Pokémon’s scalping problem is getting worse – and that doesn’t bode well for LEGO
The Pokémon Trading Card Game community is currently under siege from scalpers – and the LEGO Group is going to need to play its own cards wisely in 2026 to avoid a similar scenario.
Pokémon TCG is making headlines at the moment for all the wrong reasons, as scalpers rush to empty stores of supplies of new cards and sell them for sky-high prices on the secondary market. Two adult men traded blows over who was first in line at a Pokémon vending machine, brawls have broken out at Costco, and staff members at a UK retailer have accused it of deliberately jacking up prices to cash in.
Despite Pokémon cards being readily available since 1998, and prices for rare and original cards frequently reaching thousands of pounds in value, it was only really during the pandemic that scalpers began targeting TCG as an opportunity to make some quick cash. The hype ebbed, flowed and ultimately subsided for a while, but resurged in November last year when a new ‘Surging Sparks’ card set launched.
The Pikachu card from that set alone fetches in the region of £500, and things only got worse when an Eeveelution-focused set – Prismatic Evolution – dropped in January. Demand has subsequently vastly outstripped supply, driven partly by genuine new collectors joining the scene, but also by scalpers trying to make a quick buck (as it ever was).
That’s frustrating for those genuine fans, but it’s also not great for Pokémon’s optics. “Seeing videos of people who are literally getting into fist fights at Costco over Pokemon cards has just brought a completely negative connotation to the community,” investment associate Charlene Sutherland told CBC. “When you see videos of grown adults fighting over Pokémon cards, knowing that it’s also ruining this experience for parents and kids… it just puts a bad taste.”
Scalping is not unique to Pokémon, of course. Pretty much any new product that’s in high demand can fall victim to the phenomenon – from the PlayStation 5 to, you guessed it, LEGO sets. Most recently that’s manifested specifically in LEGO minifigures, with 71048 Series 27’s Wolfpack Beastmaster proving nearly impossible to find at retail as scalpers snap up every copy in existence and sell them for inflated prices online.
These two spheres of scalping therefore have the potential to coalesce, merge and balloon in 2026 when LEGO Pokémon hits shelves. The LEGO Group announced its forthcoming partnership with the Pokémon Company earlier this week, and the community is in equal parts excited and apprehensive: eager for what might come from a product perspective, but cautious over the potential for sets to be difficult to come by.
That’s perhaps no surprise given Pokémon is the biggest media franchise in the world (leaving Mickey Mouse, Star Wars and the rest firmly in its rearview mirror). The audience for these sets is going to be such that the LEGO Group is going to need to make real preparations for the theme’s launch to ensure there’s enough supply to meet demand – and avoid the kind of headlines currently circling around Pokémon TCG.
We’ve seen LEGO sets suffer from wide supply issues before, especially during the pandemic when demand ramped up, but the LEGO Group has taken steps to avoid such a situation happening again by expanding its manufacturing and distribution network over the past couple of years, opening new factories and distribution centres across the globe.
Whether that’s enough to satisfy the inevitable demand for LEGO Pokémon is another question entirely, but we’ve seen other companies take more drastic measures to combat scalpers in recent weeks. Pokémon Centers in Japan and Singapore have begun opening card packs in stores before selling them, while Nintendo is believed to have delayed the Switch 2 to mid-2025 purely to build up enough stock for launch.
Neither of these solutions would necessarily work for the LEGO Group, though. The former would only really apply if it’s planning its own Collectible Minifigures-style Pokémon release, and even then it could better pre-empt that scenario by simply not choosing to blind-box its characters, while LEGO Group CEO Niels B. Christiansen has recently talked about the company’s strategy to ‘produce as late as possible’ to avoid building up excess inventory.
LEGO Pokémon seems like a sure thing – maybe the surest thing possible in today’s toy market – but even then the LEGO Group likely wouldn’t want to risk ending up with tonnes of leftover stock it can’t sell. So unless it’s prepared to rapidly change course with regards to its own manufacturing processes, the scalping community could well set its sights on LEGO Store shelves in 2026.
We can only wait and see whether LEGO Pokémon falls victim to the same shortages as Pokémon TCG, but you can be sure that these kinds of discussions are going on inside company headquarters in Billund right now. Fully-grown adults fighting in Costco are hard to ignore…
Read next…
- LEGO Pokémon needs to take a page out of Minecraft’s book
- A brief history of MEGA’s Pokémon sets, and the challenge facing LEGO in 2026
- LEGO Pokémon demands a collectible series, but not minifigures
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