Collector Casing
[ OVERVIEW ]
Found a gap in the Pokémon sealed-product market and built the product to fill it. Collectors were paying real money for sealed product and had nowhere to put it that kept it safe, so we built the case we could not buy ourselves, then proved other people wanted it too.
[ PROJECT SNAPSHOT ]
[ LOGO ]
[ TYPOGRAPHY ]
BEBAS NEUE (HEADLINES) · MONTSERRAT (BODY & UI)
[ PALETTE ]
PRIMARY
SUPPORTING
Collector Black #0D0F0F · Warm Gold #C9A84C · Soft White #F5F5F5 · Dark Amber #2A1F0D
[ BRAND IN USE ]
[ THE CHALLENGE ]
"DISPLAY IT WITHOUT RISKING WHAT IT IS WORTH."
[ THE CONTEXT ]
Built by collectors
Got back into Pokémon in 2018, hit the problem personally, and prototyped a solution for ourselves before it was ever a business
No one was making it
Nothing on the market protected sealed product and displayed it at a price collectors would actually pay
35+ retail locations
Stocked across card shops and independent retailers in the GTA and beyond, plus partners in Vancouver
[ WHAT WE WERE UP AGAINST ]
"Collectors were paying real money for sealed product and then hiding it in closets and cardboard boxes, because the only options were to display it unprotected or protect it out of sight."
[ WHAT I DID ]
MOVE 01 / PRODUCT
Built the product we could not buy
Bought real ETBs and booster boxes and built cases around the actual formats, testing acrylic thickness, magnet strength, magnet count and closure style until it held.
MOVE 02 / SUPPLY
Set up the supply chain behind it
Found and vetted a manufacturer, negotiated volume-scaled per-unit pricing, shipping cost and route, then ran ordering against consumption through the year.
MOVE 03 / CHANNEL
Opened three channels at once
Trade shows nearly every weekend, wholesale into retailers, and a custom-built Shopify storefront, each reaching a different kind of buyer.
THE breakdown.
[ THE BREAKDOWN ]
COLLECTOR CASING ACRYLIC PROTECTION & DISPLAY SYSTEMS
01. MARKET & PRODUCT DEFINITION
Pokémon releases in consistent standard formats: elite trainer boxes and booster boxes, plus UPCs and collection boxes. Value is set by the chase cards in each set, so sets with Charizard, Gengar and other rare high-value cards command more. Collectors either rip packs or sit on sealed product. The gap: people who wanted to display sealed product had no way to do it that kept it protected. Built cases sized to the flagship formats first, then extended to UPCs and collection boxes.
02. PROTOTYPING
Bought real product from a local store (Red Nails) for the Evolving Skies set and built cases around the actual boxes. Iterated across acrylic thickness, magnet strength, magnet count and closure style (clip-on top vs magnet vs no magnet). A lot of testing and a lot of mistakes before settling on a design.
03. SOURCING & SUPPLY
Found and vetted a manufacturer, partners based in China. Negotiated wholesale pricing scaled to order quantity so per-unit cost dropped with volume, plus shipping cost and route. Ongoing: ordering against consumption, tracking what's arriving and when. Supply is still an open problem being worked on.
04. TRADE SHOW ENGINE
Events nearly every weekend, 50+ a year. Pre-show: monthly event calendar posted to social, where to find the booth, case pricing, trade show special. On-site: designed table signage, display props, business cards, marketing materials covering price, quality (N52 magnets, museum-grade acrylic), thickness and warranty. Deal mechanics run at the table. Typically 20 to 50 cases per show day, almost always sold out.
05. WHOLESALE & DISTRIBUTION
Started by wholesaling to other vendors at the trade shows to move quantity and build the B2B side. Expanded into 10+ GTA stores (Interesting Things, Relics, Total Sports, Red Nails and others), plus partners in Vancouver and elsewhere in Canada. Now runs on a monthly cycle: order, distribute, drop off to local stores, who sell on at their own margin. A referral programme and repeat-purchase incentives kept customers coming back, and building a local reputation as the place to go for cases in the GTA was what extended customer lifetime value.
06. D2C ECOMMERCE
Built the Shopify storefront personally as a custom Liquid build rather than a theme, for better design, better CTA placement, sections optimized to carry the product, and a better feel end to end, which feeds conversion rate. Ships Canada-wide. Partnership with Stallion Express for low-cost shipping. Core channel conflict: customers are trained to buy at $30 flat at shows, so online the same case plus shipping can land at $45. Solved two ways: bundle purchases, and $5 express next-day shipping through Stallion, which matters to customers who can't get to shows. US expansion is next.
[ VALIDATION ]
Found product market fit in the TCG space across Pokémon, Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh and One Piece. Nobody was serving it at scale with the right quality and price point, and collectors proved they would pay to protect and display sealed product rather than store it out of sight.
[ REFLECTION ]
Still ongoing. The open question is how to keep supply consistent while expanding retail partnerships beyond the GTA, into parts of Canada where the product is hard to get or too expensive to order one unit at a time.
[ NEXT STEPS ]
Keep developing the product line with customer input, grow the customer base, and expand retail reach across Canada and into the US.