People Are Listing McDonald's Adult Happy Meal Toys for Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars on eBay

By Brendan Menapace

It shouldn't come as any surprise that the McDonald's "Adult Happy Meal" promotion was a hit. McDonald's has been pretty much batting 1.000 with its branded tie-ins thanks to celebrity endorsements and streetwear influence.

The "Adult Happy Meal" was a partnership with designer brand Cactus Plant Flea Market, and included a toy using the brand's four-eyed character motif on the classic McDonald's mascots. Those little figurines are starting to pop-up on resale sites like eBay for as high as $300,000.

But are they actually selling for that price? No, not really.

McDonald's promos are pretty much just precursors to online resale anymore. Its recent Pokemon card promo ended with someone taking an unopened box intended for a McDonald's restaurant and selling them online. The brand knows that these are going to sell quickly because they are collector's items. Though scheduled to run until the end of this month, McDonald's predictably sold out of these meal promotions after just a couple of weeks.

But, it's not quite the Supreme-level frenzy you might suspect.

A quick search on eBay yielded a lot of results for figurines listed around $20. Some less, some more, depending on whether or not they're still in their sealed branded bag. In some listings, the cardboard Happy Meal box itself is included, too – not unlike the greasy BTS bags once listed on eBay.

According to CNBC, one seller sold 150 sealed toys for $2,400 – a rate of $16 per toy. That's just about $3 more than it costs to buy the meal at McDonald's.

McDonald's obviously doesn't see any of the revenue from resale of its promotional products. But, what it does get is a flood of people coming in to buy Adult Happy meals so they can try and turn a quick profit (or keep the products themselves).

There will be another promotion down the road, likely with another celebrity or designer brand. People will flock to McDonald's and buy the food (they might even eat it), the merchandise will end up on resale sites, and others will see that as a success and copy it.

There's a reason other fast food brands are starting to work with celebrities for branded meals.

In the meantime, those sellers on eBay might want to drop their hopeful listings from $100,000 to something a little more realistic.