A retailer for Pokémon Trading Card Game has issued an official warning over the 30th Celebration set’s high demand, and it may change how fans and players collect cards moving forward. Released in September, the 30th Celebration set has proven to be extremely popular, leading to near-instant shortages across shops. Even with anti-scalper policies for Pokémon TCG, the products related to this particular expansion have been hard to find all around the world, and some retailers have felt a huge impact due to the release.

As reported by the Eastern Daily Press, a small toy shop called The Toy Box has issued an official warning regarding the high demand for 30th Celebration products. According to the report, Dan Lovett, in charge of the toy store in the town of Beccles, England, made a post on social media, acknowledging the sheer scale of Pokémon TCG’s popularity, but also asking for some understanding regarding the shop’s stock.

As seen in the report, Lovett highlights that The Toy Box is “only a little toy shop in Suffolk, not a trading card games shop or a Pokémon shop.” They also mention that the store gets “a very small allocation of stock,” and that they cannot continuously place orders. There are some pretty cool cards in Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration, and given their potential prices in the market, it’s no surprise that fans are after them. However, the continuous search for these products has been upsetting shop owners.

Lovett has reported that The Toy Box has received “more than 500 messages in a single week,” in addition to walk-in queries and phone calls asking for stock. “I know not everyone is a scalper or reseller […] but I am sick to death of the entitled people that think I have endless supply of it [Pokémon TCG].” Scalpers in the Pokémon TCG community have been a problem for years on end, and while the 30th Celebration set has seen some measures to deal with them, the demand is still high, even from genuine players and collectors.

I was just recently in Japan, and across all the Pokémon Centers I visited, The Pokémon Company had implemented a lottery-based system to purchase 30th Celebration boosters – on top of that, those who did get chosen via the lottery system could only purchase a small number of boosters. Not only is this an important set, but it also brings some notable additions, such as the Mewtwo redesign in Pokémon TCG.

As the creature-catching franchise completes its 30th anniversary, it also celebrates its continued popularity with releases that immediately sell out and even, unfortunately, put a strain on smaller shops that happen to resell some of its products. Obtaining 30th Celebration products for Pokémon TCG is not easy and will likely continue to be tough in the weeks and months to come.