Hotsauce Games — Attraction in Downers Grove

This was my first time here, and I feel other people's comments and experiences were a bit knee-jerk and a bit unfair with extenuating circumstances. They went over all of their buying and selling policies if I asked. Bulk prices on cards 3 or below, 50% on 20 and below, 60% on 20 and above. It was very clear cut. I never experienced anything higher than 10% above retail.

My experience was more that I found cards that had their markets settle overall from newer sets, to be 2 and in some cases 6 dollars above retail. It's a bit annoying when im trying to build deck cores, and I'm getting charged 9 dollars more for 3 copies of the same card, but I boiled it down to me paying for a convienence. However I would realistically only be charged about 3 dollars in taxes on tcglow.

It was a bit troublesome, when I found out that their listed prices were firm, and were not really willing to negotiate even when buying multiple singles. I was testing a theory while I was in there, I looked for a mid end card both myself and the shop had listed higher higher tcglow, however when looking up my price, they went by tcglow instead of their listed price. That seems a little intellectually dishonest, especially when buying I have to go by THEIR price listing, while they can go by a less inflated tcg standard.

I know of at least 2 other crystal commerce based shops that are willing to negotiate on prices that exceed 5 retail or more, like topcut. If they did this for some cards or people buying multiple cards, I think it would be a fair compromise, or at the very least split the difference, since it is still a convienence.

Other than that, the enviroment was very contained, and professional, it wasn't off the walls like older locals that used to be around, and everyone was in there, doing specific tasks for their respective games and collectibles. The team here is obviously dedicated, knowledgeable and take their jobs seriously. I think I'd be willing to come back, because I'm interested to see how they operate local tournaments for Pokémon when...

The card shop takes 52.8% of your cards value and give you $10 for 1000 Pokémon bulk. This is ludicrous considering Deriums.com will give you $90-100 for 3000 cards. They haven't always taken 52.8% of your cards value, this used to be more around 40% if I had to take a guess. They let my hopes down when I came in with over $100 worth of cards and simply gave my $44. Keep in mind this was with bigger ticket items and not the bulk. So, I basically ended up getting $34 from cards that were worth near $100. Then I tried to sell my promo Pokémon cards from a couple years ago and I was told that I would have to wait for the “older cards guy” to come back in next week. The cards are 2-3 years old and that’s preventing your employees from looking up the prices? Makes no sense in my eyes. The cards are clearly NM-M condition and they tell me I have to wait for someone else to do it. This is just lazy in my eyes considering any person that has access to TCG Player or TrollandToad could have done it. I live 45 minutes to one hour away and I don’t see a point in coming back to a store that will most likely end up giving me $20 for my cards. It’s a shame considering I used to come here back in 2015-2017 and always had a great time. They gave a great deal, but it seems that it has gone downhill since. This is not meant to come off as a bad review, but more as a heads up to those that are looking to sell their cards here in the future. We need amazing employees again. For example, Eric was an employee that everyone loved... hope we can see an employee in the future that is as welcoming and...

Upon first entering this establishment I was ecstatic that they had so much cool vintage Pokemon and MTG stuff, but my demeanor quickly changed after realizing it was all at least 15-20% ABOVE market value. Most shops that have cool vintage stuff price it accordingly and it flies off the shelves. Then I asked what they have for singles. “Check the computer”… I’ll Pass on that… I’m not building a MTG deck I’m looking for cool singles, and vintage stuff that jumps out at me and at this point the vibe is shot. Not to mention the three employees I interacted with (or tried to) were all very disgruntled and rude. I quickly realized I wasn’t buying anything so I asked if they buy cards. They said yes we pay 60% cash on $5+ cards using TCG market price and even more if they are more expensive. Okay cool, that’s fair! So I spent about an hour scanning cards on TCG market price and brought them to the counter to have him check and he starts looking up each card one by one on the lowest sold price. I asked “why don’t you just scan them and set it to market price” to which he responded “we go by the lowest sold price” I’m like bro if you’re broke just say that.. Most people in this community know that TCG market price is very fair pricing for both parties and the only ones that say otherwise are card shop owners that try to milk every penny of profit. When you switch from market price to market low it drops the value about 35%, so that 60% just turned into 30%. Buying super low, selling super high! Save your money, time, and good vibes for the businesses that are grateful to have...