A version of this article originally appeared on Puck Junk Aug 6, 2024
As Marvin Gaye once pined, "Life Is A Gamble". If you know
that obscure song (more of an ambiance piece), from the Trouble Man
soundtrack, kudos to you and your good taste in music. But It's TRUE!
The phenomenon of re-pack products for trading cards has pushed its
way to the forefront of the hobby over the last few years and surely
tests that cliche.
If you want
my personal, honest opinion on these right off the top, well, “JUST
DON’T”. There, done, article over.
But what’s
the fun in that? I hear all of you out there already yelling at me,
saying these are nothing new and you're not wrong. Hobby re-packs are
absolutely NOT new. They've been around since I started collecting
way back in the mid 1980s (and probably before that). When I would go
to local card shows at the nearest Ramada Inn or United Church of
"FILL IN THE BLANK"’s basement, there would be many
dealers with tables filled with generous supplies of little brown
lunch bags, neatly folded around a stack of random cards and taped
shut. What was in them? Who knows? They were called Grab Bags then,
and there was a thinly veiled, non-legally binding promise, that a
hidden, potentially hobby life-changing gem could be inside. Did I
ever buy one of these mysteries? Maybe a few. I don't really recall
exactly. But even if I didn't, I know I was certainly tempted. And
don't even get me started on the carnival style number wheels.
F
ast
forward to 2011...ish. While looking at the shelves of trading cards
at my local retailer, amid the blasters of O-Pee-Chee and Upper Deck
Series I, were these mostly dull blue boxes, with background image
that I hoped was Keith Tkachuk but considering the face cage, was
probably just some unassuming junior hockey player with similar
uniform colors to the 1990s St. Louis Blues. The boxes were just
appropriately dubbed "Hockey Trading Cards".
The
Fairfield Company had been around for awhile at that point but was
new on my radar as I wasn't easily swayed by their elementary box
design that could occasionally be found hidden among actual
manufacturer product. Largely, Fairfield seemed to have focused
exclusively on the repack model, amassing an endless stock pile of
loose packs and cards over the years that they would ingeniously
distribute throughout their products (in all the major sports too).
Gather together just enough eclectic cards and packs for curious
entertainment value, wrap 'em in a box with the promise of a "hit"
or two and voila! Hobby chance takers will dive in, no questions
asked. It's like printing money because who doesn't want a that pack
of 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee with packs of 1990-91 Bowman, 1990-91 Score and
a few packs of ‘91 Ultimate Hockey?
But
repacks, while certainly still existing in that archaic form
described above, have evolved. I'm not talking about evolution to the
next level with slightly better packs and a couple more non-base
cards. I'm talking Final Boss level evolution, where the packs
potentially have high-end hits, sometimes from high-end product,
often graded, and potentially rare. Why the evolution? Tastes have
changed, and toleration of something that was previously laughed at
is now a high level money making opportunity. The pandemic period put
the hobby front-and-center in the laps of all the long retired Junk
Wax Era collector's and entrepreneurial purveyors of the grind/hustle
culture. When the expectations, and sometimes the results, of
breaking wax product went from folks being content pulling a few
dollar cards for their binders to would-be day traders demanding to
make cash ASAP, these simple retail re-packs became a peasants’
game. Someone was bound to up the ante and they did.
The
Anatomy Of 2024 Re-Pack
Inventory
K
eep
in mind, I'm not an expert because this isn't my sphere of influence.
I'm only a hobby observer and I have eyes. But it’s easy to assume
that re-packers need inventory. Despite tons of rumors, it's come to
light over the last year or so (and you will find frequent discussion
in hobby social media circles) that there are quite a few companies
out there that pay folks to travel the country finding trading card
deals in order to bolster large inventories for the re-packs they
produce. Buyers, on behalf of the re-packers, are authorized to
sometimes pay 70-80% or more of actual comparable prices in order to
obtain inventory. How? Margins. Plain and simple. If you can sell
quantity over quality, it pays off.
They aren't
buying all the best cards out there either. The bulk of most of these
inventories is largely now considered to be of the "junk slab"
nature. Junk slabs are generally referring to cards that are past
their prime on pricing, may have bottomed out in the market, or
frankly just never should have been sent for grading in the first
place. A buyer suddenly willing to pay 80% comp prices is exciting
for any seller because who doesn’t want to clear out their
inventory for top dollar? We’re even now starting to see a
horizontal symbiosis between larger and smaller re-packers. For
example, some small scale operations have been seen setting up at
shows every weekend across the continent to obtain their own
inventory, only to then sell out themselves to the bigger ventures.
But the point remains, as a seller, it’s hard to turn your nose up
to something you may or may not agree with when they’re buying out
your inventory at top dollar on Sunday afternoon at 3PM (or sometimes
during set-up, before a show even starts).
Marketing
After all
of this seeming dead card inventory gets pulled from the market, the
re-packer “randomly” inserts cards into whatever packaging they
use. Whether it be envelopes, custom boxes, bubble mailers, etc, the
shinier the better. Re-pack product lines have become extensive, with
different "tiers" of pricing based on potential perceived
value. They even get labeled with names to give the hobby chance
takers goosebumps like Fire Pack (or other flame related names), or
various explosion euphemisms, or some type of "Banger"
pack, or something named after a natural disaster. Is Negasonic
Apocalypic Star Crusher off the table? Who wouldn't want one of
those?
One of the
cornerstones to successfully pulling this off is marketing. This is
why re-packs have become hugely popular with the hobby influencer
types that have large followings via social media. A built in
audience for advertising makes pushing this kind of product much
easier. But what if you need more eyeballs? Include a few "chaser"
cards in the packs. Chaser cards are high value cards that are
designed to entice the gambl...er...potential buyer to basically
spend more than what’s been predetermined to be the average price
for pack. Confused yet? Certainly there are re-packers using fixed
pricing on their product. Some popular groups offer packs for prices
on their website showing $500. Some go to $1,000, $1,800, or $2,500.
Far cry from the "$5.99 for 100 random cards plus "hit""
or the "10 packs + Bonus for $19.99" I mentioned earlier.
But I think that’s more of an exception at the moment. More often
than not though, live stream "breaks" for these re-packs
allow the chat rooms and audience interaction to dictate the price.
The re-packer sets a floor value and people will bid the packs up,
logically based on knowing what has/hasn't already been pulled. So I
guess if you show up to a room/stream late, you instantly become the
target audience.
Money
I
have watched a few of these on both Whatnot and Loupe and while there
is a lot of what the kids call “energy” in the rooms, I can’t
help but wonder if the vast majority of folks in there know what is
really going on. As some of these prices rise, knowing what top and
bottom is as well as what’s been pulled, you can quickly see how
much money can be made off of running this type of product sca...er,
sale. I’m sure you can go find plenty of other examples people have
made of this but here’s my crude (probably bad math) example of how
this could be pretty lucrative.
Let’s say
I offer up a re-pack break that has 50 Skull Destroyer Packs. Within
the 50 packs, I’ve inserted 10 chaser cards to get potential buyers
salivating. So I announce that there is a minimum (floor) value of
$25, meaning at the least, you would get a $25 card. Who determines
that value? Well, me of course. There’s also a max (ceiling) of
$3,200 and the entire break averages $225 per pack. So there’s your
math. Can you win? Maybe. Can I win? Abso-freakin-lutely! I open my
stream and start once I get a few folks watching and “hyped-up”
for buying. Things start to heat up with a decent flow of people and
now packs are going in the $280 range. So to back track a bit, I went
all in for this a couple weekends a go at a local show, paying 80%
comps for my inventory. At an average of $225/pack, that means I
basically paid $9,000 to obtain these 50 cards. Now I’m selling at
an average of $280/pack. So if that’s average, quick math would
tell you that’s $14,000. When all is said and done, I’ve recouped
by buy-in plus pocketed $5,000, unloaded 10 decent cards and about 40
previously deemed “unsellable” ones. If I do this once every week
for a year, that’s over $260,000. I’m just a guppy in a sea of
barracuda so you won’t be seeing me going out and spending over
$450,000 a year on card inventory. But you get the idea. Sure I’m
not factoring in shipping cost, packaging, advertising, “overhead”,
blah, blah, blah. I said up there...”crude example”. The point
is, you can scale this because my small time example pales in
comparison to the groups that are actually out there with $5,000,
$7,000, and $10,000 re-pack ceilings.
Just
Because You Can, Does It Mean You Should?
In all
these numbers, one thing we haven’t even discussed is whether
re-packs like this violate regulations, are permissible on the
platforms they use, or are even legal. I don’t think there would be
too much discourse in saying that it’s unorganized gambling at it’s
core (...but so is opening wax, I’ll just leave that for another
day though). We have the prize (the card), we have the chance (you
can win value from $25-$3,200), and participants pay for it so we
have the consideration. That, by definition, is gambling.
Functionally, it isn’t that much different than a raffle, or razz
for you hip hobbyists, and while states differ in definition, in many
jurisdictions across the county raffles are illegal. Re-packers could
probably avoid that gray area by making some kind of No Purchase
Necessary (NPN) offering like the trading card manufacturers do, but
I’m not sure we’ve gotten to that point yet since it’s clear
that many platforms turn a blind eye to the practice?
That
doesn’t mean they don’t have policies in place though. Everyone's
favorite, and most popular selling platform for trading cards,
basically just outright "bans" repacks. To them, and the
definition in their policy, repacks are "win by chance"
items. If it's "by chance", it's gambling and gambling
isn't allowed on the platform. On the Ebay page that explains their
"chance"
policy, they say,
"Listings
that offer an opportunity to win an item by chance or contest are not
allowed. This includes mystery boxes, giveaways, lotteries,
sweepstakes, random drawings, raffles, and contests.
Case breaks,
box breaks and pack breaks may only be sold by pre-approved sellers
under the following conditions:
There is no element of chance involved to determine what the
buyer will receive
Buyers
receive the entire pack, box, or case they purchased
Activity on
eBay is required to follow this policy, the eBay User Agreement and
all applicable laws, as well as respect the rights of third parties.
If it doesn’t, eBay may take action consistent with applicable laws
and the eBay User Agreement, and may even be legally required to do
so. Such actions may include, as an example only: Removing the
listing or other content, issuing a warning, restricting activity or
account suspension."
Plainly, anything that is described
as being a mystery all mean the same thing so if it is a mystery to
the buyer, it's not allowed. Yet, just do a quick search on the
platform and you’ll see hundreds, maybe thousands of auctions on
the platform advertising this very thing because there are always
work arounds. Don't call it a mystery. Go back to the Grab Bag
moniker instead, or Super Colossal Apex Flame Pack, it doesn’t
matter as long as the seller follows the rules described in the
"chance" policy. If a seller informs potential buyers what
items are included by giving even the most rudimentary generic list
of what may be, they can basically do whatever they want. Many
re-packers have clearly taken advantage of the loophole or just take
to their own platforms instead...my site, my rules, no loopholes.
F
anatics
Live allows Mystery Boxes and repacks as long as they get opened on
camera and the seller discloses all the information required in their
rules. That means both ceiling and floor, the average
price, and a checklist for the box/pack being offered whether it’s
being resold or was made by the seller. Ironically, "clarification"
is made later by saying any abuse of the program or attempt to
manipulate bids will get you banned from the
platform...AND...”GAMBLING is prohibited on Fanatics Live,
including duck races, spins, rolls, raffles, roulette wheels, and
third-party randomizers”, all mechanisms the re-packers clearly and
frequently use in their streams.
Min/Max/Avg is also a requirement on
WhatNot as well. In fact, they have similar
rules to Fanatics where all things must be opened on
camera, they don’t tolerate “shill” bidding, and even address
the fact that pricing should be “truthful”. Obviously this boils
down to trust and like my example above, the seller (me) sets the
pricing on what perceived value is. While WhatNot may discourage
sellers from misleading buyers about value, it’s difficult to
enforce when marketplaces are frequently manipulated in very much the
same exact ways (namely shill bidding). In dispute cases, we’ve
already seen that even when sellers are found to be guilty of
nefarious practices, the punishments rarely have long-term effects on
their future opportunities to get back on the saddle to do it again.
Even hobby heavyweights like Brian
Gray, former CEO of Leaf Trading Cards, have gotten into the repack
game and showed their support of the practice. He announced earlier
in 2024 his "Fortune Ice Dragon" packs that included a
limited production of 66 boxes of Panini football case hits. His
announcement came accompanied by his disclosure of both a $150 floor
and $6000+ ceiling, to be broken live on YouTube Live and Whatnot,
for the low, low price of $650/box. Did I mention each box had one
hit card? It goes further than cards too, as Blowout, D&A,
SteelCity and other large hobby sellers have been selling memorabilia
mystery boxes in the very same fashion for years. Even Upper Deck has
their Monumental boxes that show up at large sports shows every year
and more recently, the UDA Buckets and UDA Threads boxes that I’m
sure everyone on X is absolutely not sick of seeing ads for.
Every Choice Is A Risk
Personally, I see the current state
of re-packs as a whole as problematic. Since it’s clearly a game of
chance, a huge issue that resonates through the entire process is
that there is no firm regulation. There are no rules except those of
individual selling platforms which seem to be blatantly left vague,
full of the loopholes discussed, and are infrequently enforced. If a
seller isn't utilizing a selling platform, the rules become even more
sketchy as they essentially cease to exist outside of jurisdictional
legality that would have to be challenged to be enforced. There are
no clear checks/balances between buyers and sellers and in many
cases, dishonesty in favor of profit is valued well more than what
might happen if the curtain gets pulled. We have even seen many times
when actual consumer feedback, which should provide an impartial look
of actual experience, gets manipulated, diverting from the potential
underlying scam that may be afoot.
We have to look at the question of
intent. If you are buying for some perceived hidden value rather than
fun or thrill, you’re already sunk. Those retail re-packs that were
once for casual collectors or those seeking some fun time waster that
could net them a few potential keepers can't hold a candle to the
bloated cash-grabs we've somehow allowed to become so popular. Scams
exist. Plain and simple. Especially with the presentations
guaranteeing that you WILL win. If re-packs were advertised exactly
how they exist, with a clear understanding of what will be pulled,
the gap between carnival "Guess The Number" wheels and a
“sure thing” shrinks. But that may be the linchpin to drawing
more people in. If you give them a sense of what is purportedly
available and ultimately give some sense of reassurance that they're
not going to get completely skunked, re-packs in theory become a
sexier option than say spending the same amount on opening any of
today’s extremely over priced wax that rarely is seen as
profitable.
Hobby Smart
Whether you find re-packs good, bad,
or otherwise is going to surely depend on your perspective. On the
selling side, running re-packs exposes a lot of opportunity for a
reputable seller to unload a lot of unwanted product by honestly
seeding desirable cards throughout their packs as they advertise. By
honestly, I mean these are randomized with impartiality and the value
cards actually fall at the promised and mathematically calculable
rates. The more transparency there is from the start, the better
chance folks may participate, become repeat customers, and the views
surrounding re-packs may shift.
For a buyer, it can be a tough spot
for many that might not always use their best judgment when
participating in the hobby. Walking into a casino or using any of the
hundreds of sports betting platforms pose the same potential issues.
The difference is regulation. Although many of the policies in place
on selling platforms appear to protect consumers by placing the onus
on the seller to educate the masses, they’re bare minimum, and
sometimes boilerplate protections for only themselves. I’m
certainly the last to preach about how you should or shouldn’t
spend your hobby dollar and I’m not a life coach here to dish out
platitudes and words to live by. I would only encourage those wanting
to jump into this world as both buyer or seller; do your own
research, your own discovery, your own due-diligence before
determining what level of risk vs. reward you’re willing to take.
Remember, the house always wins!
_________________________
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