Editor's Introduction: Is the Blind Box Economy Turned Off? Although the recent KFC blind box marketing incident has been boiling, but at present, it seems that there is still some room for development in the form of "blind box", especially with the tide playing hot, the audience of blind boxes is still many. In this article, the author has made an interpretation of the development of the blind box economy, let's take a look at it together.
KFC probably would not have thought that in the first week of the first year of 2022, what made it rush to Weibo was not its proud fried chicken, but the Dimo blind box jointly launched with Bubble Mart.
It is understood that this Dimo blind box is divided into a total of 6 regular models + 1 hidden model, each of which is made up of different KFC food elements and Dimo dolls, consumers need to buy a designated KFC 99 yuan package, in order to get a blind box that comes with the package, the national limited sales of 260,000 copies, while stocks last.
After the blind box package was launched, it triggered a wave of rush to buy. In order to obtain a hidden blind box, some people will not hesitate to spend 10494 yuan at a time to buy 106 packages. There are also people who "identify babies" through electronic scales, scanners and other instruments, and post carefully summarized "baby identification strategies" on social platforms.
A box is difficult to find, but also gave birth to the "professional substitute eating" and scalpers on the line. Some netizens posted information on behalf of the eating, playing the slogan of "blind box belongs to you, fat meat belongs to me". On platforms such as Idle Fish and Taobao, a set of Dimeo blind boxes is priced at 600 yuan to 800 yuan, and the price of the rarer hidden models is even more speculated to 800 yuan, which is 8 times the price of the original package.
On January 12, the China Consumer Association named KFC, saying that as a food business operator, it used limited-edition blind box sales to induce and connive consumers to irrationally over-purchase food packages, contrary to public order and good customs and the spirit of the law.
Although the main object of criticism by the China Consumer Association is KFC, as a partner of the blind box, Bubble Mart has also escaped public doubts, and the stock price has declined.
In fact, since its listing in Hong Kong in late 2020, bubble mart's market value has fallen from HK$150 billion at its peak to about HK$60 billion today. Many voices in the market believe that the "blind box economy" has been extinguished.
Now that the KFC blind box has exploded at the beginning of the new year, people can't help but rethink: is the blind box really turned off?
First, the ebb and flow of blind boxes
Blind boxes are nothing new, and the "fukubukuro" of the late Meiji period in Japan can be seen as the earliest origin of blind boxes. In the 1990s, the blind box was introduced to China in the form of a collection card, and the water margin card in the memory of the little raccoon in the memory of the 80s and 90s was the predecessor of our local blind box.
In addition, things like lipstick machines, lucky boxes, etc., can be seen as blind boxes in different periods, but they did not lead the real trend at that time.
In 2016, the development of blind boxes in China ushered in a watershed. Since this year, blind box marketing has become popular, and young consumers have promoted the blind box economy. Bubble Mart became one of the most dazzling representatives of the wind outlet.
Founded in 2010, Bubble Mart was originally just a collection store selling trendy department stores. In 2016, Bubble Mart and Hong Kong designer Wang Mingxin reached a partnership to sign the cartoon image Molly designed by the latter, and then launched its first blind box product, the Molly Constellation Series.
This playful girl Molly, who has a pair of big eyes and always pouts, is deeply loved by consumers, and under the push of Bubble Mart, the blind box trend has swept the country.
Molly family, source: Bubble Mart official micro
In 2019's Double Eleven, blind boxes and other trendy new products have become the king of the whole network. Among them, the sales of bubble mart Tmall flagship store in 1 hour exceeded the sales of the previous year's all-day sales. Young consumers have exploded with amazing purchasing power for blind boxes. In 2019, tmall international released the "List of Post-95 Players' Chopping Force", showing that 200,000 consumers in the mainland spend more than 20,000 yuan a year on blind boxes, and even some people spend millions of dollars a year to buy blind boxes.
After 95, Lin Yuan first contacted the blind box in 2019, from the earliest shopping to "buy and play", to the average of five or six per week, Lin Yuan unconsciously entered the "pit" of the blind box. When he was most obsessed, he could buy a dozen blind boxes a week and spend nearly 3,000 yuan a month.
The popular boom set off by blind boxes among young people has gradually pushed the scale of related markets higher. According to the statistics of Ai Media Consulting, from 2016 to 2020, the market size of the blind box industry in mainland China has grown for four consecutive years, reaching 29.48 billion yuan. According to forecasts, in 2023, this number will also surge to 57.46 billion yuan.
With the hot development of the blind box economy, Bubble Mart has also been able to develop and grow rapidly.
In June 2020, Bubble Mart submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. According to the prospectus, from 2017 to 2019, blind boxes accounted for 57.8%, 69.9% and 80.7% of the total revenue of Bubble Mart in the same period. In the first half of 2020, the revenue of blind box products was 689 million yuan, accounting for 84.2% of the total revenue of Bubble Mart.
On December 11 of the same year, Bubble Mart was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the stock price rose by nearly 80% on the first day, with a market value of nearly 100 billion Hong Kong dollars, creating the myth of "the first stock in the blind box".
Bubble Mart's "overnight wealth" has made many companies eye the blind box business. Companies such as 52TOYS, Twelve Buildings Culture, and Unicorn Search have also competed with Bubble Mart in the field of blind boxes.
According to Tianyancha data, there are currently more than 1,200 enterprises in the mainland with names or business scopes including "tide play, trendy toys, and blind boxes", of which more than 80% were established within 5 years. In 2020 alone, more than 400 new tide-related enterprises have been added.
The "blind box +" model has also been quickly replicated in other industries. Ticket blind boxes, beauty blind boxes, archaeological blind boxes, stationery blind boxes, fresh blind boxes, etc. have emerged one after another, and for a time "everything can be blinded". Merchants competed to follow suit, making blind boxes a hot marketing method at that time.
However, as many players scramble to enter the game, the blind box market is gradually showing "fatigue". When the blind box gradually becomes a fast-moving consumer goods, the sense of surprise and scarcity it brings to people seems to be weakening.
Liu Qi, who is engaged in administrative work, loves the LABUBU series blind box owned by Bubble Mart. At first, as long as the series produced a new product, she would follow suit. But with the increasing number of new products since then, Liu Qi gradually felt aesthetic fatigue. "Now I will buy an order when I see that the appearance is still good, and I will buy which one my son likes."
LABUBU FAMILY Source: Bubble Mart Official Micro
The flood of blind boxes not only makes the "sense of surprise" discounted, but more questions about the quality control of blind boxes and toys, the uneven quality, and hunger marketing have also begun to emerge. Lin Yuan told Xiaguang That as the popularity of blind boxes rises, he finds that the probability of defects in the blind box toys he buys is also increasing. When encountering a defective blind box, Lin Yuan will return to the original factory and ask the manufacturer to replace the goods, but sometimes the manufacturer will find various reasons to refuse to return and exchange.
"Once the returns were returned to the factory for half a year, and no new goods were issued." If it is a hidden model, they will also want to replace it with a regular toy on the grounds that it is out of stock. ”
In the game with manufacturers, Lin Yuan has accumulated a wealth of "struggle experience", once he encounters a situation where communication with the manufacturer's customer service is ineffective, he will directly call 12315 to complain. Lin Yuan described this approach as "particularly useful."
Under the chaos of the blind box market, people's enthusiasm for blind boxes seems to be fading. Bubble Mart's revenue also confirms this phenomenon.
Bubble Mart's 2020 financial report data shows that its revenue increased by 49.32% year-on-year. Such a growth rate seems to be good, but compared with 225.95% in 2018 and 226.80% in 2019, the growth rate has dropped sharply.
According to the 2021 semi-annual report released by Bubble Mart, revenue and net profit still maintained growth, with a year-on-year increase of more than 100%, but the growth rate was much lower than the expectation of institutions of more than 170%.
The capital market, which is gradually calming down, has also made the blind box track tired. As of the close of trading on January 18, Bubble Mart's share price was HK$48.2 per share, which was more than half of the price of HK$107.6 per share at the highest point in 2021, and the market value evaporated by more than HK$80 billion.
After a period of barbaric growth, the blind box economy has begun to slow down, and the heat is decreasing.
Second, the blind box has not yet "turned off"
Although the popularity of blind boxes seems to be decreasing, in the current tide play market, blind boxes are still the fastest to break the circle and the best-selling products.
Blind boxes with low prices and fun have also become the preferred products for startups to quickly cut into the tide play industry with low risk.
Sun Yuanwen, the founder of Top Toy, who was founded at the end of 2020, said frankly in an interview with China Entrepreneur: "At present, blind box products are still the most popular Top-level products in Top Toy offline stores. ”
Chen Wei, the founder of 52TOYS, which has been established for six years, also said that in the early stage of industry development in recent years, blind boxes will be slightly larger in the overall sales ratio.
As the head player in the blind box industry, Bubble Mart is also looking for new possibilities for the continuation of the blind box heat, and taking the blind box joint route has become one of the new directions of its efforts.
Since 2020, Bubble Mart has cooperated with many well-known IP in the world to launch a series of blind boxes such as Harry Potter, Naruto, and Disney Princess. Bubble Mart expects to further expand the user circle with the help of the existing fan base of mature IP and promote the continuous rise of blind box sales.
Harry Potter Blind Box Source: Bubble Mart Official Micro
In addition to the IP licensing business, Bubble Mart has also carried out cross-border cooperation with first-line brands in many fields such as beauty, daily use, and FMCG, including well-known brands such as L'Oréal, Casio, and Dev. From the actual effect, the co-branded products have indeed contributed to the revenue of Bubble Mart. According to the financial report data, Bubble Mart's non-exclusive IP sales in 2020 increased from 159 million yuan to 444 million yuan, accounting for 17.7% of revenue from 9.5%.
In addition, the derivative industry of blind boxes is also gradually emerging.
On the second-hand trading platform represented by idle fish and transfer, the number of blind boxes is continuing to rise, and some of the rare models can be speculated to more than four or five times the original price.
According to the data disclosed by Idle Fish, there are currently more than 440,000 blind box players trading on the platform. According to the data released by Idle Fish in 2020, the transaction volume of idle blind boxes in a single month exceeded 100 million yuan.
In addition to the second-hand trading platform, the circle of friends will also trade through WeChat groups and exclusive tide play Apps. Lin Yuan told Xiaguang That if he bought a duplicate blind box, he would hang it on the Idle Fish or Qiandao App to sell, "at present, it has sold for 20,000 or 30,000 yuan."
The blind box fever has also spawned a number of derivative professions such as "baby reformers". If some dolls do not like the dolls that open the box, they will change to their favorite image by changing the doll teacher. The cost of changing the baby ranges from 50 yuan to thousands of yuan. "Thanks to craftsmanship and experience, prices fluctuate greatly." Liu Qi told Xiaguang She.
Third, the rising tide plays hot
The development of blind boxes in China has cultivated young people's cognition of tide play, and further pulled the distance between tide play and consumers. To some extent, it is precisely because of the success of the blind box that it has promoted the development of the domestic tide play market. As a sub-category of many trendy toys, blind boxes have their own unique advantages compared with other types of trendy play. Its price is not high, the threshold for entry is low, and the purchase process is full of fun. Many young people are exposed to trendy toys, starting from blind boxes.
The "cute new people" knocked on the door of the new world of tide play through the blind box, and many people were also "addicted" to tide play. Tide play companies have also accelerated the pace of expansion.
In 2021, the tide play market ushered in a boom in opening stores. Bubble Mart, 52TOYS, X11, TOPTOY, Cool Tide Play and other trend play companies have participated in it, attacking the city and plundering the land.
According to statistics, in Beijing and Shanghai alone, in the first half of 2021, there are more than 1,300 new chao play stores (including pop-up stores, terminal blind box machines, and retail collection stores).
Some markets that do not seem to be hot spots for tidal play, such as Lanzhou, Lhasa, Yinchuan, Urumqi and other cities, have also appeared in tidal play stores. It is worth mentioning that Bubble Mart has also opened stores into Universal Studios Beijing and Shanghai Disneyland.
Lhasa's first X11 tide play shop Image source: Network
From the perspective of store types, the collection store has become the mainstream direction of the development of the current trendy play company, and the IP and categories of toys in the store have become more diversified. In addition to the blind box, each store also basically covers the mainstream fashion play category of handmade, Gundam, statues, BJD dolls, plush toys and stationery and other products.
The expansion of offline stores is in full swing, and the enthusiasm of online users to buy and play continues to rise.
Data from the Tmall platform 2021 double 11 shows that on the first day of the double eleven sale, the sales performance of the tide play category for 13 hours exceeded the all-day turnover of the first day of double eleven in 2020. In the past three years, the year-on-year growth rate of Tmall Tide Play has reached more than 50%.
Tide play makes young people addicted, and it also makes capital crazy. As of October 2021, there have been more than 50 investment and financing incidents in China's Tide Play Circuit, attracting more than 10 billion yuan in gold.
According to Frost & Sullivan's report, the size of the domestic tide play market increased from 6.3 billion yuan in 2015 to 29.48 billion yuan in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 46.36%, and the market size is expected to reach 76.3 billion yuan in 2024 and exceed 110 billion yuan in 2030.
The commercial imagination of Tide Play is obviously not only about opening stores offline to sell toys, but also exploring more possibilities for various tide play companies.
In June last year, Bubble Mart launched a collection series based on Molly, priced at more than 1,000 yuan, and began to explore China's collectible toy market under the slogan of "young people's first collectible".
In addition to the main business, Bubble Mart has also set up a special investment company, the scope of investment includes film and television, animation, Hanfu, exhibition and other fields.
In addition, according to media reports, Bubble Mart has reached a cooperation with Beijing Chaoyang Park to create the first offline park. Chaoyang Park will authorize Bubble Mart to use the "European Charm" project in the park and its surrounding streets and forests.
The person in charge of the bubble mart park project said that it is committed to building the project into a trend cultural paradise that integrates tide play IP, cultural communication, immersive experience, and leisure and entertainment. At present, the feasibility study and conceptual design of the project have been completed and are in the process of being designed.
Bubble Mart, who once said that she did not want to be Disney, finally embarked on the road of Disney.
The offline store of Bubble Mart's sub-brand Baoqu has been launched in a low-key manner on the first day of the New Year in 2022. Although Bubble Mart has not been hyped up, it is not difficult to see that Bao Qu is shouldering the heavy responsibility of diversifying the ecology of Bubble Mart layout.
The rise of the meta-universe outlet, Bubble Mart did not want to miss it. According to the Tianyancha App, Beijing Bubble Mart Cultural and Creative Co., Ltd. recently applied for the registration of the "Bubble Meta Universe" trademark, the international classification includes advertising sales, fitness equipment, and the current trademark status is awaiting substantive examination.
A series of actions can be seen that Bubble Mart is trying to get rid of the single "blind box" label and try to create a larger cultural map for itself.
The heat of the blind box gradually faded, but never really "turned off", before the establishment of a larger tide play territory, the blind box is still the most important traffic booster of the current bubble mart.
(At the request of the interviewee, the names of the interviewees appearing in the article are pseudonyms)
Resources:
[1] "The Blind Box is a Siege City, Bubble Marts Come Up With It", Liu Weiqi, China Entrepreneur Magazine
[2] "The fader brand Is Fun, doing a theme park, Bubble Mart is in a hurry?" Xi Rui, Tech Planet
Author: Han Xia, Editor: Ma Ji; Public account: Xiaguang She
This article was originally published by @Kasumigami as a product manager and is not reprinted without permission.
The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.