We mapped 23,039 UK shops that sell collectibles

Everyone in UK reselling repeats the same advice: check your local shops, supermarket pallets never appear online, in store is less competitive.

Nobody has published the numbers behind it. So we did.

This is our own store dataset, 23,039 retail locations across the UK and Ireland, covering 335 brands in 2,128 towns and cities. It is what our in-store alerts are filtered against, so a member in Leeds is not told about stock in Truro.

The headline finding

Supermarkets outnumber toy and game shops by nearly 13 to 1.

That ratio is the whole point. When people plan in-store buying they think of Smyths and The Entertainer. Between them those two chains have 276 shops in the UK and Ireland. There are 122 supermarkets for every single Smyths store.

If you are driving somewhere to look for stock, the arithmetic says the supermarket you pass anyway is a better use of the journey than the toy shop across town.

The chains, by size

The twelve largest estates, and where the collectible stock actually sits:

And the shops people actually think of:

Two things stand out.

Argos at 445 is larger than Smyths and The Entertainer combined, by some distance. Argos also publishes per-store availability on every product page, which makes it the single most systematically checkable retailer in the country.

The convenience formats dominate. Tesco Express (2,151) has nearly three times as many sites as full-size Tesco (778). Convenience stores carry a narrow range, so the odds per visit are lower, but there are far more of them, and almost nobody checks them.

The long tail nobody counts

384 independent shops across 257 different brands, an average of 1.5 shops each.

Independents are 1.7% of locations and a disproportionate share of the genuinely good buying. They receive allocation directly, they hold preorders for regulars, and they are invisible to anyone monitoring websites, because most of them do not have stock feeds to monitor.

The practical version: a relationship with one independent shop is a form of restock alerting that costs nothing and that no software competes with.

Where the shops are

The twenty densest towns and cities by number of locations:

London's 1,115 is unsurprising. Nottingham at 253, Bristol at 244 and Derby at 130 are the interesting ones, all well above what their population share would suggest, and all far less picked over than London.

Density matters more than it sounds. A city with 200 shops within a short drive means one trip can cover several chances; a rural area with eight means in-store buying is barely a strategy at all.

What this actually changes

Stop planning around toy shops. They are 6% of locations. They matter for release-day allocation and preorders, and very little else.

Supermarkets are the underused route. 77% of locations, pallets that frequently never reach a website, and no competition from anyone at a computer. Learn the delivery days at two or three near you.

Argos is the systematic option. Large estate, per-store availability published on every product page, reservable. It is the only large retailer you can genuinely work through methodically.

One independent beats ten chains if you build the relationship, because they will tell you before it hits the shelf.

And in-store buying is regional. If you are within reach of one of the cities above, this is a real strategy. If you are not, monitoring online is where your effort should go instead.

Method, and its limits

Worth stating plainly so the numbers can be judged.

• Source: OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence.
• Extracted: 11 August 2026.
• Coverage: United Kingdom and Ireland.
• Categorised into supermarket, retail, toy and game, and independent, by brand.
• 16,894 of 23,039 records (73%) carry a postcode. The rest have coordinates but no postcode.

The limits, honestly:

• OpenStreetMap is community-maintained, so coverage is better in cities than in rural areas and a small number of closed shops will still be listed.
• A shop being in this dataset does not mean it stocks collectibles. These are locations of chains that generally carry the relevant ranges, not verified stock.
• Brand categorisation involves judgement. WHSmith and TG Jones sit under toy and game because of what their stationery and gift aisles carry, which is arguable.
• Store counts move constantly. This is a snapshot, not a live figure.

City by city

We have written up the twelve largest cities in the data, one post each, with the chains, the independents and what to actually do there:

• London, 1,115 locations
• Nottingham, 253 locations
• Bristol, 244 locations
• Leeds, 217 locations
• Glasgow, 189 locations
• Sheffield, 188 locations
• Edinburgh, 158 locations
• Birmingham, 149 locations
• Manchester, 123 locations
• Cardiff, 120 locations
• Newcastle, 115 locations
• Liverpool, 105 locations

Common questions

How many toy shops are there in the UK?

Our dataset records 1,385 toy and game shop locations across the UK and Ireland, from 33 brands. That is 6% of the 23,039 retail locations we track. Smyths accounts for 146 of them and The Entertainer 130.

How many supermarkets are there in the UK?

We record 17,804 supermarket locations across 33 brands in the UK and Ireland. Co-op is the largest estate at 3,127, followed by Spar at 2,287 and Tesco Express at 2,151.

Which UK retailer has the most stores?

Of the retailers that carry collectibles, Co-op has the largest estate in our data at 3,127 locations. Among the shops people usually associate with Pokémon and toys, WHSmith leads on 650 and Argos on 445.

Are supermarkets good for buying Pokémon cards?

Statistically they are the most available option, at 77% of all locations we track, and their pallets frequently never appear online. The range is narrower than a toy shop, so the odds per visit are lower, but there are nearly 13 times as many of them.

Where does this store data come from?

OpenStreetMap, extracted on 11 August 2026 and categorised by brand. It is © OpenStreetMap contributors and available under the Open Database Licence. It records shop locations rather than verified stock.

Using the data

You are welcome to cite these figures. Please credit Paragn Network and, as the licence requires, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). If you want a breakdown we have not published, a specific region, brand or category, ask and we will run it.

Paragn Network has run since 2012. This dataset is what our in-store alerts are filtered against, alongside monitors on more than 1,000 UK retailer websites. The practical companions to this piece are where to buy Pokémon cards in the UK and Pokémon restock alerts UK.