Summary
CHALLENGE
- Earlier attempts to promote Japanese Pokémon cards had failed, and Anthony had stepped away from the business.
- On relaunch, he refused to start without a proven source of sales.
- The promotion avenues he already knew had never worked for this product.
SOLUTION
- Chose Discord, targeting a “cook group” promoter (Sean) with reach across roughly 100 servers and 100,000-plus people.
- Earned the promoter’s trust with 100-plus reviews from years of private deals.
- Priced under market and sold on volume rather than margin.
- Tracked every referral and commission through an UpPromote affiliate link.
RESULTS
- Around 100 orders in a single night during early drops, with inventory selling out on the spot.
- Crossed $100,000 in total sales.
- Roughly 80% of Shopify sales come from one affiliate.
- Product from Japan now arrives in about 28 hours.
LESSONS
- Validate where your sales will come from before you launch.
- One well-matched, high-reach partner can outperform a large roster.
- On hard-to-find product, under-market pricing plus volume beats high margins.
PewterCollectibles is a store selling Japanese Pokémon cards and other trading card games like One Piece, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Dragon Ball, all at consistently under-market prices.
Co-founders Anthony Ligas and his business partner Ryan launched the store recently, but Anthony was no newcomer to the hobby. He had spent years trading Japanese cards through private deals, building supplier connections in Japan who still give him strong pricing today.
What makes their story unusual isn’t the catalog. It’s that almost all of it runs through one affiliate.
Why did PewterCollectibles refuse to launch without a sales channel?
Anthony had tried selling Pokémon cards years earlier and walked away. The promotion channels he leaned on back then went nowhere.
So when he and Ryan revisited the idea, he refused to repeat that mistake. He wanted a proven path to buyers before committing a dollar to inventory.
I didn’t want to start it without knowing where the sales were going to come from.
Anthony Ligas, Co-founder of PewterCollectibles
That single constraint shaped everything that followed. Instead of launching and hoping, he went hunting for the one channel he’d never tried.
How did one promoter become the sales engine?
That channel was Discord. Anthony was active in a Pokémon “cook group,” a server that fires drop alerts when stock lands at Walmart, Target, and similar retailers, and also runs third-party sales.
The group’s owner, an affiliate Anthony calls Sean, held promotion slots for English Pokémon, One Piece, and more, but had no one covering Japanese product. Anthony messaged him with the idea.
He had no one to sell his customers Japanese product of any kind. So he used my UpPromote link, and it took off so fast.
Anthony Ligas, Co-founder of PewterCollectibles
Sean’s reach is the engine. He pushes each drop across roughly 100 Discord servers at once, pinging an audience Anthony estimates at 100,000-plus people. Every sale routes through Anthony’s UpPromote affiliate link, which tracks Sean’s referrals and commissions automatically.
UpPromote wasn’t an afterthought. Anthony found it while researching essential Shopify apps, where it surfaced among the first few recommendations. It became, in his words, “a necessary part of doing business with Sean.”
How did PewterCollectibles win the promoter’s trust?
A promoter with that reach doesn’t take on just anyone. Sean asked for proof before agreeing.
Anthony showed him 100-plus reviews from years of private deals, some worth thousands of dollars each. That track record was enough. Sean ran a few test orders, and the partnership stuck.
Fulfillment had one early hiccup: a customs hold on a heavier package from Japan. Anthony communicated the delay to customers and refunded anyone who asked. Today, product from Japan reaches him in about 28 hours.
The pricing model is deliberate. Anthony learned early, from a successful store called Sakura’s Card Shop, that Japanese cards are a volume game, not a margin game.
Japanese selling is about quantity of sales, not the amount of money you make on one sale… if you’re under market on such a specific product, your sales just go through the roof.
Anthony Ligas, Co-founder of PewterCollectibles
Thin margins on hard-to-find product, sold in volume through one high-reach channel. That’s the whole strategy in a sentence.
What results has PewterCollectibles seen?
The results showed up immediately. In the opening stretch, drops moved around 100 orders in a single night, with inventory selling out on the spot. The pace never really let up.
Today, PewterCollectibles has crossed $100,000 in total sales, and one affiliate drives the overwhelming majority of it.
It’s 80% of my Shopify sales are him.
Anthony Ligas, Co-founder of PewterCollectibles
That’s the payoff of finding the right partner instead of chasing many: roughly 80% of Shopify revenue from a single, well-matched creator.
What’s next for PewterCollectibles?
Anthony is now using UpPromote’s Creator Discovery to find his next partner, filtering candidates by follower count and platform to zero in on the right fit. One early conversation is already promising: a creator he’s followed for years who recently started streaming and selling Pokémon.
It looks like we’re going to do some type of business deal. He has around 20 million likes on TikTok alone.
Anthony Ligas, Co-founder of PewterCollectibles
As volume climbs, Anthony is also moving to a higher UpPromote plan to automate affiliate payouts. For a store built on the strength of one relationship, the next chapter is simple: find another Sean.
