Grand Slam Collectibles — Local services in Murfreesboro

Grand Slam has some of the best Pokémon card selection in the state. Since they opened their new location it's continued to grow and exceed my expectations for a card store in that sense. However, their business practices and staff have let me down. I've seen their employees line up outside Costco with shipping carts to scalp restocks on Pokémon products. They take $40 boxes of cards back to their shop and sell them for $120+ and try to justify it as "market value." It would be one thing if they got these sealed items secondhand, then charging market price as it fluctuates, but that's not always the case. More than often they are reducing the supply of other stores in the area to artificially inflate the prices and force people to buy from their store. Additionally, their employees are not always knowledgeable about what they're selling and seem to be in the game just for the money. I've unfortunately seen fake cards for sale here before as a result and have fallen victim to purchasing one because the employee who bought it didn't authenticate it.If you try to ask them to lower an overpriced single to market value, they will not listen. I understand a need to make a profit, but refusing to honor current market value even when presented with proof of recent online sales is ridiculous, especially if that's exactly how they're pricing sealed product.

I understand it's difficult running a trading card business and certain profit margins must be kept, but I suggest that Grand Slam make more of an effort to respect the community surrounding the hobby. Hire people who genuinely love Pokémon to run that part of the store and keep the sports card guys to their respective areas.

Despite my complaints, I would still recommend stopping by here and having a look at their selection. They keep a good balance of vintage and modern singles in stock, so no matter what you're looking for you'll probably find something up your alley. If you know what you're looking for, you can sometimes still find good...

TLDR; DO NOT let your younger kids trade in their valuable Pokemon cards to this shop until further notice.

I was loving frequenting this shop and watching it grow and prosper. The people were so nice, helpful and it felt like a place you could just get along. That suddenly changed as they expanded staff majorly. At first, the new staff was great and it was fun to go into the same couple of guys to talk Poke TCG. They had great product availability and especially fair trades on singles for store credit. I don't mind elevated Poke TCG prices so much because its the whole market and the shop needs to thrive too.

HOWEVER, last time I went in, new people that were handling trades were very sketchy about it. Whispering with each other, offering 60% market for store credit (that's awful value) and the kid doing it offered the price as a lot (of 10 cards). When I asked about specific offer value on a couple of cards he was visibly frustrated and said "now I have to go redo these."

Left a very bad taste in my mouth, totally 180 turn from all of my previous visits. To the owner - You have a great thing happening. Please take note that as you grow more just one terrible experience can lose you 100s of visits worth of goodwill with a customer. It's much easier to go online than drive across town, but the way local wins is offering a safe, fair and fun environment for your community members.

To be fair to the shop and owner, I'll probably try again sometime. Maybe that was a one-off and I'll update this later but I'm in no hurry to go back now and deal with that again. My fear is that the fun ride with a growing local business has now hit the greed stage and the good times are over... but I genuinely hope not as there are not many other...

I thought really hard about if this post was warranted before deciding to review. Literally Ubered there and back from Nashville because when we called, we were told they had certain inventory in stock for sale. Then they tell us it’s not when we arrive but that they will ask the owner. Bear in mind that all the inventory is in plain view as soon as you enter. So it would be very confusing for anybody walking in. They got us a price over 1k ABOVE market! Insane even for a business. Literally controlling and dictating the entire market there apparently. While we continued to look around after such a long trip, they asked us what we were looking for and what we do. We explained that we are streamers so we do it for the thrill and excitement more than anything. That we were looking for some older stuff to rip live. But not before being told that WE were scalpers. After trying to gouge us like crazy. You can’t make this stuff up lol. We are business owners ourselves. We understand supply and demand. Trying to be profitable. But wow. I hope many of you get a better experience than us. I hope it’s a good learning experience for the business. It’s a beautiful store with a lot of great stuff. Unfortunately, much of it is not for sale. I...