Following two Happy Meal disasters last month, McDonald’s is trying a new system.

Recently, McDonald’s Japan’s Happy Meals haven’t exactly been producing the sort of emotion promised in their name. Instead, for many people they’ve become a source of frustration, anger, and sadness as scalpers have been snapping up increasingly large portions of high-demand Happy Meals for the purpose of reselling the included toys.

The situation has gone beyond just disappointment from actual fans who wanted the toys for themselves or their kids. Verbal altercations between scalpers and staff, along with food, drinks, and their containers being left behind or littered in and around McDonald’s branches, are causing tension for non-Happy Meal customers as well as residents and other businesses in the communities surrounding McDonald’s branches. The most recent debacle came roughly a month ago with the release of Pokémon card Happy Meals, with the situation being bad enough that McDonald’s Japan offered an official apology for how things went down and postponing indefinitely a planned One Piece trading card Happy Meal, which might end up just being cancelled entirely.

So with a Sanrio Happy Meal slated to go on sale this Friday, McDonald’s has announced a new set of purchase policies.

▼ The Happy Meal toys celebrate the 50th and 20th anniversaries, respectively, of Sanrio’s My Melody and Kuromi.

Sales of the Happy Meals (or Happy Sets, as they’re called in Japanese), will be limited to in-person orders, made either with a McDonald’s cashier or in-store ordering kiosk, or through the drive-through lane. Happy Meals will not be available for purchase through the McDonald’s mobile order app (not even if the mobile order is placed for in-store pickup) or through McDonald’s delivery service. McDonald’s will also be restricting the sale of Happy Meals through third-party delivery services such as Uber Eats. In addition, each group of customers ordering together will be limited to a maximum of three Happy Meals.

These rules will apply not only to the My Melody and Kuromi Happy Meals, but also the Plarail Happy Meals, featuring a popular line of model trains from toymaker Takara Tomy, and the Happy Meal books for Sanrio’s Cinnamoroll and feline astronaut anime/manga character Kotetsu-kun, all of which are releasing on the same day, September 12.

While it’s nice to see McDonald’s trying something to counteract scalpers, there are a couple of gaps in this defensive plan. For starters, while customers are limited to no more than three Happy Meals for their group per order, there doesn’t appear to be anything stopping scalpers from getting their three Happy Meals, then dashing off to other branches and getting three more at each of them. In theory, they could even get back in line at the same branch, since as the staff mightn’t remember a scalper’s face, they can simply act like they’re placing their very first order for the Happy Meal.

But perhaps the weirder part of the plan is that these restrictions, as of right now, are only for the first day that the Happy Meals are on sale, with McDonald’s Japan saying they will be “judging what policy will be appropriate based on conditions [observed] on September 12.” The intent behind this would seem to be to make sure that actual fans have a chance to secure their own Happy Meals at the start of the promotion, then loosen restrictions to allow for non-scalpers who might have been adversely affected by them (like, for example, a grandparent wanting to buy a Happy Meal for each of their four grandchildren).

In practice, unfortunately, it’s unlikely to work out that way. Because they have an economic incentive, scalpers are more likely than other customers to line up before opening time on release day for in-demand items, since genuine fans may have other responsibilities that prevent them from standing outside a McDonald’s at 5:30 in the morning. That’s probably going to be especially true for this round of Happy Meal releases, since it’s happening on a Friday, when kids and adults who don’t make their money hoarding toys will be at school or work until at least the afternoon.

What’s more, the Happy Meals will only be on sale until September 15, with their second round available between September 26 and 28. With just four days of availability for the first sets of toys, odds are they’re going to be intensely targeted by scalpers during that period, so hopefully McDonald’s will make the decision to put some additional protections in place beyond just the first day.

Source: McDonald’s Japan via Oricon News via Livedoor News via Jin
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