A few months ago we dropped Pokémon Trading Card Game booster packs into one of our vending machines on a hunch. The machine sits inside Erie and Vine, a hipster dive bar in Willoughby, Ohio. We figured a few packs would move. The bar cleaned us out.
What happened at the bar
The machine sold nine Vivid Voltage packs at $23.65 each across the back half of April and then sold completely out. For a single set in a single bar, that pace caught us off guard.
Here is the part that grabbed us. We pulled the timestamps, and almost every sale landed after 6 PM, with two coming in after midnight. This is not a daytime product. It is a nightlife product.
Why the bar crowd buys
The why is simple once you see it. The people at a bar like Erie and Vine are in their late twenties and thirties, and they grew up on these cards. Add a couple of drinks and the social energy of a packed room, and ripping a $25 pack with your friends becomes the best two minutes of the night.
Nostalgia is the real product. The cards are just how it gets delivered, and a late-night bar is the perfect room to deliver it in.
What it means for operators
Packs run $20 to $30 depending on the set, and at this location the trading card add-on is putting roughly $150 a month per machine on top of products that were already paying their way. No new floor space. No second machine. Just a different SKU in the rows.
If you run vending and you have a bar account, trading cards are the easiest test you will run all year.
Frequently asked questions
Do Pokémon cards sell well in vending machines?
They can, in the right spot. Our machine at Erie and Vine, a dive bar in Willoughby, Ohio, sold through its Pokémon booster packs fast enough to sell out inside a month.
What is the best location for a trading card vending machine?
In our experience, bars and nightlife venues are the strongest fit. The late-night, social, nostalgia-driven crowd buys on impulse and spends more per sale.
How much extra money can Pokémon packs add to a vending machine?
At our Erie and Vine location the trading card add-on is running roughly $150 a month per machine, with packs priced between $20 and $30. That one machine produced about $213 from a single set in April before it sold out.
Why do bars sell more Pokémon packs at night?
Most sales happen in the evening, often after midnight. Patrons grew up with the cards, and opening a pack at the bar is an affordable, social, impulse-driven moment.