Mercari and Pokémon Sign Comprehensive Collaboration Agreement to Create Safe and Secure Trading Environment
Mercari, the company that operates the flea market app “Mercari”, and The Pokémon Company have announced a comprehensive partnership agreement on June 13, 2023, with the aim of creating a more secure and safe trading environment for Pokémon merchandise on Mercari’s marketplace.
This agreement aims to avoid confusion among customers of both companies and to create a more secure and safe trading environment by closely coordinating measures such as pre-release sharing of product information and release information, awareness of specific new product launches, and measures against infringement of rights.
Details of the cooperation in the “Memorandum on the Co-Creation of the Marketplace” are as follows:
Pokémon’s role:
Provide Mercari with information on specific new product launches, product information, and product images.
Carry out awareness campaigns on their websites and others.
Improve production and devise sales methods in direct sales stores to deliver products to those who purely enjoy Pokémon cards, and enhance cooperation with wholesalers and retailers.
Mercari’s role:
Issue caution on the “Mercari” app and on the official blog about specific new products based on information provided by Pokémon.
In consultation with Pokémon, delete listings that violate the “Mercari” terms of service for agreed specific products.
In accordance with this agreement, Mercari will work with Pokémon to create an environment where customers can use both companies’ products and services more safely and securely.
In January 2021, Mercari published the “Basic Principles of the Marketplace”, which consolidates the basic thinking to be a foundation for all people participating in Mercari’s marketplace. In the future, Mercari will aim to create a marketplace where everyone can participate with peace of mind by strengthening dialogue and collaboration with various primary distribution companies and providing appropriate information to customers. Primary distributors can contact them for inquiries.
This seems like a big deal! Imagine TPCi cooperating directly with eBay.
It will be very interesting to see exactly what measures will be taken. If they intend to go after scalpers, I think they walk a bit of a dangerous line and risk stifling the openness of the market. However, there are certainly some glaring flaws with Mercari’s existing policies (especially in terms of cancellations) that could be ironed out to improve the buying/selling experience and mitigate market manipulation.
i’m curious to see how they would/if they would go after resellers. will they target people with connections with distributors and make sure that distributor receives a warning to not sell to them anymore? will they track down everyone’s IP who buys from PCJonline to see if any of them are flipping what they bought?
if i had to guess, this wont be their focus, but imagine if it was
This is a big step for TPC to regulate the secondary market in Japan a lot more. They’ve basically gotten direct control of what’s listed and product descriptions, as well as direct sales channels. I hate oripas and dupe products as much as the next person but there may be more unforeseen negatives than realized.
As @subcat mentioned, I also think these changes will effect the Mercari Japan site for now? There are also a plethora of replica cards on Mercari JP which are fully disclosed to be replicas, but might fool someone who is not paying attention.
See I don’t read it as such, I read it as giving the info out to buyers on mercari, not removing listings.
Info like opened boxes with 30 random packs does not have the same inclusion rate and is letting people know. I didn’t see any wording about removing Oripa’s or single cards etc.
Unless I am missing something it basically just looks like they will try to limit resale of products purchased for that specific purpose from their site and they will block you from PCJ and possibly remove listings that violate mercari’s agreements and give information to try and educate people.
Again, I could be reading/interpreting it wrong, but I see no language saying otherwise?
I don’t know what this is going to do. Oripas are already banned. Mercari is my main medium for sales (solely PSA product) and if this infringes on that I’ll be off the platform instantly.
In general Nintendo hasn’t gone after artist making merch since those tend to be very small scale operations with a limited run. Most of the cease and desist cases I’ve seen involved game mods/roms.
I think the onus lies on TPC themselves to go after the people who make these replicas. This is probably not on Nintendo’s Radar (shocking considering how against fan made stuff they are) due to the scaling, since I think the replicas in the market are not as rampant or cause a problem.
But this is purely speculation on my part. I personally don’t think the replica cards are an issue.
I agree, someone making custom one off cards isn’t hurting TPC’s bottom line. It is probably more of a principal thing that someone else is profiting off your IP.
TPC should really go after all those fake booster boxes that sell for $30 on Wish or whatever bogus websites are out there. Some fooled parent is buying that instead of the $30 V box at Walmart. That right there is affecting their bottom line.
I wonder if a warning in red like this would make someone think twice before spending a lot of money on individual cards. Atleast acknowledge the prices?
I only need Kanto and Tohoku! A mint copy of the latter was snatched up for only 10,000 yen a few days ago, which is a fraction of what it’s actually worth. Are you also on the hunt?
