It’s no secret that GameStop has been trying to get a piece of the Pokemon TCG pie in recent years. The retailer, once best known for buying and selling used games, has expanded its TCG offerings pretty extensively in the last few years. In 2024, GameStop launched its own program to buy and sell graded Pokemon cards in stores. More recently, the retailer launched an online “Power Packs” program to buy and sell PSA-graded cards online. Now, GameStop is making a move to increase its stake in the TCG market by buying out what is arguably its biggest competitor.
On May 1st, the Wall Street Journal first shared the news that GameStop was preparing to put in offer to acquire eBay. On May 3rd, that offer became official with a memo from GameStop noting its offer of $125.00 per share to buy out the online retailer. As of now, this remains a non-binding offer, and eBay will need to review and respond before anything can move forward. Even so, many Pokemon TCG fans and TCG collectors more broadly are understandably wondering what this means for them. After all, GameStop and eBay are some of the biggest players in the reseller market. And then there’s TCG Player, which has been owned by eBay since 2022.
These days, there are quite a few places to buy trading cards online. Whether you’re looking for an ungraded card for your deck or a graded chase card for your collection, you’ve got some options. But by and large, eBay and TCG Player remain the go-to spaces for Pokemon TCG collectors. While auction sites like Goldin often host big-ticket items, eBay and TCG Player offer a wide selection of graded and ungraded cards, not to mention sealed product.
Given that eBay has owned TCG Player since its acquisition back in 2022, GameStop stands to gain a pretty significant chunk of the online TCG resale market with this proposed purchase. But it’s important to keep in mind that this is an unsolicited offer, one that needs to be reviewed by eBay’s board and pass through quite a few legal hoops before becoming official. It’s still fairly likely that nothing will come of the proposed deal at this point.
However, TCG collectors are understandably worried about what GameStop potentially owning eBay could mean. GameStop’s CEO, Ryan Cohen, told the Wall Street Journal that his goal with the buyout is “turning eBay into something worth hundreds of billions of dollars.” That would almost certainly mean making changes to how the site is currently doing business. And while there are plenty of items up for sale on eBay, Pokemon TCG and similar collectibles are arguably where the biggest growth potential lies.
If the sale does go through, Cohen notes that he wants to make eBay a “much bigger competitor to Amazon.” That could well mean expanding eBay beyond vintage and resale to offer more general goods, since Amazon is more an “everything store” than a market for TCG resale. But given GameStop’s recent move to get a bigger foothold in the online TCG market via its Power Packs site, it’s pretty likely that eBay’s massive share of the TCG reseller market is at least part of the reason GameStop wants to buy it out in the first place.
GameStop has earned a reputation for being one of the only retail chains to significantly mark up Pokemon TCG product over MSRP. Other major retailers like Target and Best Buy continue to sell new products at or around MSRP. But GameStop often marks items up $10 or more above MSRP, something that we’re also seeing in local card shops. That has understandably earned the retailer no large amount of goodwill with many Pokemon card collectors who are already irritated with low supply and high resale prices.
Until and unless the sale does go through, it’s hard to say exactly how GameStop acquiring eBay would impact the TCG market. However, there is some precedent here. When eBay bought out TCG Player, for instance, that marketplace saw some significant changes. Most notably, the site moved away from selling graded comics to focus more heavily on playing cards. Given that TCG Player and eBay both have significant places in the TCG resale market today, it’s unlikely that we’d see a pivot away from that space. There’s also the fact that GameStop already partners with PSA, the leading card grading service for the Pokemon TCG. So, the company is going into this potential acquisition with strong stakes in the trading card market.
If the sale does go through, what we would most likely see would be an increase in fees for Pokemon TCG buyers and sellers on these platforms. With the cost of the sale, GameStop would be taking on a good amount of debt. On top of that, the eBay/GameStop/TCGPlayer conglomorate would have a significant hold on the overall market for graded cards. So, the company could likely get away with upping its fees to make a bigger profit on sales, as resellers and buyers alike would have fewer options for where else to turn. That could drive the already high prices of Pokemon TCG even higher, and result in pricier resales for other popular TCGs as well.
At this point, it’s still quite possible the deal will fall through. So, there’s no reason for collectors to panic about the Pokemon TCG market just yet. However, it’s definitely something worth keeping an eye on. And don’t forget that while eBay and TCG Player make up a big portion of the market, there are other places to buy and sell used Pokemon cards. From local card shops to card shows and other online sites, there will be other places for fans to turn if GameStop does take over eBay.
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