Upper Deck ePacks

[30ranfordfan]

BOOM!

Just opened my second free pack. Brian Gionta! Now I've got two copies..... and only 8 away from a Foil base :)

[joshpackham]

I'm only 194 base cards away from completing the base set, I hope the free packs last long enough to complete it

[cardscardscards]

has anybody hit any kind of insert at all in their free pack? I've opened a couple and hit only base.

The free packs are digital cards only, ie. base.
I believe you can still get 10 of the same to convert into a foil physical card.

[KingKuba]

I think the concept is cool. I like that it gives a purpose to base cards (collect 10 for a foil parallel) without the clutter of massive amounts of worthless base cards. It also puts the freedom to bust packs immediately at your fingertips with wherever you are. This will be a great way for Upper deck to make money (just like other app companies).

I have many concerns though that outweigh the benefits. Upper deck desperately needs an app for this to be successful (looks like an android one is coming but what about iOS?) and this app needs to be sleek, free of bugs and provide a good user experience as historically upper decks online experience has been horrid. They need to provide a trading feature to keep the users engaged. I like that cards can be transferred to COMC but I believe COMC charges a monthly storage fee per card as well as a shipping costs (although shipping is a flat fee which is great for the end consumer). My biggest concern and what each and every buyer, distributer, and shop owner should be appalled over is being dupped on the 2015-16 ud1 stated print runs for product purchased. There were not 10 high gloss copies available through standard (physical) card purchases. I have not read the stated odds on the back of physical packs but either way this is a significant change from previous years without advanced notice. This is downright fraud. I foresee a class action lawsuit coming.

Not all cards are ever packed out....you think all "nice" Cup cards are all packed out?

No, they are given to UD employees for Christmas...

gl with lawsuit....

[Nazem Kadri]

So they screw over the LCs and distributors, don't give the consumer a discount for "imaginary" cards they don't have to run through the press and then I have to pay to have them shipped? Awesome!!!

[rydlar99]

Welcome to a new era in card collecting!

[Pingwinn]

my e-box:

2015-16 Upper Deck UD Game Jersey #GJ-PA Ondrej Pavelec
2015-16 Upper Deck #225 Young Guns - Ronalds Kenins
2015-16 Upper Deck #213 Young Guns - Henrik Samuelsson
2015-16 Upper Deck #214 Young Guns - Connor Hellebuyck
2015-16 Upper Deck #230 Young Guns - Joonas Donskoi
2015-16 Upper Deck #224 Young Guns - Slater Koekkoek
2015-16 Upper Deck UD Canvas #C31 Danny DeKeyser
2015-16 Upper Deck UD Canvas #C42 Ryan Suter
2015-16 Upper Deck UD Canvas #C61 Chris Kreider
2015-16 Upper Deck UD Canvas #C77 Jake Allen
2015-16 Upper Deck UD Portraits #P-5 Pavel Datsyuk
2015-16 Upper Deck UD Portraits #P-11 Tuukka Rask
2015-16 Upper Deck UD Portraits #P-30 Jordan Eberle
2015-16 Upper Deck UD Portraits #P-57 Sam Bennett
2015-16 Upper Deck Shining Stars #SS-28 Steven Stamkos
2015-16 Upper Deck Shining Stars #SS-29 John Tavares
2015-16 Upper Deck Shining Stars #SS-34 Johnny Gaudreau
2015-16 Upper Deck Shining Stars Royal Blue #SS-30 Tyler Seguin
2015-16 Upper Deck Code to Greatness #CTG-19 John Tavares
2015-16 Upper Deck Code to Greatness #CTG-15 Steven Stamkos
2015-16 Upper Deck Code to Greatness #CTG-18 Henrik Zetterberg
2015-16 Upper Deck Instant Impressions #II-6 Nathan MacKinnon
2015-16 Upper Deck Instant Impressions #II-25 Jacob de la Rose

2015-16 Upper Deck 2014-15 A Piece of History 1,000 Point Club Autos Update #PC-NL Nicklas Lidstrom #5/10 - SOLD

2015-16 Upper Deck #201 Young Guns - Connor McDavid


http://www.comc.com/Users/slawek_Pol,sl,i100

[RGM81]

So, I ranted against this over on HI and still think it's a bad idea overall, but of course I had to try it! Bought two packs and got two YG: Hellebuyck and Panarin - not bad for $8, I guess. So, now I can either

1) Leave them there
2) Have them shipped to me (for 2x25 cents?)
3) "Transfer" them to my COMC account and add them to my inventory and eventual shipping or flipping?

Have to mess around with it a little more.

EDIT: OK, it was $3 plus 2x25 cents to ship to me, so I transferred them to my COMC account and they are there now, apparently ready to be sold/flipped or shipped to me. This is, at first thought,

a) too good to be true for a flipper or anyone looking to sell their duplicates
b) horrible, horrible news for an LCS - and therefore, ultimately, a bad idea for the hobby.

Was talking about this last night with bobthenotorious.

If you're an online case breaker, this is manna from heaven.
You get all the hits out of the case without having to rip and dispose of 288 packs of cards, plus you can swap out the 12 boxes worth of base cards for what will pretty much be a full shiny parallel set. Your customers will have to wait a little bit longer for the cards, but to placate that you can offer up the parallel set as a "bonus hit" random draw for a lucky customer, or you can divvy up those cards to all the participants. Huge, huge upside for the online market.

But if you're a B&M store, you want to make sure that your biggest (and even the lower-spending regular) customers are still buying the physical product. I'm sure that not a lot of people were planning to go down to the LCS yesterday to buy two packs of Series 1. But how many people bought a couple of e-Packs yesterday? Probably a pretty big revenue day for UD yesterday, and all that money goes directly to them without the middleman.

Personally, I don't break anywhere near enough wax for this to be a regular thing for me. I'll get the free stuff, sure. And when they introduce the trading function I'll happily swap my existing digital base cards for Carey and PK so that I can make a run at the Silver Foil Board parallels.

But man, there's so much potential for good and bad with this program.

[RGM81]

So they screw over the LCs and distributors, don't give the consumer a discount for "imaginary" cards they don't have to run through the press and then I have to pay to have them shipped? Awesome!!!

I hope you realize the obvious contradiction in your statement there.

The physical card component of the e-Pack program--YG's, inserts, etc.--are all cards that exist. They've already been run through the press. Why would you expect a discount AND free shipping? You're buying cards from Upper Deck, not SCF members. LOL

[MacDuff77]

I see this as a good option for collectors that live remotely, overseas or do not have a LCS nearby (or even a Walmart for that matter). They can go onto the website (or upcoming app), buy a few packs and get them shipped (at cost) to them. Not a bad idea and the base card trade-up to foil parallels is a cool feature.

I can see some frustrations over print runs and the added competition to LCS who could lose customers to online purchases, but I'm not sure just how big an impact that would be yet?