Target's Pokemon Collection Displays Are Showing Up on eBay

This is store-level promotional material. We’re talking large-format cardboard endcap displays, pegboard backsplash panels, and aisle signage. Not the merch. The decorations around the merch.

The Charizard endcap and the Gengar endcap are the most popular items right now, listed in the $200 to $500 range depending on condition and the seller. The Charmander, Gengar, and Slowpoke pegboard backsplash is also drawing interest. These are big, eye-catching pieces, and for Pokemon collectors with wall space to fill, they’re a legitimate home display item.

It’s the same logic that drives sports memorabilia and movie standee collecting. Official promotional materials for major releases carry a novelty premium that doesn’t always make rational sense, but clearly makes enough sense for a market to exist.

To be clear, these are not being sold by Target. The listings appear to be either employees moving extra stock or, less charitably, customers who helped themselves to something that wasn’t theirs. We’re not in the business of encouraging the latter. So let’s be honest about what we’re actually recommending here.

If you’re a Target employee, here’s your window: wait. When the Pokemon promotion wraps and the displays are cycled out, stores typically dispose of or discard the promotional materials. That’s your moment.

Whether it’s for your own collection or to list on eBay, getting your hands on a display that’s headed for the dumpster anyway is completely above board. It’s the same principle as retail clearance, just applied to a slightly different kind of inventory.

This is a niche opportunity in every sense of the phrase. The market is small, the items are awkward to ship, and the only clean way to acquire them is to be in the right place at the right time with the right employer. But for Target employees with eyes on the disposal cycle, this is worth keeping in mind. The demand is real, the prices are real, and the Pokemon fanbase has shown repeatedly that it will pay for unusual pieces of the brand’s footprint. A cardboard Charizard that was bolted to a Target aisle last week is apparently worth hundreds of dollars to the right buyer.

The June 6 second wave of the collection will bring another round of in-store setup, which means another display cycle will eventually come down. If the market exists now, it’ll exist again.

Please don’t steal these decorations from Target. Pretty please.