Why Are Pokémon Cards Sold Out Everywhere? The Shortage, Explained

You have seen it in your own town. The nail salon became a vape shop. The Rite Aid became an Aldi. The mattress store is now a med spa, and last month a trading card shop opened where the phone repair place used to be. None of that is random. The entire tenant mix of American retail is turning over, and once you see the pattern, you can predict what moves in next.

The churn at a glance

The short answer

Here is the full picture: why the vape wave happened, why the card wave is following it, who is actually absorbing all that empty square footage, and why the next hot category may not need a storefront at all.

A strip mall is the economy in miniature

Physical retail is not dying. It is tight and uneven. National retail vacancy sat near 4.3 percent through late 2025, close to record lows, while new retail development ran at one of its weakest levels this century, according to CoStar and the PwC and ULI Emerging Trends in Real Estate report. At the same time, Coresight Research tracked roughly 15,000 store closures in 2025, about twice the 2024 total, as chains like Rite Aid, Joann, Big Lots, and Party City gave space back to the market.

Put those two facts together and you get the defining dynamic of the moment: a wave of boxes coming back to market with almost nothing new being built behind them. The entire story of retail right now is who backfills those spaces fastest. Your corner vape shop, the new card store, and the Aldi in the old drugstore are all answers to the same question.

The tipping point nobody noticed: services passed goods

The single most important structural shift arrived quietly. In 2025, service-based tenants leased more retail square footage than goods-based tenants for the first time on record, taking just over half of all activity according to CoStar data. Fifteen years ago, services accounted for about 40 percent. CoStar's retail analytics lead has framed the shift as status spending moving from handbags to things like fitness classes and facials.

The composition of the winners tells you where consumer dollars actually go. Fitness operators alone now account for roughly 30 percent of service-based leases, up from 20 percent in 2016, while e-commerce takes more than 16 percent of total retail sales and keeps shrinking the footprint that goods retailers need. Product retail is not disappearing, but it is concentrating into value formats and specialty niches. That concentration is exactly where the vape and card stories live.

The vape shop wave, explained

Vape shops are the textbook specialty-retail wave. The category grew at roughly an 18 percent average annual rate from 2018 to 2023, and IBISWorld counted about 10,500 dedicated vape shops in 2024, up around 13 percent in a single year. Count tobacco stores and combination smoke shops and the broader universe runs near 52,000 locations. That is why it feels like there is one on every corner. Statistically, there almost is.

The formula was nearly perfect for its moment: a small-format store with minimal buildout, high margins, an addictive repeat-purchase product, and a flood of cheap vacant storefronts to move into. Landlords facing empty inline space took the tenant that could sign fastest.

The wave is now maturing rather than growing. The PACT Act choked off online vape sales and pushed volume into stores, but flavor restrictions, rising rents, and regulatory complexity are squeezing smaller operators out, so the store count is flattening while revenue concentrates among survivors. There has also been a quiet identity change: after the 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp-derived products, a large share of vape shops added Delta-8 and CBD lines and effectively became hemp and smoke shops. Hot niches saturate, then regulation and rent sort out who stays. That is the lifecycle.

The card wave is earlier, and hotter

The demand data behind trading cards is stronger than anything the vape era produced. Walmart Marketplace saw trading card sales jump about 200 percent between February 2024 and June 2025, with Pokémon up more than tenfold year over year. Target reported card sales up nearly 70 percent and on pace to top $1 billion in 2025. eBay logged ten straight quarters of trading card growth, StockX reported Pokémon up 367 percent, and Circana called toys the fastest-growing US industry it tracked in early 2025, driven by Pokémon and collectible sports cards.

The storefront side is softer than the sales side. There is no clean national count of card shops spiking the way vape shops did, though specialty lenders now finance collectors opening physical stores and offline retail still carries roughly 55 percent of TCG sales. Read together, this is an earlier, more fragmented wave, which means the land grab is still open.

Two forces make this wave different from vape. First, big-box is actively retreating: theft and scalping have pushed chains toward locked cases and purchase limits, shrinking mass-market availability while demand sets records. Second, the product itself is scarce, with Pokémon printing at maximum capacity and new factory capacity not expected until late 2028. We broke down the full supply story in our guide to why Pokémon cards are sold out everywhere. Scarcity plus a retreating mass channel is rocket fuel for specialty and automated retail.

Who is actually filling the empty boxes

Beyond the two waves, here is who is absorbing the real square footage across the country:

Segment	Who is expanding	Scale
Discount and value	Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Aldi, Five Below	Roughly 1,800 new locations planned in 2025 alone, the most concentrated expansion of any segment
Services and wellness	Boutique fitness, med spas, IV therapy, recovery studios	Over half of all retail leasing, a first in the historical record
Food and beverage	Chipotle, Jersey Mike's, Dutch Bros, Starbucks	Roughly 950 combined US openings in a single year
Experiential	Pickleball venues, food halls, gyms as anchors	Replacing department stores and casual-dining boxes
Thrift and off-price	Goodwill, Salvation Army, Burlington	Backfilling former big-box space, Burlington pushing toward 2,000 stores
The surprises	Barnes & Noble, digital-native brands going physical	About 57 new bookstores, the chain's first growth in over a decade

Sources: CoStar, Coresight Research, JLL, and industry trade coverage, 2025 to 2026. Figures are directional in a fast-moving market.

The pattern behind every wave

Vape and cards are not isolated stories. They are two instances of a repeatable pattern, and it has other live examples right now: hemp and CBD retail, med spas and IV bars, pickleball, and the broader collectibles surge that includes sports cards and the Labubu craze. Every wave shares the same four ingredients: a viral or cultural driver, a resale or investment angle, heavy impulse purchasing, and a big-box channel that is either slow to react or actively backing away. When all four line up, small-format specialty retail floods in, rides the curve, and eventually gets sorted by regulation, rent, or theft.

Hot categories share a curse: theft and regulators

Here is the uncomfortable part of the lifecycle. The same qualities that make a category boom also make it a target. Vape got squeezed by regulation. Cards are getting squeezed by crime: small, high-value, serial-number-free products that resell instantly have triggered a wave of shoplifting and organized theft, and mass retailers have responded with locked cases, purchase caps, and shrinking open-shelf space. A staffed storefront in a hot impulse category carries real costs that show up only after the wave peaks: security, shrink, insurance, labor, and a five-year lease signed at the top of the market.

The next wave might not need a storefront at all

This is the strategic conclusion hiding inside all the leasing data. There is a recurring supply of viral, resale-driven, impulse categories that traditional big-box retail handles poorly because of theft, staffing, and scarcity. Unattended retail is structurally built for exactly those niches. Secured dispensing removes the theft problem pushing chains out of categories like Pokémon. A machine captures impulse demand 24 hours a day in high-traffic venues where specialty stores and mass retail are absent or sold out. And it does it without payroll, without a ten-year lease, and without a buildout.

A smart vending machine is effectively a ten-square-foot specialty store that costs less than one month of a storefront's operating expenses. VTM builds that machine for both of the waves in this article: the same hardware runs age-verified vape vending or trading card vending, and the only difference is the coil. Machines start at $2,850, ship fully assembled with Nayax cashless payments and remote management software, and operators place them in gas stations, c-stores, arcades, malls, and entertainment venues across all 50 states. The full playbook for the card side is in our Pokémon vending machine business guide and the complete Pokémon vending guide.

What to watch next

The next wave will announce itself in the data before it shows up on your corner. The signals worth tracking are the quarterly retail marketbeats from CBRE, JLL, Cushman and Wakefield, and Colliers, the CoStar goods-versus-services leasing split, Coresight's store opening and closing tracker, and Circana's demand data on toys and collectibles. When a viral category with a resale angle starts pulling back from big-box shelves, history says the specialty wave, and the vending opportunity, is right behind it.

Frequently asked questions

Why are there so many vape shops everywhere?

The category grew about 18 percent per year from 2018 to 2023 because vape products combine high margins, small store footprints, and repeat purchases, and the boom coincided with a wave of cheap vacant retail space. IBISWorld counted roughly 10,500 dedicated vape shops in 2024, with the broader smoke and tobacco shop universe near 52,000 locations.

Are vape shops going out of business?

The category is consolidating rather than collapsing. Flavor restrictions, the PACT Act, and rising rents are squeezing smaller operators, so total store counts are flattening while revenue per surviving store rises. Many shops have also diversified into hemp-derived products like Delta-8 and CBD.

Why are trading card shops opening everywhere?

Trading card demand exploded starting in 2024, with Pokémon sales up more than tenfold year over year on Walmart Marketplace and Target's card sales on pace to top $1 billion. Big-box retailers are simultaneously restricting cards due to theft, which pushes buyers toward specialty shops and automated retail, and specialty lenders are now financing collectors who open physical stores.

What is replacing closed stores like Rite Aid and Big Lots?

Mostly discount and value chains, services, and food. Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Aldi, and Five Below planned roughly 1,800 new locations in 2025, while gyms, med spas, and restaurants absorb former drugstore and casual-dining boxes. Thrift operators like Goodwill are repurposing larger big-box spaces.

What retail categories are growing fastest right now?

Services and wellness lead the shift, taking over half of all US retail leasing in 2025 for the first time on record, with fitness alone at roughly 30 percent of service leases. On the goods side, discount formats and collectibles are the standouts, with Circana naming toys the fastest-growing US industry it tracked in early 2025 on the strength of Pokémon and sports cards.

Is a vending machine a good alternative to opening a shop?

For theft-sensitive impulse categories like vape and trading cards, often yes. A smart vending machine secures product behind steel and glass, sells 24/7, requires no staff or long-term lease, and costs a fraction of a storefront buildout. VTM machines start at $2,850 and run either category on the same hardware with a coil change.

Pokémon and all related names, characters, logos, and trademarks are property of Nintendo, Game Freak, Creatures Inc., and The Pokémon Company International. VTM Vending is not affiliated with, sponsored by, authorized by, or endorsed by any of these entities. VTM Vending manufactures and sells vending hardware and accessories only. Market figures cited are drawn from CoStar, Coresight Research, IBISWorld, Circana, JLL, and industry trade coverage, are the most recent available as of July 2026, and are directional.