pokémon x Van Gogh collaboration at all in any way and it’s only slightly-regionally related but not specifically part so it’s a little confusing for me there but after doing the tiny drop on the Pokémon center sites why not another full/larger web promotion print run too? If they simply extend it to American and other nationalities stores too this promo right now will literally print money/sales for the company with its level of desirability…**shrug emoji**
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They just decided this is the way to go forward after the whole museum scalping fiasco
 
Jdbeardsmith said:
I only half understand why they did this promotion to extend to all the stores of Netherlands - like these locations/stores are not part of the Pokémon x Van Gogh collaboration at all in any way and it’s only slightly-regionally related but not specifically part so it’s a little confusing for me there but after doing the tiny drop on the Pokémon center sites why not another full/larger web promotion print run too? If they simply extend it to American and other nationalities stores too this promo right now will literally print money/sales for the company with its level of desirability…**shrug emoji**
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I mean, some kind of premium collection box with 8 SV-era packs, a plush and a promo card would sell tons… and they could do that (perhaps with each one containing a different merch type) for Sunflora, Eevee and Smeargle, maybe Snorlax too with some cropping. Charge $80 a pop. Almost like printing money.
 
Hukutus said:
They just decided this is the way to go forward after the whole museum scalping fiasco
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That's actually not true. The retail distribution was supposed to coincide with the Van Gogh Museum distribution (or start shortly after the exclusivity period for the Museum). But after the incidents at the Museum the retail distribution was pushed back.
 
After running some errands after lunchtime and doing groceries, I casually walked into the Bruna store in Leusden and asked if they were giving out the promo cards. 'Uh yeah sure,' they replied, even more casually. No line, no scalpers, still a lot of Pokemon products and two kids who were happy with their promo cards. I never would have imagined getting this card would be a normal thing to do.
 
Amazing how scalping suddenly vanished the second they stopped giving cards to Local game stores lol, I guess TPCI finally learned. Dutch people can actually get these cards now at a reasonable price. All's well that ends well.
 
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