The four major Korean entertainment clubs bundled sales of “excessive sales of small cards”, which provoked the Fair Trade Commission to investigate on the spot! Criticism on the Internet: “The business of making money is too exaggerated”

(Cover photo source: SM Entertainment, FB@seventeennews)

As more and more people criticize entertainment planning companies for encapsulating different photo cards in albums and inducing fans to buy them in bulk as bundling sales, the Fair Trade Commission has successively conducted on-site investigations on SM, JYP, YG, and HYBE since the end of last month.

Photo cards are one of the peripherals that come with the album, most of them are self-portraits of the members, and some even have autographs. Because it is a random package, you can only know whose card you bought by opening the album. In addition to the preview images published on the website, there are also “unpublished photo cards”that can only be drawn during a specific period or at a specific sales place, and “public photo cards”that can only be obtained by applying for pre-recorded song programs. wait.

None — (Source: Screenshot of SMTOWN & STORE)

Recently, NCT, the boy group of SM, has released nearly 50 types of photo cards, and more than 200 types of photo cards for the group with a large number of people; most of the album prices range from 15,000 to 40,000 won.

In order to get their natal photo cards, some fans buy dozens or even hundreds of albums, which is called “photo card gambling”, and some even resell popular photo cards on Twitter or second-hand trading websites to make money. After taking out the card, most of the albums lose their meaning and can only be hoarded or disposed of as garbage. The environmental pollution caused by a large number of plastic products that cannot be recycled has been criticized for a long time.

According to Gaon Chart, the sales of popular music albums in Korea will reach 54 million in 2021, which is five times that of 2016. The bundling sales strategy of entertainment planning companies to stimulate fans’ desire for collection has been a big success. 10 years ago, it would have been great if the sales of a single album exceeded 500,000, but now the number has risen to 3 million.