How TCG Drop Alerts works

01What we watch

Only Pokémon TCG and only sealed products: ETBs, booster displays, tins, collections, blisters and booster packs. We don't watch single cards or accessories.

We read the catalogue of 176 online shops. Most are in Spain and the rest in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal and other European countries, from big chains to specialist stores. We add new shops often.

We watch every edition: Spanish, English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Latin American.

• Each shop has its own pace: almost all are checked every 1 to 5 minutes, day and night.
• Every 30 minutes we read each shop in full again so nothing slips through.
• If a shop asks us to slow down or blocks us for a while, we let it rest for a few minutes and carry on. Those shops can be a bit slower.

02What triggers an alert

• Restock: a product that was sold out can be bought again. If it was sold out for more than an hour, the alert tells you for how long.
• Pre-order: a product can be reserved before release. When it goes from pre-order to in stock, you get it as a restock.
• New product: it shows up in a shop for the first time and can already be bought. If it shows up sold out, we alert you when it's restocked.
• Price drop: the price falls by at least 10% and ends up below its lowest price of the last 14 days.
• Sold out: this isn't a new alert. We edit the alert you already got to mark it as sold out and tell you how long it lasted.

So that you don't get false or repeated alerts:

• We don't repeat a restock or pre-order alert for the same product until 30 minutes after the previous one.
• Many shops hide sold-out products. A product that disappears only counts as sold out after two full reads in a row without it and at least 10 minutes missing. If a large part of the shop disappears at once, we wait longer.
• If a read of the shop is cut short, we don't mark anything as sold out.
• A newly added shop doesn't send alerts until we have read it in full once. If lots of new products show up at once in a shop, we don't send them as new products.

03How we classify each product

We sort each product by expansion, type and language from the title the shop gives it. If the title doesn't make the language clear, the product isn't dropped: you still get it.

As a reference we use Cardmarket prices, updated once a day. They are a guide only, and Asian editions often have no reference because Cardmarket doesn't list them.

We check each expansion's release date by hand. Until it's confirmed, you'll see «Date to be confirmed».

04When the alert reaches you

These are each plan's times from when we spot the change in the shop. They can vary slightly depending on the shop and Telegram.

05Which alerts you get

• Free: every restock, pre-order and new product, in every edition, in your private bot 10 minutes later. With filters, search, launches, quiet hours, pause and up to 3 alerts of your own.
• Plus: the same, instantly and before anyone else, with up to 25 alerts of your own and cart and quick buy.

What you follow with your own alert always reaches you, marked as «product you're looking for», even if it doesn't pass your filters. If you set a target price, we alert you when it goes below it even if the drop is under 10%.

With the /horario command and a shop's name you see when it usually restocks, based on its restocks over the last 90 days. It's what happened, not a prediction. Plans and prices on Pricing.

06What you see on the website

• Search stock: the in-stock and pre-order offers from every shop, with filters to find what you want. We only show offers seen in the last 3 days, and results refresh every minute.
• Upcoming releases: the expansions on the way, with their date, their products and where you can already pre-order. It also refreshes every minute.
• Cardmarket reference prices are updated once a day.

07Limits

• We don't sell anything or take part in the purchase: you buy from the shop, on its terms.
• We only watch online shops: we can't see stock in physical stores.
• The price is the one on the shop's product page, without shipping or coupons.
• If the shop gets the price, stock or title wrong, the mistake shows until the shop fixes it.
• On the free plan the alert arrives 10 minutes late, so the product may already be sold out.
• We can't guarantee we catch every restock: some last seconds or happen between two reads.
• We don't use affiliate links: every alert takes you to the shop's product page as it is. TCG Drop Alerts isn't affiliated with The Pokémon Company, Nintendo or any shop.

08Mistakes and new shops

If you see a wrong price, product or shop, or want us to watch a shop that's missing, email us at [email protected] with the link. We check every case and fix or add the shop if needed.