Retailers are loading sports cards, Pokemon, and other trading cards

Americans’ love for trading cards has retailers lining up to sell them.

Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS) has opened what it calls Collectors Club Houses in 20 stores, and plans to include them in more locations, CEO Loren Hobart said on a conference call this week. The spaces, which feature trading cards and autographed sports memorabilia, come as retailers rush to capitalize on growing demand for collectibles.

Consumer response “exceeded our expectations,” Hobart said, according to a transcript made available by Alpha Sense. “It is a unique, fast-growing category that is a great complement to everything we do, and we are very excited about the opportunity ahead.”

Trading cards have become almost ubiquitous, popping up everywhere from Costco Wholesale (COST) to convenience stores. Demand for “high-speed items, like Pokemon cards,” prompted Costco to create a digital waiting room for its e-commerce platform, CEO Ronald Facres said. The cards are expected to be a big hit this holiday season at Kohl’s (KSS), Best Buy (BBY) and Target (TGT), executives said on a conference call this week.

Target has built a diversified collectibles business, including Magic the Gathering, National Football League, Major League Baseball and Women’s National Basketball Association cards, said Rick Gomez, chief commercial officer. The category took off after trading cards at department stores rose about 70% during the first six or seven months of the year, Gomez said in August.

Trading cards took off during the pandemic when Americans had extra money from spending more time at home and collecting stimulus checks. The Wall Street Journal I mentioned. The cards quickly developed into an investment craze: Baseball and Pokemon cards have outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 in recent years. Magazine estimated.

One toy and gaming executive — Spin Master CEO Max Rangel — went so far as to estimate that “most of the industry’s growth has been driven by adult-targeted building sets, strategy trading cards and sports trading cards” in a conference call this spring.

Bank of America analysts said that gaming companies are likely to continue to cater to adults, given that they cannot rely as much on a shrinking youth population.

“Retailers are looking to trading cards and collectibles categories to broaden the demographic profile of their customers and offset weakness in traditional gaming from a declining addressable population,” analysts said this fall.