A certain moment tells us a lot about where this business has come to. A worker at a hobby store on North Island takes a Mind Stone card out of a pack. It is one of only 150 ever made, and within hours, the store’s phone starts ringing with questions from famous American athletes. The card is finally sold for about the same amount as a small down payment on a house, and two employees personally bring it to America the following week. That’s not a startup dream. In fact, that did happen at Hobby Lords.
The 34-year-old managing director of Hobby Lords, Liam O’Neill, has been quietly but surely making New Zealand a better place. A flagship store opened in Dunedin less than three years ago, and now there are about twelve locations. Soon, stores in Invercargill and Hastings will open, and four more stores on the North Island are on the way. At the moment, the business opens a new store about every three weeks. If shopping were going well, that speed would be impressive. This one is almost out of the ordinary.
O’Neill doesn’t act like the economy is in great shape. He agrees with what the banks keep telling him, which is that stores are closing down. He doesn’t agree that it applies to him, though. “Our particular industry is exploding,” he stated. That seems to be supported by the data, at least from his stores. People who go to Hobby Lords usually stay there for three and a half hours. People do come to buy trading cards, but they also eat, drink, and play. Some people walk in and don’t know anyone. Some people leave with fresh friends. That’s not how people act in stores normally, and O’Neill knows it.
Trading cards are what O’Neill calls a “real bull market” because they are the products that are getting the most attention. What he calls the “big three” are Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, and One Piece. Newcomers like Disney Lorcana have also taken off quickly. A major supplier recently said that just new accounts had grown by 18%. Some people collect Pokémon cards full-time and make a whole living from them. For some, they’re an investment that quietly does better than more common choices. It’s still not clear how long that rate of growth will last, but demand is always higher than supply right now.
The NFL card collector market is now what O’Neill wants to go after. There’s a long history of trading cards for American football, but New Zealand hasn’t found a place for them yet. Depending on your point of view, opening the first specialty store in the country to fill that need could be seen as either smart or risky. O’Neill seems to think the first one is true. It’s hard to write him off based on what we know about him so far.
The bigger picture of expansion is very striking. Hobby Lords has said it wants to open 18 stores across Australia. This would put it on the same level as well-known brands like Hallensteins. O’Neill has said that the move is meant to be aggressive. He just said, “Demand massively outstrips supply,” as if that would settle it. In a way, O’Neill caught a wave that most people didn’t see coming when he opened his business right before the hobby market took off.
Aside from the goods, what makes the stores work is something that is harder to make. According to O’Neill, they are like public spaces where adults can go without knowing anyone and leave having made a connection with someone over a shared interest. In a time when those kinds of spontaneous social events are really hard to find, that could be the formula he keeps talking about. Not just the cards. The space where they’re opened.
