How Poke Alerts works

Poke Alerts watches retailer websites and in-store inventory systems, and tells you the moment something changes. There are three separate parts to that, and knowing which is which saves most of the confusion new members run into.

Online monitors

Monitors watch retailer product pages. When a page flips to in stock, the monitor posts to the channel for that set and region, usually within seconds of the change.

Every set has its own channel per region, so the US Destined Rivals channel only carries Destined Rivals stock in the US. That is why there are so many channels: it keeps each alert relevant to the people who asked for it.

The full list of retailers we watch, by region, is in #monitor-list.

In-store stock checks

This is a different system and it behaves differently. It reads each retailer's own inventory records to tell you what a physical store near you is holding right now.

That data is only ever as good as the store's record keeping. Where staff scan stock in and out properly, it is reliable. Stock that is never scanned, sold informally, or held back behind the counter will not appear.

Walmart is the exception: its card stock is handled by third-party restockers and never enters Walmart's own system, so we cannot check Walmart at all. Target can be checked, but some of its card product is restocked the same way, so a zero there does not mean the shelf is empty.

Alerts are opt in

Subscribing does not ping you for anything by itself. You pick your region, then pick the sets and stores you care about, and you are pinged only for those.

That is deliberate. Every set across four regions firing at once would be unusable within a day. The trade is that a new account is silent until you choose, which is the single most common reason someone thinks their subscription is not working.

If you are not getting pings, check your roles before you check your billing. It is roles nine times out of ten.

What to do next

Work through Your first ten minutes. It is five steps in a specific order, and the order matters.