It isn’t normal to accommodate those trying to hoard as much as possible either for themselves or reselling. It also isn’t normal for people to order 5 Happy Meals each, and then toss the food away just for cards. Even if they print several times over, adult demand for Pokémon just cannot be reasoned with as they will just buy even more (and still toss the food out). It’s definitely a consumer problem, nothing will ever be enough
3 Likes
I disagree, this is not a consumer issue its a pokemon company issue. They can say they didnt expect grown people to buy 5 happy meals each BUT I would argue that ofc they should have expected it. Its been happing for 10 years now with no stop
1 Like
It is a consumer problem because it’s not limited to Pokémon at all. The same incident had happened with McDonald’s x Chiikawa, and just recently the Kirby campaign with Yoshinoya @rabby250 . Creating a business selling somewhat limited popular items , cards or toys, has never been this popular amongst adults; even when they’re directed at kids
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You can say its never been popular with adults, but when does that statment change if its been happing 1/3 of the time the company has been doing bussiness?
Please be aware of resealing if you’re purchasing packs
c: @exiliart
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They already tried back in the 2023 bubble by limiting classroom participants to kids only.
This is what happened.
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Only thing that could’ve made this worse is if they were also offering the 2 for 6 McGriddle deal.
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It’s hard to say that it’s a consumer problem when TPCi successfully led a Pokemon McDonald’s campaign during the original COVID boom. People were contacting store managers to buy entire cases of product. Others were doing as you suggested, buying meal after meal just for the promos. But TPCi met demand effectively and now the cards are widely available.
This is absolutely a problem with TPC miscalculating effective supply as always.
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One of the modern cards that I actually want!
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After grey felt hat pikachu TPC knows that consumers will misbehave to get an exclusive pikachu promo. Promo distribution planning is not my job, but if it was I could spend an afternoon thinking about how to make sure everyone gets a promo in a safe and respectful way. Here’s an idea:
- distribute one mail-in voucher per customer
- mail out cards next month, max three promos per household
- cards can be printed to order this way
It’s easy for me to say this in retrospect, but this isn’t TPC’s first rodeo and they’ve had lots of time to reflect. Shutting down all JP exclusive promos is an overreaction and a sign of poor planning
10 Likes
In full agreement with Dyl here. I don’t know why Pokemon Japan hasn’t learned from TPCI when it comes to promos. The answer is simply to print more.
We saw this in real-time with the Special Delivery Charizard, which they delayed for months until they had enough stock and a strong enough distribution mechanism to make sure it went smoothly. And it did, anyone who wanted a Special Delivery Charizard got one.
When Van Gogh went crazy, they made a worldwide release of the promo through the Pokemon Center. It sold out fast, but if you were tuned in, you probably got at least one. I got seven without trying all that hard and just buying the products I liked.
There should be no illusions anymore about what kind of a product Pokemon is, especially in the current boom. Pokemon Japan sometimes seems to get it with made-to-order sets, but more often than not they stick their heads in the sand. It doesn’t take a genius to tell what’s going to happen when you release a unique art, exclusive Pikachu promo limited to only three days––with the purchase of a Happy Meal.
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The other side of the coin that should be considered is how much was agreed upon with McDonald’s regarding supply and scheduling. Their concern is selling Happy Meals in those 3 days, not selling cards - I imagine this is how they calculate the number of promos TPC needed to print. Chiikawa collab was only 1 week and their supply evaporated in a couple days. I think McDonald’s intention for these campaigns to be shortlived may have impacted this promotion more than TPC printing enough
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Did McDonald’s stop serving food after the promo stock ran out? No - the cards were unavailable, not the food. The same thing happened with the McDonald’s campaign in 2021 in the U.S., but TPCi was responsible and restocked the restaurants with promo cards.
It doesn’t really matter if McDonald’s or TPC or both entities underestimated demand - the solution is very simple, which is to print more and restock.
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It’s not about that, McDonald’s wanted a quota met via those promos in those 3 days and TPC printed accordingly. Like they stated, their sales expectations were exceeded. TPC could’ve easily printed more if their expectations weren’t so low
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It’s shocking to me that you would rather blame consumer demand or McDonald’s estimation of demand than TPC on this one. This is a huge logistics failure in my book. 
Time and time again, TPC has short-printed promos. It’s not particularly shocking to me anymore, as time-limited, scarce promotions are a mainstay in Japanese consumerism. I think it’s an awful business practice to not minimally meet demand, but what do I know. 
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If McDonalds restaurants had leftovers after the 3 days, they could have given them out to kids they see over the next week to get rid of them. Seems like TPC is so out of touch with what is happening in 2025
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I was just about to mention this, there is a clause on the distribution case “if extra copies are available, they can be distributed until the campaign ends on August 28, 2025”
In any previous year, this promotion would’ve been completely fine but there is a serious shift in the way people view products that have barely changed format
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If you go on pokemoncenter.com and search clothing, there are currently 1,179 clothing items, and only 23 are for kids. I think its hard for me to understand the headspace of Pokemon heavily targeting adults, yet simultaneously pretending they are naive to that reality.
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My wife (who could careless about Pokemon/knows nothing about it)…asked me to grab a T-shirt for our newborn at the time. I was shocked that the smallest size Pokemon Center online offered was like toddler/1st grader size
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Beautiful promos and collaborations are always good to have; however Mcdonald’s recently had a chikawa collab whereby tons of foods were wasted, and they expressed regret and followed up with this Pokemon event as if the former did not happen.
The way I look at it, McDonald’s are completely aware that these would happen, but the reality was as someone had pointed out earlier that they were more concerned about how many Happy meals they can churn out over the event period over anything else. Anyways what will appear on the balance sheet are amazing sales figures and a successful collab, where the food wastage and so-called lack of cards are just secondary to their main objective. The W that Pokemon derived from this madrush was the reminder to public that Pokemon is still very much on top of its game, being able to garner so much attention over its events. Both interests will not be achieved had there been no scalpers queuing and higher demand fighting for the lower supply in promos, therefore I am even wondering if the so-called inadequate amount of promos were an actual delibrate act.
With that said though, there is a HUGE amount of these promos floating around in the market being dumped by scalpers (just look at mercari), once the attention shifts to the 3 new boxes releasing soon we will see if prices are able to sustain.
2 Likes