With the resurgence of hobbies and collection that have come along with the COVID-19 Pandemic, Pokemon cards have largely come into high demand, and it is increasingly rare to find legitimate sellers and reasonable prices for cards and booster packs online, with many stores having little to none in stock. On my quest to relive my childhood, here are the stores that I went to on the hunt for booster packs at many stores. Some were successful, while others would be considered failures.
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| The cards I gathered on my perilous journey |
Gamestop
Gamestop is one of the first places that comes into many minds when people think of where they can find Pokemon cards. Indeed, Gamestop DID have cards! A success! But, let's talk about some of the downsides to Gamestop's selection. The first issue is that there is a booster pack limit. Only 5 packs are allowed to be purchased per customer. While this does seem like a reasonable amount, know that you may run into a store with other fans infected with pokemania, who also take exactly five packs of cards. This could lead to you not getting the amount you want. Thankfully, Gamestop's selection of booster packs include both the Chilling Reign series and Vivid Voltage series. These are the most recent official series put out by the Pokemon Company. Many of my Gamestop locations, only a few packs were available, so I was generous enough to leave some behind for others.
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| Chilling Reign booster pack |
Walgreens
This store is known for being a pharmacy, but most locations usually have a toy section that may have a few booster packs on the racks. I was only able to find one Pokemon tcg related item; a small box with two booster packs of the Darkness Ablaze series, as well as a Mega Tyranitar Pin. This pack was a bit more expensive that your average 3 to 4 dollar price range, as it was 8 dollars (most likely because of all of the goods inside of the box). This was quite an odd find.
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| The best one I could find |
Dollar General
Dollar General seems to be a bit of a hit or miss when it comes to these cards. Some locations in my area don't even sell the cards! As ludicrous as it sounds, many toy sections in these stores lack card selections. However, at select locations, you can find cards in stock, and there were quite a few packs lined up when I finally stumbled into a Dollar General with a larger toy section. Unfortunately, I was only able to find cards of the original sword and shield series, which is far from the latest Chilling Reign series. A recurring theme to many of these stores that I went to in search of cards is that many of their booster packs are outdated for some reason.
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| Pokemon Sword and Shield booster packs |
CVS
CVS seemed to be a complete bust, most stores do not have them in stock, and there is no guarantee that the booster packs will be of the latest edition.
Target
Everyone knows about the mess that Target is when it comes to Pokemon cards. Unfortunately, many Target locations fall victim to Walmart's issue; simply never having cards in stock. Many Target stores will have the boxes and displays for the official Pokemon tcg, only for them to be completely empty and ransacked. It should also be noted that a while back, Target banned the sale of Pokemon cards as the frenzy over them became much too chaotic. Some stores are still dealing with the ramifications of this ban, and may or may not even have a dedicated shelf in the store for the cards. Do not try to utilize Target's website to order boosters, as these listings are often outdated, or out of stock with no foreseeable restock. I tried this, and was crushed at the cancellation of my order. Here is some evidence of the carnage.
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| Almost all of the cards were cleaned out at my local Target |
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| Disaster has struck! |
Amazon, Ebay, and other online store fronts
Online stores are where the REAL chaos begins. It should be known that many prices have been hijacked and are absolutely ludicrous on Ebay and Facebook market place. Etsy also falls victim to the same issues, and lots of fake cards and empty cases are also up for sale, so PLEASE READ the descriptions and reviews carefully. Amazon doesn't have as many malicious listings, but many listings offer specific cards, opened booster packs, booster boxes or simply displays and other merchandise related to the card game itself. It can be very easy to get scammed, so I just recommend biting the bullet and going to a physical store to see if a pack or two of cards happen to lying around.
REMINDER - many stores are not guaranteed to have the latest edition of cards and boosters, so make sure that you are not only reading the labels of the actual cards, but are sure that you are finding and buying the card series that you are interested in. I personally just took whatever I could get, and managed to get 6 booster packs after visiting and looking online at about 7 stores total, with many of them being sold out.
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| Pokemon Sword and Shield booster packs |
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