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Health of our Hobby - Retail Shelf Space Decreasing?

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gracecollector

Well-known member
Aug 7, 2008
6,559
215
Lake in the Hills, IL
I'm curious about what all of you have seen regarding shelf space at retail locations in 2014. Has the space given to sportscards at retail locations near you (such as Target, Walmart, ToysRUs, Meijers, etc.) gone up, stayed the same, or gone down?

At the locations I frequent, Walmart has stayed the same, Target has gone down slightly (more Magic and Pokemon space) Meijer has gone down, and ToysRUs has gone down dramatically. Meijer decreased from a 10 foot section to a 5 foot section at one location and from a 15 foot to 10 foot section at another, and ToysRUs decreased from a 4 sided kiosk to a 2 sided kiosk.

I think shelf space at retail outlets is an important barometer of industry health. It's concerning how I haven't seen any growth in recent years, only shrinkage in shelf space. Combined with the loss of many brick and mortar hobby stores, it's just not good news for our hobby's health.
 

homerun28aa

Active member
Jun 8, 2011
19,072
8
The only place I've ever looked at retail stuff outside an LCS is Target - in the two that I go to it seems to have stayed the same in one but actually gone up in the other and they've picked up some expensive basketball boxes. I've never busted any basketball so I'm not sure what product it is, but it looks like a legit Panini product there are a bunch of guaranteed hits, seemed legit.
 

Casebusters

Active member
Aug 14, 2008
4,584
1
Viera, Florida
Saw 2 of the $299 box of Panini ?? Basketball Cards at Target last weekend.
and they have been the same sized section, but hope that section gets smaller, for personal reasons only :cool:
 

Austin

Well-known member
Aug 7, 2008
5,706
41
Dallas, Texas
My local Target looks the same lately.But I was at Walmart on Sunday and there were only a couple boxes of Topps, and everything else was kids' gaming packs like Pokemon. The size of the display was also much smaller than it used to be.
 

mmier118

New member
Jan 29, 2010
536
0
The walmart that I visit has moved and shrunk it's card space, it is now so inconvenient to get to that I don't even look to see what they have as there are usually carts full of returns or other crap parked in the small space they gave them. At target it seems sports cards are giving way to magic and Pokemon, and I can understand why, I love collecting baseball cards but every time I buy retail I remind myself not to do that again. I just think that the model is changing, it's an ebay and online world now and people just buy stuff via different routes, all it will take is another hot rookie class and things will get nuts again, I think it's just a cycle of a hot rookie class and everyone gets excited thinking that every rookie will be mike trout and then is disappointed when they become Jason heyward, or jurickson profar, which by the way are fine players so no knock on them. This cycle will repeat and a lot of new collectors will wash out, but some will stick and then in five to ten years it does it again.
 

joey12508

Well-known member
Aug 7, 2008
38,453
16,111
Winterfell
The target by me has a nice size area for baseball, football and basketball.
the wally world by me has more magic and pokeman space and only a small baseball space.
 

smapdi

Well-known member
Aug 7, 2008
4,397
221
It's all different depending on the store and the vendor that services it. The Walmart right near my office got id of cards entirely earlier this year. Another one near my house has a fairly large space for them, but it's always depleted. The Targets and other WMs are all fairly consistent, otherwise.
 

pander69

Member
Apr 6, 2010
64
0
Marshall, MN
The Wal-Mart near me is a couple blasters of sports and a lot of Magic and Pokemon. It's in the same lane as the smokes, so there are always people in line. The Shopko has a pretty good sized space, but it's real hit and miss. Lots of older discounted blasters and when thy get new stuff it's gone fast. I heard they had trouble with the distributor keeping someone hired to stock the shelves. Thought about seeing if that was true, just haven't had the time.
 

michaelstepper

Well-known member
Jan 15, 2010
8,211
519
southeast Alaska
Down here.. only retail my walmart (not a super center) has had is topps 1/2 and a couple bowman products. No chrome, no update no gypsy, ginter anything. Lame
 

mburgin

Member
Aug 11, 2008
795
0
this hobby is on life support and has been for quite a while now. with only a couple manufacturers and the main one being Topps, MLB has pretty much ruined the cardboard hobby single handily. the only boxes i have purchased in the past 3 years were Press Pass Racing and Upper Deck Golf.
 

theacox

New member
Jan 19, 2013
250
0
The 3 or 4 Walmarts I have been in the last couple years all have the same size card section, but sports (all of them) are down to 20-25% of the selection. As others have mentioned, Magic and whatever else non-sports are the focus now. The only other retail store near me with cards is a Target, but I haven't made my yearly visit there yet.
 

allstars

New member
Mar 17, 2009
2,832
0
I don't see how the width of a shelf in a giant retail store reflects the health of the hobby, but from a dealer's standpoint the hobby is on life-support. It's the manufacturers to blame, plain and simple.
 

Tom Oates

Active member
Sep 15, 2008
1,673
0
Every K-mart I have been in has either stopped carrying cards or they have drastically reduced the space and selection.
 

Techniq

New member
Jan 2, 2014
966
0
South San Francisco, CA
The Target i go to has a pretty large selection.. Usually all the new "usual" releases from Topps, Panini, Upper Decl, and Press Pass including baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer, golf, wrestling, MMA, and racing. It's actually really good or retail IMO.

I'd say there's usually about 10 different hanger boxes, 6 rack packs, 12 individual packs, and probably about 30-40 different blaster boxes - along with factory sets of the last year or 2 for Topps football and baseball and some random boxes.
 

Gwynn545

Well-known member
Aug 29, 2008
5,526
44
North Seattle
I don't see how the width of a shelf in a giant retail store reflects the health of the hobby
Woah...seriously? You cannot see how a diminished presence in the retail market correlates directly with the health of the hobby? You are a smart guy, so I would wonder how that wouldn't make sense. For a hobby that was built upon the retail market...
for me Targets have been cut in 1/2 (sports cards) and rarely updated shelves.
Fred Meyers seemingly cut by 3/4. New Topps blasters and that's about it nowadays, compared with shelves and shelves of everything, constantly updated and restocked one-two years ago.
 

gradedeflator

Active member
Mar 31, 2011
1,388
17
interesting thread, thanks for starting [MENTION=1845]gracecollector[/MENTION]!

i am actually quite familiar with the CPG / retail industry and for most products shelf space (items on shelf, # of stores where you have distribution, number of facings, etc.) all matter. and declining shelf space = trouble. basically, the less product you have the less likely it is that a shopper decides to buy your product.

the game changer in all of this is e-commerce. Shelf-space in brick and mortars can be very expensive, and companies that sell products that aren't natural drivers of foot traffic often have to pay exorbitant slotting fees to get on shelf. sports cards lend themselves well to being sold and purchase online, so that is why this maybe isn't the death knell of the industry. more and more people shop online today.

however i would agree that having more shelf space in store to drive impulse buys (while waiting at the checkstand) or just overall awareness couldn't be a bad thing.
 

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