Can the "blind box economy" bring record stores back to life?

Author | Ding Qianwen Edit | Fan Zhihui

Offline physical record stores are undergoing a new round of "transformation". 

Since the Spring Festival holiday, the sales game called "Card Drawing Machine" has been launched in the "Always Entertainment Pop Research Institute" comprehensive record stores in Beijing, Hangzhou, Chengdu and other places. This game also attracted many young people to check in and opened up record sales. 

If you pay attention, you will find that unconsciously, whether it is a large shopping mall or a small street store in a first- and second-tier city, more and more offline record stores have appeared, sweeping away the doors of the past, but forming a new pop culture in the queue and purchase boom. 

A record store dominated by card drawers

The card draw machine that triggers consumers to buy physical records is actually a type of marketing method that is inseparable. 

The so-called card pulling machine is also a twisting machine. In layman's terms, it is to mix the artist small cards attached to the physical album, or the small cards of different types and artists such as small cards attached to different e-commerce platforms, and small cards for signing parties, into a set of card pools and put them into the machine, in the form of random drops, allowing fans to experience a "blind box draw". 

The card draw opportunity is related to the amount of consumption, and you can get a card draw opportunity by purchasing any record album of 140 yuan or more in the offline store and paying an additional 30 yuan, and up to one person can get 3 chances in turn. However, with the surge in offline popularity, its consumption threshold has also been raised, and now it can be drawn once with 40 yuan. This unspecified and unknown gambling pleasure, as well as the appreciation space that the small card itself may bring, also makes many fans happy to "make a big deal with small". 

This kind of offline gameplay that stimulates album sales has been popular in South Korea and Japan for a long time. Among them, many card lottery machines are officially launched by brokerage companies, and cooperate with album sales, concerts and other activities to attract audiences from all circles to check in and consume in the form of pop-ups. 

According to the clerk of the Beijing Jinma Building store of "Always Entertainment Pop Research Institute", since the Spring Festival holiday set up the card drawing machine, the daily flow of people has more than doubled than usual, and the flow of people who buy album records and increase the price to experience card drawing has also doubled compared to the past, "The first offline card drawing machine in China, many fans have thought about hand addiction, and now the daily sales of albums are also considerable." ” 

At present, offline card drawing can be said to be the hottest attraction method for some record stores. These new generation record stores that closely follow the card drawing machine boom are also mostly developed from the pan-entertainment platform and overseas import and sales platform consumed by the corresponding fans, such as the Always Entertainment Pop Research Institute is developed by the "Always Entertainment" platform, and the idou culture behind it has been engaged in e-commerce, performance sales and other related content for eight years. 

Different from traditional record stores, the new generation of record stores retains basic content such as auditions, purchase introductions and recommendations, and additionally adds music scenes and music social networking that can be immersed for audiences, so as to provide audiences with music experiences that are in line with pre-sales and after-sales. And this kind of comprehensive store that mainly sells records also guarantees the closed loop of consumption to a certain extent. In addition to all the entertainment, TOU Market, founded by TOU Global this year, and Park, a new generation of comprehensive record store brands created by Microstore, have successively laid stores offline across the country. 

In essence, the card drawing machine that assists album sales represents a part of the small card economy. 

At present, with the rise of the fan economy, the importance of physical records for the vast majority of consumers is not CD or vinyl, but the artist card "included" with the record, and its value is often fried to thousands of yuan. In addition, the distribution channels of different countries and platforms and exclusive giveaway cards cooperated by issuers are often scarce. The emergence of the card drawing machine greatly reduces the random probability and ensures that buyers can have a greater chance of getting what they want within the established range. 

To put it bluntly, the card drawing machine also belongs to the blind box economy, as a marketing means to provide a sense of surprise and hit the gambling psychology, but also attract the younger generation to create strong spiritual consumption and social consumption in the record market.

In addition, the rare attributes derived from the extraction probability of small caine also allow physical records to be "bundled" with the blessing of small cards to upgrade their collection value. Under the effect of the supporting effect, amplifying the psychological hint that consumers "buying records may come with rare popular cards" can also continuously increase the repurchase rate of records. 

The rules of survival for the new generation of record stores

In addition to the trendy gameplay of card drawing machines, the survival rules of mainland offline record stores in the post-epidemic era are also constantly updated and iterated. 

In terms of distribution channels, many offline record stores have long broken the source of "mouth-of-mouth discs" in the past, and rely more on online formal overseas shopping to enrich the supply of goods in the store. For example, Gongyu Entertainment and TOU MARKET have their own overseas transportation channels, self-sufficient and self-sufficient to create an official formal sales chain connecting overseas imports and mainland circulation at the same time. Under this, the price of imported overseas records is also due to tariff fluctuations, resulting in a certain difference, so many privately operated record stores choose more "human flesh" purchasing, pre-sale group buying and other methods. 

On the other hand, by combining fixed stores in first-tier cities across the country with irregular pop-ups in some cities, many record stores have also opened up brand effects in first- and second-tier cities and even third- and fourth-tier cities, going deep into the sinking circle to maximize the brand effect. For example, the Pop Research Institute has only opened a number of stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Chengdu, while other provinces and cities have "set up stalls" in the form of irregular pop-ups. 

This approach also makes record stores more active in social scenes, such as on platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, there are a large number of check-in record stores and experience offline purchase strategies, which can also feed back offline from online and attract more potential consumer audiences with accurate algorithms. 

Close integration with the fan economy is also the only rule in today's record stores.

In the past, record stores were inseparable from professional, niche labels, and to a large extent, a record store's musical preferences determined whether it could have a solid source of customers, such as Fusheng Records mainly rock and vinyl records, 666 Rock Shop mainly selling metal-style records, etc., all of which have survived to this day in the passage of time. 

But with the popularity of the fan economy, record stores have gradually found another way out under the boom of fast-moving idol music. At present, the new batch of record stores has become a designated venue for fans to check in and take photos, thereby driving offline consumption, online platform exposure volume, and the retention rate of their own apps or mini programs. FOR EXAMPLE, SHANGHAI TOU MARKET ONCE ARRANGED POP-UP SUPPORT RELATED TO THE THEME OF ITS ALBUM WHEN THE GIRL GROUP (G)-IDLE RELEASED A NEW ALBUM, ATTRACTING FANS TO BUY THE ALBUM TO CHECK IN. 

And this situation is more prominent in the Pop Research Institute and micro-stores. At the end of February, the Xidan store in Beijing, which has been entertaining the Pop Research Institute, landed the birthday support arrangement of NCT and Weishen V member TEN. According to the statistics of the Music Herald Survey, although it has been arranged the day before for fans to check in, on TEN's birthday on February 27, the flow of people has increased sharply since the store opened at 10 a.m. compared with the previous rest day, and many of the fans and consumers are mainly buying albums of other artists. Fan KK said that he originally wanted to check in and help, "but seeing that some records were very good and not expensive, I bought New Jeans' albums and Tae-yeon's vinyl records." ” 

According to the statistics of the music pioneer survey sample, 50% of the fixed consumer groups of the two permanent entertainment stores located in Haidian and Xidan are mainly post-00s teenagers aged 15-18, and about 40% of the post-95s. It can be said that the MZ era crowd has carried offline record consumption to a certain extent. 

In the offline record stores in Hangzhou, there are nearly 60% of the post-00s group, which is becoming the mainstream consumption of vinyl records, and the orientation is also mainly pop, classical, and rock. For example, Miba Records, located near Hangzhou's Xiaoheshan University Park, is the main supplier of post-rock, classical, and popular vinyl records. According to the mirror who frequents this offline store, "From Adele to Kaoru Abe, you can find it here, and although it touches the business area, it is generally biased towards niche fans with strong professionalism." ” 

Moving towards an increasingly commercial operating model is also one of the ways for record stores to survive. After all, Tower, a record store that has closed down in the United States, is able to compete in the solid consumer market of Japan, and its concept of coexistence of commerciality and professionalism is also extremely important. For example, at the Tower store in Shibuya, AKB48 and musicians such as Ryuichi Sakamoto and Genshi Yonezu can appear in the same store without conflict and harmonize into a unified music consumption environment. 

In the current era of fan economy, the living environment of the new generation of record stores has changed dramatically, and embracing new content may not just be a downward compromise. After all, the sinking market needs sunshine and snow, and it is inseparable from popular fast food. 

Is selling physical records a good business?

In the documentary "The Last Vinyl Record Store", he said, "The surviving physical record store is our last hope." ” 

Recall that in China's most glorious millennium, there were more than 100,000 large and small record stores all over the country. With the rise of the streaming era, since 2007, several record store brands such as China Record and Shanghai Meiya have disappeared one after another, and have been in a slump ever since, while the physical markets of other countries have mostly fallen into a downturn. 

In recent years, however, changes have quietly changed. In the United States, according to the Luminate report, sales of cassette albums in the United States increased by 28% to 440,000 in 2022, and physical albums also accounted for about 70% of all form album sales such as digital and physical, and Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, BTS, etc. were the main contributors to physical album sales in the United States last year. 

Perhaps in addition to scarcity, nicheness, and professionalism, physical albums with high popularity and fan attributes may also be a type of subdivision of offline record stores looking for a way to survive. As a result, as offline record stores gradually become more vertical and strengthen their commercial operations, record stores such as the K-Pop and C-Pop Records-based Entertainment Pop Research Institute have gradually launched their signboards throughout the country, realizing the occupation of the music consumption market in the form of branding, and also promoting the recovery of the physical record economy in the mainland. 

However, compared with the unified pricing of online e-commerce platforms and the compression of purchase price space in the form of group buying, offline record stores also bring fluctuations in discount differences due to overseas import tariffs and private pricing issues, which are not particularly favored by consumer audiences. 

For example, in terms of K-Pop records, the "Bubble Manor" record store in Shenyang has become a "lightning protection" list because the price is about 3 or 4 times higher than the online group purchase price; Shanghai's "Sanxia Society" has gradually become a good place for local consumer audiences to choose records offline due to the small price difference, and many fans have also scooped up millennial K-Pop ancient records here and successfully cleared their inventory. 

At present, some record stores scattered across the country are mostly silently isolated under the subdivided music style, and their revenue has also had to add additional services such as coffee drinks and venue rental to maintain operations due to the emphasis on niche enthusiasts. But on the other hand, with the blessing of the fan economy, the new record brands located in the top echelon have also enjoyed the dividend period, and have landed many times across the country in a short period of time to achieve multi-place linkage operation. 

This has also led to many original practitioners, daigou, students and even laymen who are eager to invest in the field of offline records. Since last year, fast-food-style offline record stores have appeared in Qingdao, Changsha, Harbin, Xiamen, Chongqing and other places, such as "Hello Kpop", which has quickly opened five stores across the country, and the new offline record store recently settled near Changsha Wuyi Square has almost sold out one hour after opening. All indications are that offline purchases of physical records may have begun to re-enter offline consumption behavior. 

However, the owner of an offline record store called "ALI" in Qingdao, Ah Tanu, does not think that offline record purchases will become a fixed music consumption demand for this part of the audience. In her opinion, some offline record stores are extremely profitable, and the price is often several times higher than online, such as second-hand records that are not rare can also be sold at a high price according to the wishes of the owner. 

To put it bluntly, offline record sales still do not have a very reasonable and unified price floating standard, which also leads to the audience will be more willing to compare prices online and choose online shopping, "South Korea brought by the fan economy, in fact, the value of the record itself is gradually blurred, ordinary consumers will not care how precious a vinyl and CD are, their collection and purchase, is more linked to red or not, rush sales." ”

But she also said that the closure of her store was also due to the missed integration of offline and fan economy, "I think that now in terms of making offline records, I will pay more attention to commercial operation to feed niche hobbies." It turns out that I mainly sell vinyl records in the main aspects of punk, blues, jazz, many young people just come in to take pictures, it is difficult to sell targeted crowds, at the best time can sell a thousand copies a month, the worst time can not make ends meet, can not sell a few a month. ” 

And this invisible cognitive gap is one of the reasons that hinder most offline record stores from entering the general consumer group. For example, in the record store of the millennium, Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai were sold on the shelves together with Schubert, Beethoven and so on. Whether to sell both popular and niche specialties is also the key to the survival struggle of many record stores at present. 

It has to be admitted that the change of music carriers has become the world of digital streaming media, and physical records are no longer the main way for audiences to obtain and consume music. But at present, offline record stores are still stubbornly taking root in the torrent of the times, attracting a large audience to pay, and also driving physical records back to the public's life vision. 

How to give birth to a more refined commercial living space in addition to niche feelings is also the swing of all offline record stores, but back to the source, niche is often inseparable from popularization. The demise of record stores was once irreversible, but now, with the "renaissance" of the younger generation, it may not be impossible for record stores to come back to life under the impact of the streaming era. 

After all, music consumption still needs scene-based support, social consumption irrigation, and can still have new commercial space.