Upper Deck e-Pack Details

[DaveS]

Upper Deck's recent unveiling of their e-Packs program has been met with mixed emotions from collectors, to say the least. Personally, I think the program has the potential to be great but I did have a few questions/concerns so I contacted Chris Carlin at Upper Deck to see if he could clarify a few things. I figured I'd share the conversation, as I know many other collectors share my concerns.

#1. Are the cards that are pictured when we open the digital packs the actual cards that we will receive when we have the physical versions shipped to us? For example, I pulled a 3CLR Game Jersey today and I'm wondering if I'll actually receive that 3CLR copy or is it just a stock photo that anyone pulling the same player sees?

That is correct. These are live scans. The swatch or signature you see is of the card you can own should you choose to have it shipped to you.

#2. A lot of people are very upset about the fact that certain hits were withheld from the UD1 boxes we've been buying since the product was first released and are under the impression that the odds stated on the boxes are not actually accurate due to the withheld cards. Do the stated insertion odds found on the box take into account the entire production run, including the cards withheld for e-Packs or do those odds reflect only the boxes that were released outside of the e-Pack program?

It is important to understand that the e-Pack program IS the hobby release, just not in packaging. It was produced at the same time as the hobby and retail release, just allocated for the e-Pack program. It is almost like a distributor has been sitting on this product to make it available to customers now. The insert ratios break exactly as they should for physical or e-Packs. I can understand customers being upset they didn’t know about e-Pack at release, but given the highly competitive nature of our business, we couldn’t disclose the program until launch.

#3. Are the two e-Pack only insert sets (Code to Greatness & Instant Impression) serial-numbered, and if so what are they #'d to?

They are not serial numbered. They are more a technology insert.

#4. When we collect X copies of a card and redeem it for the special parallel versions, what happens to the cards we redeemed? For example, let's say I collect 5 Connor McDavid Young Guns and redeem them are those 5 copies then destroyed or does UD have other plans for them?

We obviously want to be careful with regard to the amount of Connor rookie content in the market. They likely will not be distributed, but we are still finalizing plans there.

#5. Will Upper Deck be releasing any info on what percentage of the product was released via cases/boxes and how much was withheld for the e-Pack program?

We cannot talk numbers for a variety of reasons, however I can comment that it is significantly less than the amount of physical packs produced for UD1 and we expect the release will sell out.

#6a. And as far as the limited cards such as the High Gloss parallels, will any info be given on which ones were distributed thru the original release and which are inserted in the e-Packs?

The seeding ratios are exactly the same for these across the entire run of standard hobby and e-Pack hobby. We cannot speak to the numbers.

#6b. To use McDavid as an example again, if a collector were opening large amounts of the product with the hope of pulling the McDavid High Gloss, it would be quite beneficial to know if they should stick to boxes/cases or if the remaining copies are in the e-Packs.

It is important to remember that whether e-Pack came or didn’t come, we were always going to produce the same amount of product for this run for hobby. Nobody was shorted in their pack, box or case purchase because of e-Pack. This allocation of product was just distributed differently.

#7. Is there an estimate for when the trading feature will go live?

We are testing the functionality now and it looks really cool. However, because it is a tech matter and thousands of things can go wrong with tech applications, I do not feel comfortably commenting with a statement other than it is coming soon.

I wasn't overly happy to hear that UD is considering putting the redeemed cards back on the market rather than destroying them, and a couple of his responses were a bit vague, but overall I was pretty satisfied with the responses I received.

[RGM81]

They likely will not be distributed, but we are still finalizing plans there.

I think there are three options for those cards. I'll rank them in order of most likely...

1. Transferred from circulation to redemption/QC replacements
2. To be used as "buybacks" in a future UD release
3. Released back into e-Pack circulation

For a variety of reasons I don't think they'll go with option 3, but 1 & 2 are both plausible scenarios that can have positive benefits down the road.

[ReimerFan]

I think there are three options for those cards. I'll rank them in order of most likely...

1. Transferred from circulation to redemption/QC replacements
2. To be used as "buybacks" in a future UD release
3. Released back into e-Pack circulation

For a variety of reasons I don't think they'll go with option 3, but 1 & 2 are both plausible scenarios that can have positive benefits down the road.

With option 3 they'd still need the case hits which have limited numbers. Hypothetically lets say they sell out. That means they should have no more case hits (exclusives/signatures/acetate...) they may have loads of YG left but if they allocated correctly everything else should be gone. I'm guessing they will keep them for Buyback

[Whoop]

I figure the redeemed McDavid's will be used for Buybacks.

[DaveS]

I'm fully expecting them to re-appear down the road as buyback cards as well, but I would definitely prefer to see them removed from circulation altogether. But alas, why would UD pass up an opportunity to re-issue them and make money off them one more time around.

[creasecollector]

I'm fully expecting them to re-appear down the road as buyback cards as well, but I would definitely prefer to see them removed from circulation altogether. But alas, why would UD pass up an opportunity to re-issue them and make money off them one more time around.

Good point. And these BuyBacks, if/when signed, would be great looking cards.

I think one member on here actually had his very own YG's signed by McDavid, too. Those would be sweet to look at!

[Gallinator]

It is important to remember that whether e-Pack came or didn’t come, we were always going to produce the same amount of product for this run for hobby. Nobody was shorted in their pack, box or case purchase because of e-Pack. This allocation of product was just distributed differently.


Ah, but there's the rub! e-Pack DID come and product was withheld from the "sold out" Hobby release (of which e-Pack is now, retroactively, a part) without prior knowledge of those who bought from that release. "Nobody was shorted in their...purchase" is technically correct because a significant portion of the product wasn't released - it didn't exist to be shorted! - but since no one on the consumer side knew this, purchase decisions where made assuming the whole product was available and therefore harm was committed against the buyers of LCS product. Did they really just not think this through?

If you aren't understanding my argument here, let's try flipping the ratios and see if that disturbs you. Let's say S1 was released and immediately sells out. People spend a ton of money on breaks but everyone is happy because hey, if it sells out, it holds better value, right? Sure, we only see a few YG Exclusives pop up and a couple YG HG, but we figure people are maybe sitting on them more than usual or something. Then, 10 weeks later, Upper Deck announces e-Pack and says, oh, yeah, we held back a LARGE portion of the entire print run, including all those YG parallels you've been looking for and we're selling them directly through e-Pack - sorry we didn't let you know sooner, but hey we didn't want to let our NON-EXISTENT competition know our plans. The market floods and we definitely have people start talking lawsuit.

My point here is that whether the amount of holdback was large or small, ANY amount results in consumer behavior that is different than what would have occurred if the information had been known and therefore there is DE FACTO harm against said consumers. I don't know how much clearer I can get.

[Sharky94]

People spend a ton of money on breaks but everyone is happy because hey, if it sells out, it holds better value, right?

Anybody who spent a ton of money on Series 1 expecting it to hold value because of its "limited" print run just hasn't been collecting cards for very long. Sorry to dump on anyone's dreams. But anyone who didn't think that Series 1 was going to be hugely over-produced isn't very smart.

[Sharky94]

#4. When we collect X copies of a card and redeem it for the special parallel versions, what happens to the cards we redeemed? For example, let's say I collect 5 Connor McDavid Young Guns and redeem them are those 5 copies then destroyed or does UD have other plans for them?

Honestly, I think part of UD's plans in all this is that they can save money by not printing large amounts of base cards. They print the hits for the epacks, but not the base cards (or at least just a small portion of them). They know the cards will never be wanted, so they won't have to. People will simply combine them and "redeem" them for the foil versions or they will just sit in people's accounts and never go anywhere. That way, UD can get away with never bothering to waste the money printing them. Collectors wont care about a bunch of base cards they don't want, and UD doesn't have to waste money printing them.

[atruong317]

It is important to remember that whether e-Pack came or didn’t come, we were always going to produce the same amount of product for this run for hobby. Nobody was shorted in their pack, box or case purchase because of e-Pack. This allocation of product was just distributed differently.

Ah, but there's the rub! e-Pack DID come and product was withheld from the "sold out" Hobby release (of which e-Pack is now, retroactively, a part) without prior knowledge of those who bought from that release. "Nobody was shorted in their...purchase" is technically correct because a significant portion of the product wasn't released - it didn't exist to be shorted! - but since no one on the consumer side knew this, purchase decisions where made assuming the whole product was available and therefore harm was committed against the buyers of LCS product. Did they really just not think this through?

Another point to consider, what about all the product that distributors held back for a king's ransom? The price of the a hobby box went up over 50% since the initial release. Sure, some of that is attributed to the CDN/US dollar, but I suspect the Canadian distributors received their entire allotment at the beginning and was locked in at that price at that time.

There seems to way more unhappiness/anger over the EPack release than the distributors screwing over the LCS and ultimately the customer. The HG/Exclusives hunters were definitely affected by the distributors greed, as less hobby boxes/cases were broken with the higher pricing. My 2 local LCS sells retail boxes instead of hobby boxes. They keep 1 or 2 hobby boxes around to show the price difference and this ultimately leads to a retail box sale.

How much product is still sitting in the distributors' warehouse? What if there is more sitting in the warehouse than in this Epack release? Would that be surprising?

The Epack direction is not good for LCS without significant changes, that much is sure.

I just find it strange that when the distributors raise the prices significantly, a lot of people are "meh, what can you do? that's what they do all the time, sucks to be screwed like this", but this ePack release has a generated more emotion than anything in awhile.