[bonds20001]

I know it happens..I go to the Fantastic store..Blowout card shop in Chantilly and see retail blasters..same online with all the big guys..Sometimes they have online exclusives as well..
It is turning a buck..profit margin..they are a business and secondary markets are where the $$ is made and lost..

My Target and WalMart close to me are a waste of time trying to find product..ESPECIALLY the RETAIL only products..yet to find a Topps Gallery ANYTHING..blaster..single pack anything..there are gone gone gone...

[magneto2]

I can't speak about Walmart because I don't go there. But Hobby prices are getting ridiculous so Retail is getting shelled to. I tried a Walmart close to me but they don't even have sports or any kind of cards anymore. I went to a Target aways from my house and they were cleaned out too. I did find 2020 Topps at another Target and bought 2 fat packs and a hanger. But nothing really to note other than a couple rookies. Optic is definitely hard to come by this year as hobby boxes are 450$ for a box with one auto!

[rjcj2017]

I know it happens..I go to the Fantastic store..Blowout card shop in Chantilly and see retail blasters..same online with all the big guys..Sometimes they have online exclusives as well..
It is turning a buck..profit margin..they are a business and secondary markets are where the $$ is made and lost..

My Target and WalMart close to me are a waste of time trying to find product..ESPECIALLY the RETAIL only products..yet to find a Topps Gallery ANYTHING..blaster..single pack anything..there are gone gone gone...

What I find funny is that it's like all of a sudden this year people are like, "aha, I know, I'll buy retail trading cards and re-sell them!"

But, they've been sitting on retail shelves forever and are truly the same old ***** they always have been.

---

I can't speak about Walmart because I don't go there. But Hobby prices are getting ridiculous so Retail is getting shelled to. I tried a Walmart close to me but they don't even have sports or any kind of cards anymore. I went to a Target aways from my house and they were cleaned out too. I did find 2020 Topps at another Target and bought 2 fat packs and a hanger. But nothing really to note other than a couple rookies. Optic is definitely hard to come by this year as hobby boxes are 450$ for a box with one auto!

Crazy. I mean, I've bought a fair amount of retail basketball this year due to the Zion craze, but I have had no illusion I would actually pull something great.

I was beyond thrilled with the jersey card, I am satisfied with that ... I have no intention of clearing out any product.

[djohn]

The biggest reason that this is happening more and more is because case breakers are buying so much that the demand causes prices to increase, once the hobby prices start going up the demand for retail picks up as pricing is fixed on retail until it gets resold on eBay. Here are some numbers to better illustrate my point.
A hobby box of 2020 Topps was under $50 if you bought from direct distributor, jumbo boxes were around $80. However the online giants (DAC, Blowout, SteelCity, etc) want to make money so they set prices at $75/hobby and $125/jumbo. As demand increases and case breakers buy into presales the price goes up and up; eventually doubling the original Topps price. Now all this time retail doesn't get pre-sold the same way and is a first come first serve at a fixed price of $20/blaster, $10/hanger $5/jumbo pack, $3/pack once it hits the stores. So you can buy a case worth of blasters (20 total) for $400 or buy 4 hobby boxes for the same amount. The 4 hobby boxes will guarantee 4 hits (but some will be manufactured relics and others will be no name relics/autos that might sell for $1-2 each). While the blasters will not only give you more total cards, more parallels, but also a guaranteed 20 manufactured relics and typically another hit in the case. Also, when you consider the rarer SSPs and other hits the odds end up being better of hitting one in 200 retail packs versus 96 hobby packs.
While you don't get the same guaranteed hits in retail the hits you do get can be better. In the last 2-3 years I have hit autos of Judge rookie, Bellinger rookie, Ichiro, and a few other big names from retail, while the best hobby hit I have gotten has been a Devers auto. So I have started leaning more and more toward retail over hobby boxes, and sometimes buy entire displays worth as it would be the same I would spend on buying a couple of hobby boxes.
Now basketball this year is an even bigger difference. Optic hobby boxes were originally $100 MSRP (less than that cost for direct dealers). They sold out at $100 in 4 minutes online, as the online giants already had boxes preselling for $400+. So of course retail is going to vanish instantly when it shows up and you can buy an entire display (5 blasters, 2 megas, and 10 racks) for the same price as a hobby box. Some people will open them, as they want to open Optic, but others will also resell them as the boxes can be resold for more than double. So it has become a race to the store for some people, and the people that have the time and ability to track the delivery guy are definitely going to follow him store to store to buy everything they can as it's an easy massive profit. After all, it can be as simple as take the day off from work and charge a few thousand dollars to your credit card and then resell them when you get home and end the day making several thousand dollars profit (for a lot of people that's more than they make in a month). So it should be no surprise that this is happening.

[rjcj2017]

The biggest reason that this is happening more and more is because case breakers are buying so much that the demand causes prices to increase, once the hobby prices start going up the demand for retail picks up as pricing is fixed on retail until it gets resold on eBay. Here are some numbers to better illustrate my point.
A hobby box of 2020 Topps was under $50 if you bought from direct distributor, jumbo boxes were around $80. However the online giants (DAC, Blowout, SteelCity, etc) want to make money so they set prices at $75/hobby and $125/jumbo. As demand increases and case breakers buy into presales the price goes up and up; eventually doubling the original Topps price. Now all this time retail doesn't get pre-sold the same way and is a first come first serve at a fixed price of $20/blaster, $10/hanger $5/jumbo pack, $3/pack once it hits the stores. So you can buy a case worth of blasters (20 total) for $400 or buy 4 hobby boxes for the same amount. The 4 hobby boxes will guarantee 4 hits (but some will be manufactured relics and others will be no name relics/autos that might sell for $1-2 each). While the blasters will not only give you more total cards, more parallels, but also a guaranteed 20 manufactured relics and typically another hit in the case. Also, when you consider the rarer SSPs and other hits the odds end up being better of hitting one in 200 retail packs versus 96 hobby packs.
While you don't get the same guaranteed hits in retail the hits you do get can be better. In the last 2-3 years I have hit autos of Judge rookie, Bellinger rookie, Ichiro, and a few other big names from retail, while the best hobby hit I have gotten has been a Devers auto. So I have started leaning more and more toward retail over hobby boxes, and sometimes buy entire displays worth as it would be the same I would spend on buying a couple of hobby boxes.
Now basketball this year is an even bigger difference. Optic hobby boxes were originally $100 MSRP (less than that cost for direct dealers). They sold out at $100 in 4 minutes online, as the online giants already had boxes preselling for $400+. So of course retail is going to vanish instantly when it shows up and you can buy an entire display (5 blasters, 2 megas, and 10 racks) for the same price as a hobby box. Some people will open them, as they want to open Optic, but others will also resell them as the boxes can be resold for more than double. So it has become a race to the store for some people, and the people that have the time and ability to track the delivery guy are definitely going to follow him store to store to buy everything they can as it's an easy massive profit. After all, it can be as simple as take the day off from work and charge a few thousand dollars to your credit card and then resell them when you get home and end the day making several thousand dollars profit (for a lot of people that's more than they make in a month). So it should be no surprise that this is happening.

Good breakdown there.

The funny thing is, these ***** hats aren't actually good at getting there first.

I was at WalMart the day they put out all the Prizm basketball - I grabbed two mega boxes, a blaster, a hanger and a three-pack (just wanted to try all the formats).

I pulled one base Zion and was happy with that ... based on what I've been reading and seeing in online breaks, it wouldn't be surprising if I pulled one of the two or three actual Zions in the entire disbursement.

Same with 2020 Topps baseball, as I mentioned. I could have cleared them out but didn't.

And earlier this winter I already bought two blasters of 2019 WalMart Holiday baseball, pulling the Shohei SSP in one box and my Acuna auto in the other, before someone cleaned them out.

In fact, now that I think about it, I went back into the WalMart shortly after I pulled the Acuna auto and there were these two dimwitted-looking Bubbas that were stuffing their arms with the rest of the holiday boxes.

I thought about telling them what I pulled, but I thought, nah, why ruin their holiday fun?

It's probably them, because I don't ever remember seeing them before, and it seems like I would have run into them sometime in the past.

Which actually feeds into my theory about why it's completely ridiculous to buy secondary retail stuff online.

I would highly, highly doubt that the rest of those holiday boxes would have anything remotely good in them ... I already beat the odds on the SSP (1:16 boxes) as well as the metallic snowflake autos (1:2,903 packs).

So if you're an online buyer, and assuming you're already paying a markup, you have to know these boxes probably came from a partial or incomplete allotment, right?

[evolb909]

Buying cards, even retail, has become just another cash grab for lazy opportunistic people. These guys would rather drive from this Target to that dumpster then over yonder to Dollar Tree to buy stuff and resell it online than have a job. People even do this with dvd/blu rays, toys, Funko Pops, Hot Wheels, etc. Cash grabs are all the rage right now, just ask Disney. There are also a ton of new people jumping into the hobby blind and paying these premiums all of us here scoff at immediately. But we know better. It's going to take these new guys getting burned repeatedly to learn the hard way that they are overpaying.

On another note, just ran to Meijer with a buddy and found 5 2020 Topps purple blisters. Got home and found they were all opened... I'm shocked I didn't notice. I'll just have to talk to the manager when I return them this week to let them in on the scam. Bloodthirsty sharks in your area, parasites or vultures in mine.

If there is no exclusive retail for me to chase I won't bust anything at all. Can't find worthwhile older wax cheap anywhere anymore either so it will likely be buying singles and trading older stuff exclusively soon. Paying a premium for current hobby or retail product doesn't work for me either. I can easily quit anything I cannot justify, especially when it comes to not getting my money's worth. I'll come back when the opportunists have weeded themselves out.

[chevy man 22]

Usually flagship series one is not that popular this year it just happens to have an unusual number of cream of the crop rookie class that was hyped up to oblivion.

But sadly retail is what it is now. It all started with the Bowman Mega boxes a couple years ago. Now anything that is semi hype is going to be impossible to find at retail in quanity.

If you think series one is hard to find Just wait until series 2 and Lewis Robert is a super short print like Acuna in '18 and Vlad Jr. last year.

[kerryandbeth]

If I had a choice (meaning I don't) I would buy retail because I am a set collector. There are never, ever retail boxes available in my area ever since 2013 Bowman Platinum was on the shelves. So, I am lucky enough to have spending cash to pay the premium on hobby boxes and let the pack searchers, retail distributors, and the shelf stalkers fight it out.

[chevy man 22]

I don't even bother with in store retail anymore. I just order off walmart.com and pick it up in store. No worrying about missing out or if someone has already molested the packs.

I have 2 monster boxes and 12 hangers of '20 Heritage that will be ready for pickup March 2nd.

[rjcj2017]

Buying cards, even retail, has become just another cash grab for lazy opportunistic people. These guys would rather drive from this Target to that dumpster then over yonder to Dollar Tree to buy stuff and resell it online than have a job. People even do this with dvd/blu rays, toys, Funko Pops, Hot Wheels, etc. Cash grabs are all the rage right now, just ask Disney. There are also a ton of new people jumping into the hobby blind and paying these premiums all of us here scoff at immediately. But we know better. It's going to take these new guys getting burned repeatedly to learn the hard way that they are overpaying.

On another note, just ran to Meijer with a buddy and found 5 2020 Topps purple blisters. Got home and found they were all opened... I'm shocked I didn't notice. I'll just have to talk to the manager when I return them this week to let them in on the scam. Bloodthirsty sharks in your area, parasites or vultures in mine.

If there is no exclusive retail for me to chase I won't bust anything at all. Can't find worthwhile older wax cheap anywhere anymore either so it will likely be buying singles and trading older stuff exclusively soon. Paying a premium for current hobby or retail product doesn't work for me either. I can easily quit anything I cannot justify, especially when it comes to not getting my money's worth. I'll come back when the opportunists have weeded themselves out.

Ahhh, Meijer ... my favorite store ever.

It was Target and WalMart 30 years before they thought of being Target and WalMart.

Well said on all points, I guess I'll have to wait it out too.

I was able to find a couple of 3-pack blister packs last night and actually pulled a fair amount of the best rookies.

Except for Alvarez ... then again, I'm not sure I want any Astros cards right now, LOL

---

Usually flagship series one is not that popular this year it just happens to have an unusual number of cream of the crop rookie class that was hyped up to oblivion.

But sadly retail is what it is now. It all started with the Bowman Mega boxes a couple years ago. Now anything that is semi hype is going to be impossible to find at retail in quanity.

If you think series one is hard to find Just wait until series 2 and Lewis Robert is a super short print like Acuna in '18 and Vlad Jr. last year.

Agreed. That's the funny thing ... I'm actually in the camp that a player's first card (i.e. Bowman) should be his RC, so I already had all the Luis Robert, Wander Franco, Joey Bart, Yordan Alvarez, etc., stuff that I needed last year.

Their Topps "rookie logo" cards actually don't move the needle much for me, but apparently I'm in the minority.

---

If I had a choice (meaning I don't) I would buy retail because I am a set collector. There are never, ever retail boxes available in my area ever since 2013 Bowman Platinum was on the shelves. So, I am lucky enough to have spending cash to pay the premium on hobby boxes and let the pack searchers, retail distributors, and the shelf stalkers fight it out.

You would think that living in the main Target hub in 'Sota that you would have an easy time finding retail ... I would give anything to buy hobby only.

---

I don't even bother with in store retail anymore. I just order off walmart.com and pick it up in store. No worrying about missing out or if someone has already molested the packs.

I have 2 monster boxes and 12 hangers of '20 Heritage that will be ready for pickup March 2nd.

Nice! Can't wait to see the goods, please post when you do.