General Forum

I have not purchased a box or pack in years.  Stopped when I started focusing on my Huskers.   The odd of getting one card I need was just way too low even if the prices were lower I would not buy any.

3 months ago the shelfs for sports cards were empty. (none at all).    Now they are full at Target and both Walmart. (no LCS).    They still have the signs up limiting you to 5 boxes.  It also appeared that no boxes were sold as they were completely full no place to put any more.  Maybe they just stocked it right before I seen it who knows.

I put out more discounted products this week than in 3 years...still no "Clearance boxes" at Walmart or Targets but still...especially Hockey,  Wrestling and Soccer because here in coastal NC no one buys NHL...even the older Fairfield hockey boxes with 8 promised packs (with seeded Gretzky cards- who knows) have been sitting for 2 months at $10 or $12...

The downside is the first clearance prices are what the products cost before COVID, e.g. Topps Heritage blasters low and high series at 19.99- same as Archives, U.D. Goodwin Champions etc. I've bought the Panini Chronicles Soccer hangers at 7.99 and 2022 Donruss value(ha) packs at $9.

Hopefully it will continue and head your way too!

   Cheers!

         Becks

So MJ Holding is the company that owns the cards in Walmart stores. Walmart takes them as "paper scan" which means they know the inventory and whats there however Walmart never pays for the product, its scanned in their registers under a Department that gets backed out of their sales. Now Walmart when the flippers were having their hayday did not want the aisle empty as it does not fit their idea of a full store all the time, always in stock blah blah blah. MJ Holding answered by shipping in more freight as requested at the same time the prices went up. Now the prices are too high to flip them because by the time the flippers pay their connections at walmart they are not making anything to make it worth doing. The 2022 product is still being released from the manufacturers so that will be in the store till they are done with their over done assortment of the same cards and pictures. Crazy how many sets there are and thats not including the sets that dont go to Walmart. So at the end of the day sadly the product as it is not walmart inventory will never get the deep discount we dream of as there is no reason to discount it as they can just say Hey vendor get this crap out of here. Thats when the put it all back in the brown MJ boxes and ship it back to MJ Holding. There are ocassionally yellow ticketed MJ product but thats rare and only when MJ corp gives a specific list to the vendors.

Not trying to start an argument nor a fight but MJ Holding does NOT own all of the card rights in Walmart and in most cases there isn't a conspiracy going on...albeit I've seen some shady things in other places...but...for example...my main store where I work (and I / we currently do NOTHING for MJ Holding nor Fairfield and are the largest merchandising firm partner the store has) but the card aisles were completely empty for nearly 3 weeks until last week because there were no employees coming out from the specific merchandising company to stock them. I saw the product locked up in the backs of stores and no one can touch or is supposed to touch product that is addressed to a specific company like Excell, Anderson, SAS etc...just saying.- from my comments I hope you can see I share frustration with everything...and there may be some states where the "Big Box" retailers have different rules and relationships with the companies...I am speaking for the Southeast region of the U.S., in general.

  Cheers!

    Becks

I'm finding it easier to find the boxes online instead of taking chances in stores.  I'm guessing with the way its easier for people to find boxes of cards, it's under cutting the market the flippers were relying on.  If they can't go store to store in an area and completely buy everything out, they no longer can demand insane prices.  Sure they'll still make some cash with the autographed cards or special inserts but without being able to sell every single card from the box for over $1 each, they'll be stuck with a lot of unwanted inventory and only make a small mark up instead of tripling or more their investment.

I'm starting to see the same flippers who were charging insane prices just a year ago, now putting boxes of thousands of cards up for $20.  As someone just interested in collecting and not wanting to view it as an investment, I'm totally fine with that.

Coming from someone who builds sets, primarily Topps, Topps Chrome, Topps Heritage, I am hesitant to purchase retail and even hobby for several reasons, The quality of the product is lacking. In addition, the price has gone up and these two items alone are a major turn off.  I also see Junk Wax Era 2 in the making as there so much of it out there.  I didn't buy any of the 2023 Series one product and ended up building my set entirely through trading with other members on TCDB.  (Spent about $25 in postage to aquire the entire set and moved a bunch of base in the process.)  I haven't checked recently, but during my latest search for a release date on 2023 Heritage I wasn't finding any info. If Heritage doesn't release, then I am probably done building sets as the last round of Chrome was probably the worst in quality that I have ever seen in all the years of collecting. I will turn my focus back to completing vintage sets or I will start thinning my collection down to what I truly want to keep. 

Update: Looks like Heritage is set to drop on May 31st...we shall see!

Here's what I posted in the Wal-Mart thread a few days.

My sons and I just gave up back when flippers were clearing the shelves.  We quit going to the card aisles.  Opening some packs was something we did together, but our habits changed.  Now we put or money and time into buying singles and lots.  Maybe other had a similar change of habit and focus.

They dont own the rights to anything, they own the actual merchandise. Third party vendors are paid by MJ Holding to put out their product. Otherwise store staff would put it out. They dont get paid to put it out so therefore they do not. I am in Florida now but it was the same in New York when I was a GM for Toys R Us. Not arguing, just explaining. 

tip of the cap to you, KJ, finding a way to pivot to another way to hobby that is still fun but less costly!

mark