Pop Toy consumption Reflects obvious IP-driven characteristics

     From October 17th to 19th, the CTE China Toy Exhibition, CLE China Licensing Exhibition, CKE China Infant and Child Products Exhibition, and CPE China Preschool Education Exhibition (referred to as the four exhibitions of the China Toy and Infant Products Association) hosted by the China Toy and Baby Products Association (China Toys Association) ) held at the Shanghai New International Expo Center.

     This year's China Toy Fair is directly titled "China Toy Fair·Art Toy Exhibition". "Art toys" can be expanded to mean "Art toys". Different toys set off trends in different eras. However, in the past year or two, the term mainly referred to blind boxes, which also included a broad spectrum from dolls,vinyl figures, cards to ball-jointed dolls (BJD).

     Represented by Pop Mart, the art toy industry was much louder in the past two years than it is now. During this year's 618 festival, Chaowan's performance in e-commerce channels was not as good as before. Coupled with some quality issues, store closures and other controversies, there was even a saying that "Chaowan is dead".

     Is the art toy industry indeed experiencing obstacles to growth? Most of the manufacturers we interviewed at the Fourth Play Association Exhibition were optimistic. Blind box sales are still booming, building blocks have just begun to rise, and vinyl figures and cards continue to have a stable customer base.

Moreover, we also observed:

     This is not a "Matthew Effect" market. Driven by leading brands and strong channels, new brands and new IPs will also gain their own opportunities as the overall consumer population expands.

     Offline physical store experience and "impulsive consumption" are more important to the art toy market than online stores. Products with lower unit prices such as blind boxes play the role of attracting customer traffic and driving subsequent consumption.

     The consumption of various art toys shows obvious IP-driven characteristics. For the same IP, cross-brand single products will be compared and linked consumption.

     The fashion market is no longer "the moon in foreign countries is rounder than in China". Consumers generally have full trust in major domestic brands, domestic IP and domestic manufacturing processes.

     For IP licensors, derivatives developers, and channel parties, it is a no-brainer to continue to delve into the direction of "designer toys", but their biggest challenge is to continue to "innovate" - to increase R&D capacity and put more products on shelves. There are many new products to win the hearts of players in terms of creativit