Everything is coming to rub hot spots The blind box track has gone astray

The second-hand price of KFC blind boxes soared 8 times Someone spent 10494 yuan to buy 106 packages

Everything is coming to rub hot spots The blind box track has gone astray

The blind box economy has been very popular in the past two years, and the blind box economy has also driven many industries, such as the toy industry, the cosmetics industry, the book publishing industry, and even the air ticket has also launched a blind box series. The blind box economy seems to be "hyped" to the top, and entrepreneurs are flocking to it.

Recently, "professional substitute eating" has suddenly become popular. The reason stems from KFC's launch of a blind box package jointly with Bubble Mart, which is mainly sold in first-tier and second-tier cities, and there are only 36 packages in each store. Based on the extremely hot collection of blind boxes in recent years, the package was robbed as soon as it was launched, and a box was difficult to find. While scalpers and professional substitutes have come to battle, they have also derived a huge "fried doll group". It is reported that on the second-hand platform idle fish, the set (a set of 6) blind box dolls are priced between 600 yuan and 800 yuan, and the price of the hidden model is as high as 800 yuan / one, an increase of 8 times over the original price.

Used platform 750 yuan sold how hard it is to buy kFC blind boxes

"A store only allocated 36 packages, which means that there are only 36 dolls in a store, and all the places have been sold out in only half an hour after the event is launched, and there will be no replenishment." On the afternoon of January 8, the sales staff of a KFC restaurant in Yongtaizhuang, Haidian District, told reporters.

Subsequently, the reporter came to a KFC in the Qinghe area, and the sales staff of the store revealed: "Our store does not have the right to participate in this activity, only the flagship store is eligible." ”

Mr. Zhang, who purchased 6 packages, told reporters that after the launch of the event, he went to the queue early in the morning, "When I went, there were still more than a dozen copies left, and I originally planned to buy only one, but I listened to the people in the queue behind me and said that they wanted to buy the rest of the package, which scared me to buy a whole set, that is, 6 packages."

There are also many crazy people, a "king" spent 10494 yuan at a time to buy 106 packages. It is also these crazy moves that make "professional substitute eating" popular again. For example, a "professional substitute eater" put out a slogan in the circle of friends: Blind box to you, calories to me!

The reporter further found that a "baby" is difficult to find limited to offline stores, and the supply of this series of blind boxes on the second-hand platform is sufficient. For example, there are a large number of blind boxes in this series on the Idle Fish platform, with a price of 600 yuan to 800 yuan, and many of them say that they have many sets.

An idle fish seller from Shenyang told reporters that he just sold a set at a price of 750 yuan yesterday, and now there is the last set left. As for the source channel of the blind box, he said that he has friends working at KFC.

Old brands explore why the little blind box is so crazy on the road to rejuvenation

An analyst who pays attention to new consumption told reporters: "On the one hand, the brand cooperated by KFC is Dimoo, one of the six hottest IPs under Bubble Mart, and the audience itself is very large; on the other hand, the supply of this package is limited, and in the case of undersupply, its price in the second-hand market naturally rises." ”

According to the financial report of Bubble Mart, in the first half of 2021, bubble Mart has a total of 6 IP products with revenue exceeding 100 million yuan, including Molly, Dimoo, SKULLPANDA, Bunny, TheMonsters, and PUCKY. Among them, Dimoo's revenue was 205 million yuan, surpassing Molly's revenue of 204 million yuan, becoming the first IP product with more revenue than Molly.

In fact, this is not the first time that KFC has "lived" in the Chinese market. Since entering the Chinese market, KFC has continuously introduced Chinese-style foods, including snail powder, zhou black duck, skewers, buns, crayfish, fried sauce noodles with chicken racks, mooncake green dough and herbal tea. At the end of 2021, KFC also launched a crayfish burger and a crayfish tender beef wufang with Wen Heyou.

As a representative of Western-style fast food, KFC is the most important brand under Yum China. On September 10, 2020, Yum China was listed for the second time in Hong Kong, and nearly 70% of Yum China's revenue in the year before the listing came from KFC, and as of June 30, 2020, 6,700 of Yum China's 10,000 restaurants were KFC. Moreover, the number of KFC restaurants has grown against the trend in the past two years. According to the data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2021, there were 7908 KFC restaurants. However, it should be noted that in the third quarter of 2021, KFC's operating profit fell by 31% year-on-year, and the profit margin fell to 12.2% from 18.6% in the same period last year.

"Most of the established catering brands, including KFC, have been affected by young brands in the new consumer era, and although there are no new forces that can shake the status of Western-style fast food such as KFC and McDonald's, the latter are also actively and urgently exploring 'rejuvenation'." The above-mentioned analysts said that the joint blind box marketing is a new attempt, which may be controversial, but only from the marketing level, it has indeed achieved a successful "breaking the circle".

correlation

The book publishing industry has also come to join in the fun

The traditional book publishing industry has recently become more and more trendy.

The "blind box economy" continues to be hot, and some institutions have launched "book blind boxes" while they are hot, containing different numbers of books, specifically what books are known after purchasing and unpacking.

The reporter searched on multiple e-commerce platforms and found that there are many types of "book blind boxes", most of which are priced far below the total price of the books included, and even have the extremely low prices of 6 yuan 10 books and 4 yuan 5 books.

However, many consumers reflect that most of the books in the "book blind box" purchased are of low quality, and there is a suspicion that the inventory of unsalable books is cleared. Moreover, most of the "blind boxes" do not accept returns and exchanges.

Ms. Lin of Beijing has purchased a "blind box for books" twice, and the experience is not good. She told reporters that once purchased in the live broadcast room, the books in the blind box had nothing to do with the type introduced by the anchor, "all of which are very biased books." "Another time I bought it from an e-commerce platform," with creases on the pages and typos. ”

"The 'book blind box' is a new marketing strategy. Some merchants launch blind boxes focus on the selection of products and are welcomed by readers; some merchants only use blind boxes as a gimmick to satisfy the reader's curiosity, and even the purpose is to clear inventory, which is undesirable and difficult to attract readers to continue to consume. Xiang Liping, general manager of Shandong Little Dolphin Culture Media Co., Ltd., said.

Depth

"All things can be blinded" is a false proposition

The data shows that the size of China's tide play market in 2019 was 20.47 billion yuan, an increase of 71.3% over 2018. In 2020, the growth rate of China's tide play market has declined, and the market size has increased to 29.48 billion yuan.

With the wind of blind boxes blowing in all walks of life, "everything can be blind boxes" once became a buzzword. Some media even summarized the "blind box economy" as one of the hot words of China's economy in 2021. In fact, "everything can be blinded" is a false proposition.

Blind box consumption has market demand, so its existence is reasonable. For example, many museums have launched archaeological blind boxes, introducing the dynamic experience of "archaeological excavation" into blind boxes, and innovative forms have attracted consumers to be familiar with cultural and creative products and satisfied consumers' curiosity about archaeology.

But more blind box marketing in the market has gone astray. For example, some merchants have taken advantage of young people's desire to get off the list or broaden the psychology of the dating circle, targeting the marriage and dating market and selling the "single blind box". This kind of blind box is sold online and offline, the gameplay is roughly similar, consumers can spend a few yuan to randomly obtain the contact information of a stranger, or leave their own contact information waiting to be sampled by the "person with a relationship". However, consumers who participated in the "single blind box" said that the probability of drawing false personal information is extremely high, and even the consumer's personal information is leaked, leaving contact information, followed by continuous commercial promotion, and even receiving fraudulent information.

As a product marketing method, blind boxes are business opportunities for merchants, but not all products are applicable to the "blind" attribute of blind boxes. Blind box marketing can not only rely on the emotional value given by dismantling the blind box as a support, should pay more attention to product connotation, to meet people's spiritual needs. It can be seen from the popularity of "archaeological blind boxes" that products with excellent content can continue to provide surprises and satisfaction for consumers.

Blind box in the final analysis is still selling products, merchants should work more on product creativity, design and quality, sublimate the IP connotation of blind boxes, so as to not only retain surprises, but also keep the bottom line, and promote the healthy and sustainable development of the blind box economy.

In addition, blind boxes are easy to produce false publicity, excessive marketing and other problems due to the invisibility and randomness of the product when selling.

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Edit | Chen Yu