How to save money completing the World Cup sticker book
Completing the Panini World Cup sticker book has never been harder in a cost of living crisis that has stretched household budgets to breaking point… but here is how you could SAVE over £750 filling the 670-trading card collection
- It’s been calculated that the World Cup sticker book may cost nearly £900 to fill
- But through buying stickers in bulk and swapping, big savings could be made
- An album in theory could be completed for as little as £120 from 134 packets
- But combining ease and practicality, here are tips on how you can save money
- Click here for all the latest World Cup 2022 news and updates
It is a much loved tradition: The Panini World Cup sticker album. It has been a staple of the tournament since 1970, when it was first produced, and it has only grown in popularity since.
But now it is looking more difficult to complete than ever, and not because of trouble getting the stickers but whether many collectors have the financial capabilities to do so.
With 670 stickers to collect, football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes completing the album could cost you as much as £883.80 this time around.
The World Cup sticker book is back again this year as collectors aim to complete their album
Panini have been producing the tournament’s official sticker book since the 1970 edition
To many collectors young and old, that’s certainly not cheap and that’s before you factor in the global cost of living crisis, and the rather ill-timed World Cup, with the final in Qatar taking place just one week before Christmas Day.
A small festive present for the mother-in-law or another dozen packets or so to take a step closer to filling your album? We’ll let you come to your own conclusions on that one but the underlying point is collecting Panini stickers this winter may be harder than ever.
In another blow to collectors, especially in the UK, the price for a pack of five random stickers has risen from 80p from the 2018 World Cup to 90p for this year’s edition.
Many will see the price rise as needless, especially in the light of people trying to tighten their belts this winter, but Panini insist they have had little choice but to raise the costs.
The company told Sportsmail: ‘Like all businesses, we have been managing as best we can inflationary pressures with increased material, energy and transport costs.
There are 670 stickers and each team has two pages and 20 stickers dedicated to them
‘We have ensured that we have a wide distribution at retail of SKUs such as multipacks and ecoblisters that offer a slightly discounted price per packet vs. buying them individually.’
This indicates that the Panini album can be completed cheaper than the figure nearing the daunting £1,000 mark. The two questions here are ‘by how much’ and, even more simply, ‘how?’
Ardent collectors will differ on how a collection should be completed by the way of enjoyment but we are going to focus fully on the financial benefits here.
The obvious route to take is buy Panini’s 140-box of stickers, enough to fill an album. Order early enough when the album is released and you can complete your set very easily. Any loose stickers from there would only cost about 28p from Panini, meaning you could very easily complete the album for less than £150.
Picking up a starter pack is the best way to start any collection for the tournament
That of course isn’t helpful if you are reading this now as those have long since sold out. Your next best option is to buy a starter pack for around £5 – all newsagents are likely to stock some. They contain an album with 31 stickers featuring five packets and six loose stickers inside the album.
From there, buy the stickers in bulk as big as you can. Many newsagents will sell the boxes in elements of 100 packs at a time for £90 and while you will still get doubles, this will severely reduce the rate at which you get them compared to randomly buying a few packets at a time instead.
You can also order the boxes from the Panini store, which as of the time of writing, are still available. It’s a big financial outlay up front but MUCH cheaper over the long term. You will need two to three of these boxes depending on how successful you are in dispensing with your doubles…
…ah the doubles. ‘Got, got, need’ and all that. If you have friends to swap with this is the best way of reducing cost as well as the more enjoyable way of trying to complete your collection.
If you don’t have anyone to swap with then all is not lost. There are online options who specialise in trading the doubles but Panini also plan to offer their own service this winter.
Panini actively encourage you to get involved in swapping your doubles and have revealed they plan to support events for this in the very near future.
‘We’re working with a number of retailers and centres in supporting them with running swap shops across the UK and Ireland,’ Panini also told us.
Supporters in Argentina swap their stickers as they look to gain their missing trading cards
‘For example, GOALS football centres will be running swap shops at a number of their sites over half term, the National Football Museum are running some swap events and we have some great activations coming up with selected retailers. We recommend collectors keep an eye on our social media pages for further details.’
Eventually you will get to a point where you will need only 50 stickers or fewer to complete the collection. From here you can continue swapping or just send off for the remaining stickers you need via Panini’s single sticker service.
Using a discount code featured from the first page of your album, you will also be entitled to a 10 per cent discount on your order, whether it’s for that elusive one missing sticker that alludes you or the full 50. It may be 28p per sticker but it guarantees completion and prevents mindless opening of packets and creating a double pile as tall as the World Cup trophy itself.
Collectors can order the remaining stickers when they get to fewer than 50 needed
Depending on if you can get rid of your doubles, even today you can complete your album for anything ranging from £185 to £290 if you are buying two or three boxes of 100 packs. Granted still not cheap, but certainly it’s a huge saving compared to just keep buying packets and hoping for the best.
If you really are out for a bargain, you can buy the bare minimum of 134 packs at 90p each which if you manage to swap out every single double you can complete for just £120 – this could prove very difficult in practice, however.
You may also be wondering at this point over theories that Panini hold back certain stickers to create an artificial economy with certain stickers over another. This can usually happen when you are still missing some stickers yet still end up with about seven copies of another.
Panini though insist this is not the case when it was put to them, claiming that all stickers are made and distributed evenly.
A Panini employee in Brazil assists with helping produce the stickers made for the album
‘Absolutely not! All stickers that go in the album are printed in equal quantity,’ they said.’
‘What tends to happen is that collectors will favour certain stickers over others and hold them back, or they’ll command a higher ‘swap value’.
‘We’ve seen this happen with the likes of the team shinies or perceived high value players such as Ronaldo or Messi.’
The tournament may only be a month away and Christmas may be getting nearer but even as the world prepares to tighten their belts this winter to cope with rising prices on all fronts, huge saving can still be made to complete the traditional and still much loved World Cup sticker book.
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