Responding to widespread discontent among its game and hobby store customers, Upper Deck is changing its shipping policies on the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG to give game and hobby stores an advantage over its mass merchant and other chain customers.  The new policy provides for Upper Deck to begin shipping chain retailers on the street date for the hobby channel, effectively giving the hobby channel a week or more of sales before the chains put new Yu-Gi-Oh! releases on sale.  The policy is being announced via an open letter to hobby retailers from Upper Deck senior vice president Rich Henry (see 'Upper Deck SVP Sends an Open Letter to Hobby Channel Retailers').  The letter is being released to ICv2 because of the numerous Talk Back comments published by the site from retailers protesting the old policy; Upper Deck had originally planned to announce the new policy at the GAMA Trade Show.

 

Henry told ICv2 that the rationale for the change in shipping policy was simple.  'If a hobby store gets the product before the mass merchant, it doesn't affect the mass merchant,' he said, 'but if the mass merchant gets it before the hobby store, the hobby store gets crushed, and we don't want that to happen.' 

 

Upper Deck's new shipping policy will be phased in over the next two Yu- Gi-Oh! releases.  Flaming Eternity will begin zone shipping to the hobby channel on February 24th for a February 28th hobby channel street date.  Chain retailers will begin zone shipping on February 26th.  This release will not have the full spread between hobby and chain retailer ship dates because of previous commitments to the chains.

 

Lost Millennium will begin zone shipping to the hobby channel on May 26th for a June 1st hobby channel street date.  Chains will not begin zone shipping until June 1st.  Subsequent Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG releases will follow this pattern, with Upper Deck beginning to ship to chain retailer distribution centers on the hobby channel street date.  Hobby distributors will ship at the same time as Upper Deck's approximately 500 direct hobby retailer accounts, so the time spread between hobby stores serviced by distributors and chain retailers will vary, depending on the amount of time it takes distributors to turn around product and ship it to stores. 

 

Upper Deck's 2004 shipping policies on Yu-Gi-Oh! had originally provided for all channels to be shipped on the same days, but the timing of newspaper advertising and other factors had pushed up the chain shipments, giving them an advantage.  Game stores were understandably upset by this, causing some to de-emphasize Yu-Gi-Oh! organized play and take other steps to retaliate.  The hobby/game store advantage of at least a week over other channels will presumably reverse this trend for most independent retailers.