Data story
The year Pokémon outran sneakers
On the same marketplace, over the same months, the same sealed Pokémon boxes sold for a median +67% more than a year before. The same sneakers moved +2.1%. Here is that gap, one product at a time, and the month it stopped growing.
151 Booster Bundle and Destined Rivals Pokémon Center ETB. Photos: StockX
Source: SneakerPulse records of completed StockX sales through Sept 30, 2026. Photos: StockX.
Start with last year's prices
Each dot is one sealed Pokémon product on StockX: an Elite Trainer Box, a booster bundle, a collection box. Across, its median sale price from March 26 to September 24, 2025.
For now every dot sits on the diagonal: up is the same price as across. These are the 205 products with at least 10 sales in that window and in the same dates of 2026 (23,827 and 9,738 sales).
202 of 205 went up
Now each dot moves up to its median for the same dates in 2026. Above the line means it sold for more.
202 of 205 rose; 3 fell. The typical product sold for +66.9% (95% interval +60.0% to +76.2%): a box that sold for $100 in 2025 sold for about $167.
Sneakers hug the line
Now the same comparison for sneakers on StockX: every listing with 10+ sales in both windows. Grey dots are a random 1,000 of the 14,168.
They sit on the line. The median sneaker moved +2.1% (interval +1.6% to +2.6%), and 53.8% rose: close to a coin flip, as a mature market should be.
Two different markets
Fold every product into its price change and the gap is plain. Sneakers pile up around zero. Pokémon sits almost entirely to the right: 137 of 205 products rose 50% or more.
Bars show the share of each group's listings in each band: all 14,168 sneakers, all 205 Pokémon products.
The boxes everyone knows
The products collectors talk about ran furthest. Pokémon Center editions of an Elite Trainer Box ran well ahead of the standard boxes.
$54 → $175
$147 → $451
$101 → $149
$82 → $151
Median StockX sale, March 26 to September 24, 2025 vs 2026. Photos: StockX. Hover or tap any dot for its product.
Nineteen months up
Chain each product's month-to-month change and you get an index of the same products over time (November 2024 = 100).
Pokémon reached 178 by September 2025 and 286 in June 2026. Sneakers stayed between 96 and 102 the whole time.
Then the climb stopped
From June the Pokémon line goes flat: 286 in June, 276 in September.
The same-product test agrees. Comparing August 26 to September 24 with May 26 to June 25, 2026, 34 of 49 sealed products sold for less, a median −7.6% (interval −10.0% to −1.4%; 52 products with 5+ sales in both months). Sneakers over the same months: −0.7%.
The Destined Rivals ETB sold for a median $175 from January to May 2026 and $116 from late June to late September.
In three numbers
What this shows, and what it does not
For a year, sealed Pokémon on StockX behaved like a market where almost everything rose, while sneakers behaved like a mature one where about half rose and half fell. Pokémon is most of StockX's trading-card business: 80% of trading-card sales we recorded from March 26 to September 24, 2026 (18,544 of 23,299).
What the data cannot show: how far these prices sit above retail (we have no retail prices for these boxes), why they rose, or what happens next. A year of rising prices is not a forecast, and none of this is investment advice. Our sister site GradeWorthy covers the cards themselves: current StockX prices for 16 ETBs.
Method. Completed StockX sales recorded by SneakerPulse (sales between $0 and $30,000, UTC days, through September 30, 2026).
Pokémon: StockX's Trading Cards category with "Pokémon" in the name, sealed products only (graded "PSA/BGS" listings excluded); 104,433 sales across
1,481 sealed listings. Sneakers: every other StockX listing that passes our footwear filter, cleats excluded. Each listing is compared with itself: its median
sale price in one window against another. Year over year: March 26 to September 24, 2025 vs 2026, listings with 10+ sales in each. Since June: May 26 to June 25 vs August 26 to
September 24, 2026, 5+ sales in each. Multi-box "lots" count as their own listings. Median-change intervals: 2,000-draw bootstrap over listings; rose/fell: exact binomial test
against 50%, Benjamini-Hochberg corrected across all 7 comparisons computed for this story (both groups year over year, graded cards, both groups January-May vs late June-September,
both groups since June); all have q < 0.009. The monthly index chains the median change in each listing's monthly median among listings with 5+ sales in both months
(42 to 173 Pokémon listings a month).
Our StockX coverage fell from mid-2026, so sales counts are not a measure of demand. This story extends our October 3 blog post
(which did not exclude cleats, so its sneaker count differs slightly). Query: tools/stories/pokemon_vs_sneakers_query.py.