On December 24, the national survey and big data research center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released the 2021 China trend toy market development report (hereinafter referred to as the “report”), which pointed out that the trend toys represented by the “surprise economy” are becoming an important carrier for the leisure and communication of the new generation of young people, and it is expected that the scale of the trend toy market will reach 47.8 billion yuan in 2022. With the help of the development trend of the Internet and digital industry, the current market pattern of the trend toy industry has gradually taken shape.
Fashion toys, namely artist toys, originated in Hong Kong, China in the 1990s. Most of them are designed and created by artists and designers with different styles. The audience is mainly adults. According to the above report, the scale of China’s fashion industry has reached 6.3 billion yuan in 2015, with a compound annual growth rate of 36% from 2015 to 2020. It is estimated that the retail market scale of China’s trend toys will reach 47.8 billion yuan in 2022, and China’s trend toys are showing great market potential.
In recent years, the trendy toy market has grown rapidly, and the sales channels are also expanding. By 2020, the number of registered enterprises of Chinese trend toys has reached 250. Among them, many trendy toy enterprises have been developed, such as bubble mart, 52toys, ruolai Ruo state, looking for unicorns and Xinghui tide play, and a large number of IP favored by consumers, such as Molly, dimoo, Lulu, CBB, farmer Bob, Nancy and so on.
According to the survey of the report, the top three popularity of fashion toy IP are: Designer original IP, film and television work IP and animation image IP, of which designer original IP scores the highest, 80.76%. Gong Shun, Distinguished Research Institute of the national survey and big data center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that the original IP is becoming the core competitiveness of tide play enterprises. Trendy toy enterprises need to pay attention to the creative ability and experience of artists and independently develop IP derivatives. The study found that among the respondents, the proportion of having purchased bubble Mart trend toy products is the highest.
According to the data of the report, 55% of trendy consumers think that they mainly focus on “excellent product design”, 47% on “interesting brand image” and 30% on “meeting the aesthetics of young people”. Brand personality and product innovation are the main concerns of tide play blind box consumers, while the values of “value for money”, “specialty” and “tasteful life” with a little petty bourgeoisie sentiment, which are more valued in the traditional consumption field, are not particularly favored among tide play blind box consumers. Different from the traditional consumer goods users, the tide play blind box users pay more attention to brand personality and product creativity than price and product quality.
As one of the trend toy categories, the blind box has developed rapidly in recent years driven by the rapid development of the trend toy industry. According to the prediction of forst & Sulivan, China’s trendy blind box will account for about 40% of the trendy toy market in the next few years. In the current blind box boom, generation Z and women have become the main force of blind box consumption.
The report found that 85% of female trendy blind box players and 39% of generation Z. In terms of occupation, white-collar workers account for 54.42%. Most young consumers have a good educational background and pursue consumption quality. The main motivation for consumers to buy tide play blind boxes is social and self pleasure.
Among the consumer groups that buy trendy blind boxes, 46.78% of consumers think that surprise is an important reason for buying trendy blind boxes, 38.95% of consumers think that they buy trendy blind boxes because they have their favorite IP, and 21.64% of consumers think that they buy trendy blind boxes because they are fun to buy with their relatives and friends. However, with regard to gift giving and transaction investment, most consumers believe that this is not their main motivation to buy tide play blind boxes, and only 1.47% of consumers regard second-hand transactions as their purchase motivation.
At present, rational consumption still accounts for the main melody of tide play blind box consumption. According to the data of the report, in the past year, 31.11% of the consumers spent less than 1000 yuan on buying the tide play blind box, and 64.03% of the consumers spent less than 5000 yuan on buying the tide play blind box.
Despite the opportunity of the expansion of world trend culture and Chinese cultural consumption demand, the sustainability of the development of tide play blind box still faces no small challenge. The report points out that one of them is how to maintain user stickiness. The change of audience interest in trend culture and the rapid change of trend fashion have created a high elimination rate of trend industry.
Gong Shun believes that the core and essence of trendy toys is original IP. In this regard, trendy toy enterprises need to continuously improve their IP building ability and continuously meet the needs of users.
Based on the above characteristics of trendy play, the report suggests that trendy toy enterprises should do the following three aspects in improving IP building ability: first, pay attention to the development of original IP and constantly push through the old and bring forth the new; Second, expand operation channels and create a trend cultural ecology; Third, always take customers’ preferences as the starting point and do not leave young people.
(Economic Observer network)
