Pokemon Worlds 2024 store revealed but “scalpers” are leaving shelves empty

Attendees at the Pokemon Center pop-up for Worlds 2024 are leaving empty-handed and disappointed as many have already cleared the shelves of the available merchandise.

Hoards of competitors, influencers, and fans are descending on Honolulu in Hawaii for the Pokemon World Championships 2024 happening August 16 – 18 this year. Here, the best Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, Pokemon Go, and Trading Card Game players are fighting to be the very best.

Just like other years, alongside huge halls ready for competitors to duke it out, Pokemon Worlds 2024 also houses an enormous Pokemon Center filled with exclusive merch and exciting items that any attendees can grab.

However, grabbing any merch at all may be tough, as it seems eager attendees are grabbing everything on the shelves as soon as they can, leaving others with very little to buy.

The Pokemon Center uses a ticket system to ease traffic flow, so instead of buyers flooding the store at once, people get an allocated timeslot and must queue until the right time so they can then wait for their ticket to be called. But, the people lucky enough to get early slots are leaving very little for anyone arriving later.

Some pictures coming out of Honolulu show the Pokemon Center store shelves completely cleared of merchandise, leaving some left with nothing to buy. X user SimplyAvgGamer shared a photo of some empty shelves a comment explaining that it was the “current state of the pokemon center.”

Backing this up, X user randumbelen shared their own experience, saying they arrived at the Pokemon Center at 2 PM, but that the store was already sold out of the “Lanyards, ukelele, backpacks, skateboards, sleeves, deckboxes, and playmats.”

Another user quoted a fellow fan’s “Pokemon Center Haul”, saying that the post made them “so sad” to see the Pokemon Center “wiped out” of exclusive merch before Worlds even began.

Then, in another quote of the huge haul, one person called out the person buying multiple versions of items like the deck boxes “pure greed” before another person below shared the items listed on eBay. They say that for the deck boxes “MSRP is like $12.99” but the eBay listing started at $72.99 instead.

A competitor called Gazoney was one of many comments on X, sharing this was the 6th World Championships they’ve attended. They described their time so far as “the absolute worst Pokemon Center experience I’ve had.”

However, they are not blaming the Pokemon Center, instead calling out ‘scalpers’. They report that “there are people sitting on the ground reselling [merch] IN the store.”

While comments are sharing reports that the Pokemon Store will “restock each day” it is clear some attendees with later appointments are leaving frustrated and empty-handed. Other comments are calling for “purchase limits” on certain items to discourage further scalping.