What first started as a hobby has grown into a full-time, award-winning business for Blake Ouellet, owner and founder of Blakestoise TCG, a popular online Pokémon retailer.
As a result of Ouellet’s passion, the Vernon man was named eBay Canada’s entrepreneur of the year for 2025.
“Insane. I still can't really believe it,” said Ouellet when asked about recently being named the award’s recipient.
“It's probably, in any job I've had, the coolest piece of recognition I've gotten, I think. Just to think of how many big-time sellers there are around Canada, so to get that recognition is insane.”
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The award was given to Ouellet for his exemplary use of the eBay platform to grow his business and use the website’s tools to his advantage.
The Blakestoise TCG eBay store has been around for five years and ships to buyers all over the world, including Asia, most of Europe, the US, Mexico and Brazil.
For Ouellet, the growth of his business has been exponential, he said, adding that over the years he has been putting his profits back into it as it has been growing.
“With Pokémon taking off this year, I had the infrastructure there,” he said.
“I had added all this product to the store, and then it just took off. It's crazy.”
The growth of the business has allowed Ouellet to work on it full-time for the past year and he recently opened a storefront in Vernon.
While he is generally only at the storefront a couple of times a week, he explained that it allows him to meet people, buy collections and sell items.
Alongside the storefront and eBay store, Ouellet attends card shows around the region, creating another opportunity for him to interact with the community.
As for what the future holds for Ouellet and his growing business, he’s not quite sure.
“I don't know. I kind of feel like I've been underwater for a while now, and like, in a good way, but it's just been so nonstop and so busy. I'd love to add one or two people to the team in 2026 to maybe help more at shows or help out in the shop, so I can keep that open longer," he said.
"It's really just being able to spread my time out and getting help on the stuff where I don't need to be there necessarily, but I'm just having fun...Yes, I think about the next steps, but it's already surpassed anything I thought it would be.”
