What is a POB? The preorder benefit explained

What a POB is

A POB is a preorder gift. When an album is announced, each retailer opens its ordering window and negotiates an exclusive item to give to customers who order there. The aim is simple: concentrate orders into a short period, before the album goes on sale. Those early sales count towards the album's first figures, which interests both the label and the shop. So the POB is a commercial tool, not a part of the product.

The consequence fits in one sentence: the POB depends on the retailer, not on the album. Two strictly identical copies of the same album, bought on the same day, arrive with different gifts depending on the shop. Some retailers offer none at all. The POB does not appear on the album barcode, does not change its EAN, and is mentioned nowhere on the box: it is added to the parcel at packing time.

What you actually receive

In the large majority of cases, the POB is a printed item. The exclusive photocard is the most common form and the most sought after: a card found in no version of the album. Then come folded posters, bookmarks, greeting cards, stickers and small prints. What these items share is weight: a POB has to fit in the parcel without pushing up the cost of shipping it, so bulky gifts are rare.

The form of the POB decides the state it arrives in. A poster is nearly always folded to fit the parcel, which leaves permanent creases. An exclusive photocard usually arrives protected, but not always. A greeting card or a bookmark bends at the corners easily. These items travel outside the album box, so without the padding that protects the photobook, and that is where most of the disappointment on opening comes from.

• Exclusive photocard: the most common form and the most wanted.
• Poster: usually folded to fit the parcel.
• Bookmark, greeting card, sticker: small light printed items.
• Promotional object: varies by campaign, never guaranteed.
• In every case, the POB travels outside the album box.

Why the POB changes by retailer and region

Each retailer negotiates its POB separately with the distributor. The volume it commits to move, its size and its market decide what it gets. A shop taking a large volume can fund an exclusive card printed for it alone; a smaller one settles for a simple print. Comparing POBs therefore means comparing shops, not editions of the album: whichever one you pick, the contents of the box stay exactly the same.

Region plays the same role. A preorder campaign is often split by zone: Korea, Japan, international, sometimes Europe on its own. The gift offered by a Korean shop is not the one offered by a shop that ships to Europe, even when the album is identical. Some POBs stay tied to one region and only circulate afterwards through resale. Region is therefore part of the description of a POB, just like the item offered.

The deadline and availability

A POB has a deadline, and that date is not the release date. It is the closing of the preorder window at the retailer, which falls days or weeks before the album goes on sale. An order placed after that date covers the same album, often at the same price, but without the gift. This is the most common mistake: waiting for release day to order, then finding the window closed long ago.

A POB is never guaranteed, even within the deadline. Retailers print a fixed quantity and usually state that the offer stands while stocks last. Demand beyond the planned run leaves the last customers without a gift, without the order itself being cancelled. A shortage can also hit only one POB among several on offer. Reading the stated condition before paying avoids an unpleasant surprise on delivery, and sets a realistic expectation.

POB or inclusion: the difference

An inclusion is what the label puts in the box for everyone: photobook, CD, posters, the version's photocards, stickers. It is identical for every buyer of that version, whatever the shop. A POB is added by the retailer outside the box. The distinction is structural: it separates what belongs to the product from what belongs to the commercial offer. A seller who mixes the two keeps up a confusion that helps the asking price.

That confusion has concrete effects on resale. A card presented as exclusive when it sits in every box of a version does not have the rarity claimed for it. A card genuinely from a regional POB, on the other hand, is harder to track down, because it was never distributed anywhere else. Checking what the card really is before buying is a useful habit, and the version page allows it in seconds.

• Inclusion: inside the box, identical for every buyer of the version.
• POB: added by the retailer, outside the box, subject to conditions.
• An inclusion is tied to an EAN; a POB is tied to a shop.
• A POB that runs out does not make the order incomplete.

Reading POBs on pocabase

pocabase records POBs as objects in their own right, attached to an album. Each entry carries four pieces of information: the retailer that offered it, the item given, the deadline and the region covered. The database holds several hundred of them, spread across the 765 albums listed. Read together, those entries map the preorder campaigns of an album, including the ones closed long ago, of which only the cards remain in circulation today.

For an order in progress, reading them is direct: the deadline says whether time is left, the region says whether the offer applies to a delivery in Europe, and the item says what you get on top of the box. For an older release, the point changes. The list then serves to identify where a card seen on the resale market came from, and whether it existed anywhere beyond a single retailer.

This also explains the resale value of POBs. A photocard from a POB was printed in a limited quantity, handed out during a short window and often within a single region. Months later it circulates far less than the cards from the box, and its price follows. What remains is to check the card itself, and the first question, before any other, is always where the card came from and which campaign produced it.

• Retailer: says which shop offered the gift.
• Item: the exact nature of the POB, card, poster or print.
• Deadline: the closing of orders, not the release date.
• Region: the zone the offer covered.

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