Overview
- Videos posted Thursday showed Target employees removing or slashing factory shrink wrap from Pokémon Trading Card Game boxes before they were placed on store shelves.
- Separate social posts on Thursday reported that some online orders arrived with shrink wrap already cut, indicating the practice may extend beyond in-store displays.
- The retailer’s apparent aim is to make boxes harder to resell at a premium because resellers and bots depend on intact seals to prove products are unopened.
- Collectors and some customers have complained that cuts sometimes damage the cardboard packaging and reduce value for genuine buyers who want sealed boxes.
- This move follows earlier anti-scalper steps like purchase limits, online queues and anti-theft tags and could lower quick resales while pushing demand and higher prices toward truly sealed stock elsewhere.