Hopefully new policies will keep Chiikawa figures out of scalpers’ hands so they can find their ways to fans instead.

McDonald’s Japan is getting ready to release its Chiikawa Happy Meals this week, featuring figures of the cast of the quirkily cute anime/character merch franchise dressed up in the burger chain’s uniforms. As a matter of fact, there’s so much fun that the Chiikawa Happy Meals will be a two-round release, with Chiikawa, Hachiware, Kuri-Manju, and Rakko showing up between March 15 and 28, and Usagi, Momonga, Shisa, and Furuhonya having their shift from May 29 to June 11.

Unfortunately, it’s not just Chiikawa fans who are very, very excited about this, but also scalpers. As McDonald’s Japan has become increasingly involved in promotions with pop culture franchises with huge followings, its Happy Meal toys have become prime targets for resellers. Not only does their bulk-buying mean that the items are often gone before fans (or parents in the case of kids too young to make McDonald’s runs on their own), can get them, scalpers often leave behind piles of trash, either on McDonald’s counters or on the streets outside the restaurants, since they have no interest in the food that comes as the part of the Happy Meals.

With littering and food waste both things that polite Japanese society has very little tolerance for, plus the loss in fun for fans, McDonald’s has been facing growing criticism and pressure to do something about the situation. For the upcoming Chiikawa Happy Meals, sales on the first day of each round (May 15 and 29) will be limited to customers using the McDonald’s Japan app, capped at four Happy Meals per time block (morning and afternoon/night), and orders must be placed or picked up in-store (i.e. no delivery orders). From May 16 to 28, and again from May 30 to June 11, there will be a limit of four Happy Meal orders per customer per transaction, and while the official McDonald’s delivery service can be used, no Happy Meal delivery orders can be placed through third-party providers (such as Uber Eats).

These countermeasures are largely similar to the ones McDonald’s put in place for its Sanrio Happy Meals back in September, which came on the heels of frustration about scalpers for its Pokémon card Happy Meals and the cancellation of planned One Piece Happy Meals. However, while these policies make things comparatively more difficult for scalpers, they’re still things that determined resellers can get around by putting in more time and legwork, something many are willing to do if there’s money to be made. This time around, though, there’s another squeeze being put on aspiring scalpers, as even if they can secure a supply of McDonald’s Chiikawa figures, they’ve lost one of their favorite places to try to flip fan items.

Online marketplace Mercari may have only been launched in 2013, but it’s now Japan’s largest site for buying and selling second-hand goods, especially for anime, manga, and other fan culture merch. Mercari has put out a statement, though, saying that it will not be allowing listings for McDonald’s new Chiikawa Happy Meal figures, and that not only will such listings be removed, sellers may have their accounts banned as well for violating the policy.

Mercari is careful not to explicitly acknowledge its indirect role in the appearance of swarms of scalpers at McDonald’s, instead saying that it is prohibiting sales of the new Happy Meal figures because it “cannot guarantee a safe and secure trading environment,” and it’s also not prohibiting the sale of older Happy Meal toys on its site. The company also hasn’t gone so far as to say that sales of the new Chiikawa figures will be permanently banned, but it does say that the prohibition will be continued for as long as it feels unable to provide a safe and secure trading environment for the items.

Though Mercari says one of its goals for this stance is to protect users from slander or defamatory statements, it’s hard to imagine that the company isn’t also thinking about its image. As instances of blatant, rampant scalping have become more common, the public at large has become exasperated at the greed and inconsiderateness on display. The fact that Mercari benefits by such behavior every time it serves as the middleman on a resale and gets its cut is something people are well aware of, so it wouldn’t be a shock if the company’s higher-ups see the ban on new Chiikawa Happy Meal toys as a way to do a little damage control.

Of course, Mercari is not the only avenue for selling second-hand fan merch in Japan, but it is the largest and easiest to access by nature of its online status, and thus offers the quickest way to reach a large pool of potential buyers, giving sellers leverage with which to set higher sales prices.

However, by not making the ban permanent, Mercari is setting up a sort of test of patience, wherein scalpers will need to speculate as to whether or not the ban will ever be lifted, whether there will still be significant demand for the items once they become sellable, and if that eventual payoff will be large enough to justify sitting on their resale inventory in the meantime. So no, this won’t completely solve the problem, but given how scalpers are generally making their money by chasing after the newest trend, hopefully the indefinite time lag between when they can buy the Chiikawa figures and when they can sell them will keep scalpers from seeing them as such desirable targets.

Source: McDonald’s Japan, Oricon News via Livedoor News
Top image: Twitter/@McDonaldsJapan
Insert image: McDonald’s Japan
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