Target stores are running a Pokémon merch promotion for the next few months encompassing clothing, toys, makeup, lifestyle items, and more, and fans have predictably gone just a liiiiiittle overboard in their enthusiasm. In addition to lining up outside stores and buying up lip balm like it’s going extinct, some people are managing to make a little money by scalping one weird product in particular: Pokémon Pop-Tarts.
Pokémon Pop-Tarts come in Pikachu-emblazoned boxes of 12 pastries (six wrapped packages of two each). They are “Frosted Vanilla Cupcake” flavored, and cost $2.89 per box. These snacks are proving quite popular—they just went on sale this past weekend, and a quick scan of stores in my area reveals a maximum of two boxes (maybe) available in a 40 mile radius of my house.
At least some of their popularity appears to be due to a perception that this is the “return” of a “retro” snack from 25 years ago, but I would like to dispute that claim. The Pokémon Pop-Tarts of 2001 are not the Pokémon Pop-Tarts of today. For one, those old Pop-Tarts were PokéBerry or Wild Cherry flavored, not Frosted Vanilla Cupcake. What’s more, the new Pop-Tarts don’t even have the classic “Pokémon sprinkles” that were present on the original ones. There was another run of the old Pop-Tart x Pokémon promotion that used existing Pop-Tarts flavors including Strawberry, Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon, and S’mores instead of inventing new ones with new sprinkles. However, each of these flavors came with a little plastic Pokémon figurine. I recall as a child I had one of the Charmander figurines included with Strawberry and several Chanseys from the S’mores box. The current Target promotion boxes do not come bundled with a toy of any sort.
You truly would not know this was Pokémon-themed if I didn’t tell you:
But whatever. For $3 you get a Pokémon-themed snack, I guess, I can’t really yuck anyone’s yum there. Except some people are not paying $3 a box. Some people are paying $10 a box. Or $14. Or $20. They are doing this on eBay, presumably after not being able to obtain a box at their local Target and instead purchasing a single box of toaster pastries from a scalper. One box of Pop-Tarts sold on eBay for $25, over eight times the normal price.
Pop-Tarts are perhaps the weirdest example, but as has been known to happen with Pokémon merch, scalpers are having a good time flipping other random Pokémon-themed items from the current Target promotion to folks who feel like they missed out. A combined listing of a promotional pullover jacket, a crossbody bag, and a pin sold today for $490. The jacket normally costs $130, the bag is normally $25, and the pins were free. That’s the most egregious listing I found that actually sold, but dozens of others for the jacket, at times bundled with several of the free pins, the bag, or other items, have sold for $300 or more. The jacket definitely seems to be the priciest thing being scalped successfully here (it, too, is very sold out everywhere), but the crossbody bag on its own is going for over $100 in some sales, and several complete sets of four tote bags (normally $15 apiece) are going for over $100, too.
Where scalpers are having less luck is in outright thievery. It appears that some individuals have been showing up to Targets and swiping the large cardboard Pokémon standees used to decorate the aisles during this promotion, and then are attempting to sell those on eBay for tens, hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Some are even trying to sell Trapper Keepers and display boxes, to basically no success. I guess even hardcore fans don’t feel like paying $25 for some stolen cardboard as long as they’re well-stocked on Pop-Tarts.
I can’t really recommend partaking in this sale for a number of reasons, including the fact that it seems to be over by virtue of all the product being gone. There’s apparently going to be a second run of merch, including new stuff, on June 6. I think I’ll just buy a nice T-shirt from the Pokémon Center and save myself the fuss.
