- McDonald’s is distributing Pokémon cards at Happy Meals for a limited time.
- The cards are very popular with collectors and resellers are rushing to buy them.
- McDonald’s official policy is not to sell boxes full of toys without Happy Meals.
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McDonald’s has just released limited edition Pokémon cards at Happy Meals for children, but adult collectors are already trying to get them.
Happy Meals will come with a special edition card pack for Pokémon’s 25th anniversary. Each package comes with four cards and 50 in total in the collection so that customers can collect and exchange them.
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Knowing that fans and professional dealers would come in droves, McDonald’s prepared.
“With such significant demand for our Pokémon TCG promotional cards, and some fans going to extreme lengths to get them, we are working quickly to resolve the shortage and also strongly encourage restaurants to set a reasonable limit on Happy Meals sold per customer” McDonald’s said in a statement, “We want to offer the complete Happy Meal experience to as many families as possible and help ensure everyone can join in the fun!”
With more than 13,000 locations in the US alone, managed by different franchisees, policies differed across sectors. Pokémon fans turned to social media to report the situation in their markets. A fan who runs a Pokémon trading card site tweeted that he called 25 locations to ask about limited edition cards, and everyone told him that the cards are only available with Happy Meal purchases.
These rules do not apply to all locations. Other fans posted that they could buy 50 or 100 packs cards without Happy Meals, while some restaurants seem to allow one or two additional packages along with a Happy Meal. An Instagram account with a biography that says “Discord Exclusive Resale” posted photos of hundreds of letter packs that the owner purchased, probably to resell online.
McDonald’s policy is that all Happy Meal toys are sold with the meal, the company confirmed in an email to Insider. While restaurants can respond to “reasonable customer requests” to purchase additional toys, company policy prohibits the sale of entire toy boxes.
Large franchisee with over 100 restaurants Michael Retzer tweeted that he hasn’t seen that kind of excitement around a Happy Meal toy since Beanie Babies in the 1990s, which still reach hundreds and even $ 1,000 on eBay if they are not opened.
Given the huge popularity of Pokémon cards so far, McDonald’s has told Insider that it is working with its supply chain to continue to distribute a “controlled supply” of cards to endings, with other spare toys in hand.
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