When Jonathan Stone opened Blue Breaks LLC hobby shop in Venice, Fla. in July 2022, he didn’t have a direct buying account to receive products from Topps.
Stone had to obtain all his Topps wax from card industry events such as the National Sports Collectors Convention, Industry Summit and MINT Collective.
“That hurt my customers because my prices were higher since I was paying two, three, four different middle men before getting the product in my store,” Stone said.
As a new business owner, Stone understood the importance of acquiring a Topps direct buying account to get products delivered to his door at a discounted rate.
In January of this year, Stone was granted a Topps direct buying account. Had he not had a relationship with Topps, new rules recently handed down for hobby shops would have impacted him greatly.
Topps — along with its parent company Fanatics — sent out an email on June 21 to all hobby shop owners — nearly 700 shops — with direct buying accounts. The message laid out 17 guidelines each shop has to follow in order to maintain its account with Topps.
Each shop owner has until July 18 to sign documents abiding by the new rules.
Some of the most notable guidelines include:
• No business-to-business or online sales, unless otherwise approved in
