'Unbroken Bonds' Now Out of Print, Possible New Trend for Future Print Runs

Frost said:
No the Pokemon TCG collector forum I'm on is genuinely upset it's getting released in English because their Japanese versions will become worth less. I really don't post much there anymore because their collecting philosophy is so very different from my own, which is fine, but doesn't interest me.
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Ok, that's just bad planning and not paying attention to how TPCi has been doing things lately!

And to be perfectly honest, if they care that much about value, they should be collecting Magic, not Pokemon.
 
Fafnirchaos said:
I've worked as an inventory manager for the last 3 years and have 12 years in retail stores.

I may not know a hell of a lot about business managememt, however I do know about inventory, and based upon what they decided, sounds to me that they are having a hard time keeping people interested in their card game, which in turn will see less sales and less stock. Meaning that the value of everything for consumers is going to fluctuate, and how does someone deal with paying higher for a card they cannot get in card packs?

It makes sense now why we have cards like Pikarom, it's to get more consumers into the game who don't understand it and can be competitive right away.

Unless of course they rid themselves of the cardboard based cards and go solely online as a transition to another product then yeah this decision makes even more sense.

I'm guessing they make huge margins on these cards, seeing how cheap cardboard is and they can resell packs and boosters to collectors, however I can't see them losing money to a card game, unless their player base is going.

But whatever works.
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Firstly, manufacturing and retail are very different. However, since you are an inventory manager in retail, you should be aware that most business (especially in retail) operate using a JIT (just-in-time) ordering system; meaning products are only ordered or manufactured when demand is there and stock is low. Pokemon on the other hand, during the XY era, appear to have manufactured many more products (i.e. boosters) than was required at the time. This means that they have had them in warehouses for years at this point; hence why we still get XY packs in brand new products. As others have pointed out, this dissatisfied a lot of their consumers, and often (at least in my case) resulted in opting out of buying new products. Most prominent examples I can think of for me are the Guardian's Box (the one with Lele) and the Kanto tins . Both, I was willing to buy, but after seeing the amount of out-of-rotation, old XY packs in both products, I ended up opting out of buying them.

Therefore, I assume, their new strategy was put in place to avoid another situation like this, where we'd still be getting Crimson Invasion packs in products near the end of the Sword/Shield era. Rather than due to what you seem to think is lack of demand. The thing is, demand is there, clearly, 2018 and 2019 have been great years for the TCG. However, they did not use JIT, rather they overstocked and were left with tons and tons of dead stock. Who suffers? Mainly their consumers, aka us. Like you point out, they probably have great profit margins, so to them the monetary cost may not be that great (although keep in mind, like I said before, every day that a product spends in a warehouse or on a shelf not sold, is money being lost), but they have to get rid of the products still. And rather than selling them for cheap (which would not be a wise decision) or destroying stock (which is unethical), they went the route of including them in new products, which leads to dissatisfaction among consumers which in turn leads to less sales of products (apart from boosters and booster boxes, etc.).

So the only logical strategy to avoid that in the future is to stop over-manufacturing. And your point about people having to pay extra for out of print cards is simply ridiculous; Computer Search has been out of print for years, its price has been high for years, yet people are not demanding for them to start printing that again are they? So how is Unbroken Bonds going out of print any different to that? What about first edition Base Set? That's out of print, Charizards go for thousands, again, how is this different?

Fafnirchaos said:
Not really, if you can supply your demand and have more for more people than you have a good business. If your worried about inventory... then maybe it's time to look at something else.
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See, in your earlier post you made a point about supply and demand, yet I'm not entirely sure you get the point of it... Supply and demand is about striking the perfect balance between the two, not about surpassing demand. This post contradicts itself, as you make the point of meeting demand (as they clearly did, and more with XY sets), yet you try to use that point to illustrate that over-supplying is good for business, when it clearly is not.

Sorry about the long post anyways, I hope I'm clear in what I'm trying to say.
 
TFW I purchased a booster box of UB just right when this got announced for 89.99 from deriums, and later i check back again after hearing the news their website was temporarily down and after when it got back up the price went from 89.99 to 99.99 for UB and TU,

Feels like it's a message from god for me.
 
Oh hey, a mention of smpratte! I love listening to that guy, super informative stuff.

Anyways I think that this approach is actually pretty cool. Having a good balance of supply and demand is always key, and itll give us more fresh packs in our products after Fates and Siege are out. Except I'd be concerned for sets like Burning Shadows to take their place, but at least that set has some pretty cool stuff in it.
 
I literally just got home from the store after buying an Unbroken Bonds prerelease kit mainly because I thought it was going out of print. I turn on my computer and I see this -_-
 
Swampert Full Art said:
I literally just got home from the store after buying an Unbroken Bonds prerelease kit mainly because I thought it was going out of print. I turn on my computer and I see this -_-
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Yup. Imagine me who just bought a booster case in the hopes of reselling it when the set became a little more scarce. XP

But I think this is good news overall. Makes it a lot cheaper and easier to collect the whole set.
 
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Good, hopefully they'll fix the issues with some boxes lacking a Full-Art or Hyper/Secret Rare in 'em while they're at it.
 
The booster boxes are not sold with a statement that guarantees they were printed from Date X to Date Y, in Z quantity, and that no more will be made.

When I buy booster boxes, I know what I'm getting into, and the risks. Additional copies of any of the cards in my possession could be introduced, thus lowering the value of what I already have.

I paid through the nose to get a playset of Tropical Beach, knowing they could reprint Tropical Beach (so far, haven't, but could if they wanted to). I don't have a partnership or contract with the company to safeguard the value of my Beaches.
 
The Binder Guy said:
Good, hopefully they'll fix the issues with some boxes lacking a Full-Art or Hyper/Secret Rare in 'em while they're at it.
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This has been the worst set for this without doubt ive had 2 cases and in each case ive had a box with just 1 full art and 2/3 GX and then maybe 8/10 holos is pathethic. They need to clearly state each box will have X holos X GX X Full Art X Secret rares - in these days of loot boxes odds etc PCi are running away unscathed.

Funny too in 2 cases only 1 charizard standard GX and 1 FA... this is meant to be poster card and rareness is insane, even up to the end of XY era the poster boy pokemon where pretty much guaranted to be in every box. Every set gets worse and worse...
 
Fafnirchaos said:
I've worked as an inventory manager for the last 3 years and have 12 years in retail stores.

I may not know a hell of a lot about business managememt, however I do know about inventory, and based upon what they decided, sounds to me that they are having a hard time keeping people interested in their card game, which in turn will see less sales and less stock. Meaning that the value of everything for consumers is going to fluctuate, and how does someone deal with paying higher for a card they cannot get in card packs?

It makes sense now why we have cards like Pikarom, it's to get more consumers into the game who don't understand it and can be competitive right away.

Unless of course they rid themselves of the cardboard based cards and go solely online as a transition to another product then yeah this decision makes even more sense.

I'm guessing they make huge margins on these cards, seeing how cheap cardboard is and they can resell packs and boosters to collectors, however I can't see them losing money to a card game, unless their player base is going.

But whatever works.
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ptgco is already online version, however the online version is somewhat dying just like how yugioh tried to be online that. as for the oversupply, i am pretty annoyed the inject old packs into newer products that were meant to be for the current set. What they should do instead of completely stopping production of a set, why not just limit the product like. Make/print a certain amount of cards for suppy and stop and if stores want more of it cant they just start up production again for that order, rather than making something like thousands of extra packs like evolutions that doesnt sell.
 
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