The Pokemon Company Takes Major Step to Fight Resellers

LY Corporation, the parent company behind Yahoo! JAPAN, announced the new rules on October 13 as part of an expanded partnership with The Pokemon Company. The two companies first signed a cooperation agreement in July 2023, and under the updated arrangement Pokemon will now share information about products it thinks are likely to cause trouble on the secondary market.

Effective immediately, Yahoo! Auctions and Yahoo! Flea Market no longer allow three types of Pokemon TCG listings:

The first is sealed cartons, meaning multiple booster boxes still in their factory case. The second is empty booster boxes and empty packs, which are a common tool for resealing scams. Both of those bans cover past releases too, not just new sets, and the empty packaging ban actually extends to every trading card game on the platform, not only Pokemon.

The third rule is the one that caused some confusion. LY’s press release bans the “mass listing of the same product for a certain period after release,” which reads as broad and fairly vague, and a footnote says it starts with 30th Celebration. The Yahoo! Flea Market rules page fills in the gaps. Right now the restriction only covers Japanese 30th Celebration booster boxes, and it runs through October 31, 2026, though LY says that date could change depending on conditions. Sellers who break any of the three rules risk listing removals and possible account suspensions.

Yahoo isn’t first in line. On September 15, Mercari Japan announced a temporary ban on unopened 30th Celebration packs and the nine 30th Celebration Card Sets, which are banned whether opened or sealed. Opened singles are still allowed, and Mercari says the ban will stay in place for as long as it thinks a safe trading environment can’t be guaranteed. There’s no end date.

Pokemon has also tightened things at the retail level in Japan. The Japanese 30th Celebration booster box, priced at ¥7,200 (around $46), is sold by lottery, and Pokemon Center Online started requiring a Japanese ID card to buy it along with three other 30th Celebration products.

The set had problems before it even launched. Cards and sealed product were circulating online weeks ahead of the September 16 release, and in late August The Pokemon Company International contacted eBay, which began pulling early 30th Celebration listings under its stolen property policy, as PokeBeach reported. Combine the leaks with a nonstop online argument about resellers draining shelves, and it’s not hard to see why Pokemon decided to go after the platforms themselves.

Pokemon has obvious reasons to care about the secondary market. Every booster box that flips for double retail moves money away from fans and into scalpers’ pockets, and none of that markup goes back to Pokemon.

What’s notable is how Pokemon is getting results. In Japan it’s one of the most important entertainment brands in the country, and the Japanese government even launched a task force on trading card scalping and counterfeits this summer. That gives Pokemon considerable leverage with domestic platforms like Mercari and Yahoo. The rules are written around 30th Celebration for now, but nothing stops them from being applied to future sets, and the Yahoo agreement is open-ended. Japan could be serving as a test run.

We saw Sony take similar measures to cut back on scalping for their coveted 30th Anniversary PS5 Pro bundles. They required buyers to show proof of playtime, and sold the bundles exclusively through a raffle. These restrictions were only applied in Japan, and despite some resellers’ fears, they were never enacted in the US or anywhere else.

For now, nothing changes. eBay, TCGPlayer, and other US platforms haven’t announced anything similar, and we’d be surprised if they did. Pokemon simply doesn’t have the same pull over eBay, and Pokemon cards are a huge category for the site. Blocking bulk sealed listings would cost eBay millions of dollars in revenue on a category it’s historically defended. We’ll note that eBay did cooperate on the pre-release listings, but removing stolen product before street date is a very different ask than banning legitimate sales of product people bought at retail.

We wouldn’t panic about a coming crackdown on card sellers. But Pokemon has now shown it’s willing to work directly with marketplaces, and how these rules play out in Japan will be worth watching closely.