When it comes to capturing the attention of today’s young people, trading cards are undoubtedly one of the key tools.
For just a few yuan, you can buy a small pack containing five or six cards of varying content. Drawing a “collector’s edition” card instantly doubles its value. It’s not only about buying merchandise from a favorite franchise, but also carries the psychological thrill similar to opening a blind box or even playing the lottery.
For fans of anime and other “2D” culture, pulling a character card or limited illustration offers the satisfaction of holding a virtual world in your hands. Idol fans, meanwhile, will spend lavishly on limited edition or autographed cards of their idols.
Among younger children, this enthusiasm is even more pronounced. In convenience stores near schools, you can often see groups of students crowded around the counters picking out cards, especially for popular franchises like Nezha or My Little Pony, with prices sometimes doubling and still many rushing to buy. For kids, cards aren’t just a pastime—they’re social currency for showing off and competing with classmates.
Collecting cards is by no means new. Kids in the 1980s chased after foreign movie cards, while the Little Raccoon Water Margin cards of the 1990s swept across China—one generation collecting the cards of its time. The difference today is that back then, cards were mostly giveaways, whereas now they are directly tied to IP value, and purchasing is simpler and more straightforward: they’re both toys and blind boxes, satisfying collecting desires while carrying social value.
With these multiple overlapping attributes, the card industry has exploded in just a few years.
Between 2019 and 2024, the total transaction value of China’s trading card market skyrocketed from 2.8 billion yuan to 26.3 billion yuan—an eightfold increase in five years, reflecting just how hot the market is. According to CITIC Securities, the overall market is expected to reach 35.1 billion yuan by 2027.
More importantly, today’s trading cards are no longer “just toys.” Scarcity, financialization, and verifiable attributes naturally endow them with collectible and investment value. Limited edition sports cards or anime cards can fetch millions of dollars on international markets, with some investments outperforming stock or real estate speculation.
In this context, trading cards have gradually evolved from a snack-time accessory into a standalone industry, transforming from children’s games into a complex medium integrating consumption, social interaction, collecting, and investment, offering the industry a vast imaginative space.
Addiction
The allure of card collecting knows no borders. Pokémon, one of the most popular card franchises globally, has seen rare cards sell for over $400,000 at international auctions. Some autographed sports cards have sold for over a million dollars each. To collectors, these cards have long transcended the realm of toys, becoming symbols of status and wealth.
In Japan, annual per capita spending on cards is about 120 yuan, while in the U.S., it’s around 64 yuan. China’s market is growing rapidly, but active participants in the “circle” are still relatively few, with per capita spending only 18.7 yuan. The disparity is largely related to a nation’s overall wealth, but it also indicates considerable room for growth in China’s card market.
Trading cards are mainly divided into non-trading and trading types. Non-trading cards are purchased as complete sets, immediately ready for gameplay, while trading cards require continuous collection and exchange to complete a full set. Some cards are extremely rare, making them nearly impossible to obtain without spending heavily.
Currently, the hottest cards domestically and internationally are trading cards. The reason people get “hooked” is simple: low cost—around one or two dollars per pack. They are not only toys and collectibles, but some also have game and competitive elements.
Take Ultraman or Pokémon as examples. Players gain satisfaction from collecting and can build decks to battle under rules or even gamble. Card gameplay has expanded beyond IP value into richer experiences and is closely tied to social interaction.
Behind the competition lies a “pay-to-win” logic. Typically, the rarer and more expensive the card, the stronger its attributes and the higher the chances of winning. This setup directly encourages players to spend continuously to acquire stronger cards. Owning rare cards, winning games, and earning peers’ admiration all provide extra psychological satisfaction.
Non-competitive cards function similarly. Products like My Little Pony or U.S. sports cards do not rely on game rules, but the collectible and social value of rare cards is enough to make enthusiasts willingly invest. Additionally, cards’ “blind box” nature tempts people to try their luck.
At its core, the consumer logic is about paying for emotion. Uncertainty brings excitement, scarcity creates value, social attributes provide topics and influence, and low prices lower the entry barrier. These overlapping factors drive repeated purchases until collectors are completely under the dopamine spell of card collecting.
Investment
Although trading cards share IP-based scarcity and can fetch high resale prices like blind boxes or designer toys, the biggest difference is that cards are closer to financialized assets.
Unlike purely informal speculation in blind boxes or sneaker flipping, the secondary card market has a fully professional and institutionalized infrastructure. In developed markets like the U.S., card investment has formed a complete ecosystem, from grading to auctioning, trading, and insurance.
The standard process is grading first, then circulation. For example, internationally recognized agencies PSA and CGC grade cards based on visual flaws, autograph authenticity, rarity, and other factors, assigning a score from 1 (poor) to 10 (perfect). Graded cards are sealed in transparent protective cases with detailed labeling.
Certification ensures authenticity, verifies rarity, and provides a market-recognized value standard. In other words, non-standardized card assets are standardized through grading, which most toys and merchandise cannot match.
Once officially certified, cards can enter a more transparent secondary market. eBay remains the platform with the largest trading volume, providing comprehensive data from grading scores and transaction history to price trends, forming a market reference similar to stock charts.
Additionally, platforms like Fanatics Collect, ALT, and Goldin provide standardized trading processes and increasingly transparent displays. Some institutions even launch indices based on card type and grade, updating market trends and transaction data daily, effectively mimicking individual stock market charts.
To ensure transaction security, these platforms have also developed “vault” services. Take eBay as an example: once the seller ships a card, the platform digitizes it, allowing both parties to trade the digital asset directly on the platform, with the buyer receiving proof of ownership. This form of non-physical trading, combined with third-party guarantees, further gives trading cards the safety and liquidity characteristics of financial assets.
It is clear that the financialization of trading cards rests on three foundations: first, scarcity design in the primary market; second, standardized grading and trading systems in the secondary market; and third, the widespread circulation and recognition of major global franchises. Together, these factors transform trading cards from mere consumer products into an asset class with investment potential.
By contrast, China’s market remains much less mature in this regard. Domestic card trading primarily relies on C2C platforms like Xianyu, lacking the transparency and institutional safeguards of eBay. Identical products often show large price differences between sellers, and piracy further undermines market trust.
International players have already set their sights on China’s potentially vast market. In 2021, two subsidiaries of grading giant CCG—CSG and CGC—partnered with the domestic platform Fansmall to provide professional card grading services for Chinese collectors.
China’s card market is gradually aligning with internationally mature models. Meanwhile, some domestic crypto-sector capital has also sought to enter the space, with several institutions recently integrating card exhibitions with card ecosystems, potentially accelerating the financialization of the industry.
Industry
The rise of trading cards has undoubtedly brought huge profits to related companies. The most direct beneficiaries are, naturally, the card publishers. For example, Pokémon’s card sales in Japan alone approached 7 billion yuan in 2023, with net profits tripling since 2020, largely thanks to the contribution of the card business.
In this domestic wave, leading Chinese trading card companies such as Kayou and Jikashe have also made substantial profits.
According to the prospectus of industry leader Kayou, its 2024 revenue exceeded 10 billion yuan, a 2.8-fold increase year-on-year, with over 80% of revenue coming from trading card operations. Its profitability far surpasses that of many retail companies, with gross margins maintained around 70% over the past three years—higher than trendy toy star Pop Mart—making it little short of a “cash printing machine.”
Trading cards are one of the few industries where the majority of the value chain is concentrated at the retail end. Breaking down the value chain, retail accounts for about 40% of the industry’s total value, publishers and operators make up 30%, distributors around 10%, while IP licensing fees and material costs—the two main “hard costs”—together account for only about 20%.
This profit distribution mechanism is determined by the sales characteristics of trading cards: in China, 80% of card sales come from convenience stores and stationery shops near schools. This means the retail channel serves as the primary traffic entry point for the industry, and consequently, the main segment where value is distributed.
This also explains why domestic companies can continue to make profits even without stable, long-lived IPs. Leveraging channel advantages and publishing and operational capabilities, local companies can still capture a share of the growing consumer demand through a vast number of retail outlets, even without global franchises like Pokémon.
According to Qichacha data, there are currently 2,892 card-related companies in China, of which 1,321 were established in the past three years. More than half of these companies focus on wholesale and retail, highlighting the profitability of the sector. One convenience store owner revealed that the shop’s daily revenue averages around 1,000 yuan, with trading card sales accounting for about 40% of that.
Beyond publishing and retail, service industries built around the financial attributes of cards are also developing. Domestic vertical trading platforms such as KaTao and Qiandao have emerged. KaTao divides its platform into “collectible cards” and “TCG” modules, while Qiandao’s storage lockers and flash-sale model allow players to trade cards in the cloud without meeting in person, effectively upgrading traditional trading into digital matchmaking.
Local grading and authentication services are also beginning to take shape. Companies like BaoCui, JBH HuoLeWu, Poly, and BGN all offer card grading services. Some institutions are even experimenting with machine recognition and AI to reduce human subjectivity. However, because domestic institutions are generally newly established, their credibility remains limited, and market recognition is still relatively low.
Conclusion
Overall, trading cards combine entertainment, social interaction, and financial attributes, giving the market enormous potential.
Yet two major weaknesses in China’s market remain clear: first, the lack of top-tier IPs with long-term viability, which means popularity often flares and fades quickly; second, the absence of a complete trading and grading system, making it difficult to support the assetization of products.
More importantly, if trading cards do not follow a path of financialization, their scale will inevitably remain confined to the toy segment at best, perhaps becoming the next trendy collectible market. To truly grow the industry, financialization is essential—but that will inevitably bump up against regulatory ceilings. This is a reality that all entrepreneurs interested in this sector must carefully consider.
Editor: Zhiyu Wang
