Pokémon collaborates with marketplace app to put an end to Pokémon Card Game speculation 

The Pokémon Company and Mercari announced on June 13 that they have signed a comprehensive joint agreement to ensure safe and secure transactions of Pokémon-related products on the Mercari marketplace app. 

Mercari is a company that operates the Japanese marketplace app called Mercari, which allows users to sell and buy used items. On the other hand, The Pokémon Company develops Pokémon related projects and is responsible for producing and managing the licensing of IP works. According to the announcement, the two companies have signed a mutual agreement on marketplace co-creation (Source, in Japanese).

The main focus of the agreement appears to be the Pokémon Trading Card Game, as the scalping of Pokémon cards has been a major issue in Japan recently. The Pokémon Company and Mercari will apparently engage in a regular exchange of information about products and releases in advance and will work closely together in order to build an environment where users can avoid misinformation and conduct transactions safely. They will implement notifications for users at the time around the release of new products and other measures to prevent infringement of rights. 

Specifically, The Pokémon Company will provide information and images of new products to Mercari, while also issuing warnings to users on their website, increasing  production of the Pokémon cards themselves, and improving sales methods. On the other hand, based on the information provided by Pokémon, Mercari will issue notifications about new products on the Mercari application and official blog. In addition,  Mercari will remove specific product listings which were agreed upon with The Pokémon Company and violate the terms of use of the application. 

While the Mercari marketplace app boasts a large user-base, it has dealt with the issue of users reselling items at unfairly high prices on several occasions. Mercari has been a major platform for activities such as expensive resale of video game consoles and speculative purchases and sales of Pokémon Card Game cards. When the new expansion pack for Pokémon Card Game Scarlet & Violet was released in April, expensive resale of rare cards was discovered once again on Mercari. But now, Mercari and The Pokémon Company have made it clear that they will mutually take full-fledged measures to prevent such situations. 

The new Pokémon Card Game Scarlet & Violet Enhanced Expansion Pack “Pokemon Card 151” is scheduled for release on June 16. This product is attracting attention for the fact that it will be sold using a made-to-order system. The Pokémon Company has issued a statement regarding this product, stating that “Pokémon will firmly decline the purchase of products for resale or other commercial purposes.” Orders for the product will be accepted from June 15, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. JST until June 21, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. JST. 

Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-06-13 13:39 JST)