The daily revenue of the store exceeds ten million, and has LABUBU become a "female celebrity" in Thailand? | Pay-to-win · Going Global
Author | Xie Yunzi
Editor | Zheng Huaizhou
Labubu's popularity in Thailand is beyond the imagination of Chinese people.
Walking on the streets of Bangkok, both men and women, young and old, like to hang this furry "little monster" on their bags. Searching for Labubu in the Thai context, one can also find various media and bloggers promoting Labubu and Pop Mart.
A report released by Nielsen in May shows that on TikTok, the country with the most comments involving Labubu and Pop Mart is Thailand, reaching 365,000, while comments from other countries are only in the thousands.
The enthusiasm of the public has also led to official collaborations.
In July this year, the Tourism Authority of Thailand officially awarded Labubu the title of "Amazing Thailand Experience Officer".
In MEGA BANGNA, the largest shopping mall in Southeast Asia in northeastern Bangkok, Pop Mart has specially opened the world's first Labubu-themed store. On the opening day, the store's turnover exceeded 10 million yuan, setting the highest single-day sales record for Pop Mart's overseas stores.
As the store manager of the first store in Thailand, Kwan can most directly feel the local consumers' love for Pop Mart. What impressed him the most was a 74-year-old lady.
"She was pushed to the store by her butler and caregiver, patiently listened to us explain the story of each IP of Pop Mart, and bought the full range of products of four series for the first time. A week later, she came to the store for a big shopping spree as employee gifts for the company's annual meeting."
There is no doubt that Southeast Asia, represented by Thailand, has become the "most successful" overseas market for Pop Mart.
According to financial report data, in the first half of 2024, Pop Mart's overseas market revenue was 1.35 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 259.6%, accounting for nearly 30% of the income. Among them, Southeast Asia achieved a revenue of 560 million yuan, accounting for more than 40%.
Why is Labubu so sought after in Thailand? Can this phenomenal popularity continue in other regions?
Thai consumers showing Labubu, image from 36Kr
The Best Annotation of Celebrity Effect
In the official introduction, Labubu was created by Pop Mart's contracted artist Kasing Lung and is a member of "THE MONSTERS Elf Group". It looks naughty but has a soft and kind heart.
In September 2023, Pop Mart opened its first store in Thailand at Central World in Bangkok, and many IPs including Labubu began to become popular in Thailand, even attracting members of the royal family. However, Labubu's real explosion in popularity was in April this year.
At that time, Lisa, a member of the South Korean girl group BLACKPINK and a top Thai star, showed the Labubu "Heartbeat Macaron" series given by a friend on her Instagram account. Subsequently, more and more different styles of Labubu appeared on Lisa's designer bags or were held in her arms.
Driven by the top star, many fans and social celebrities joined the wave of snapping up Labubu. Starting from Bangkok, the heat quickly spread to other cities in Southeast Asia, and the purchasing agency business at home and abroad also followed suit.
36Kr found that the regular version of a Labubu Generation 2 Vinyl Series "Sit Party", which originally sold for 99 yuan in China, has seen the price in the secondary market for "unopened box and unopened bag" soar to 349 yuan. In the unofficial channels in Thailand, such a product can be marked up to 3,000 Thai baht, equivalent to about 634 yuan.
Under the hype of scalpers and the enthusiasm of Thai consumers, Labubu is "hard to come by in one box" in the official channels in mainland China.
The Yangcheng Evening News once reported that online, someone specially wrote code software for snapping up Pop Mart products and stated that they could provide "services". Offline, there were also scalpers staying up all night at the store and queuing overnight to wait for the release of Labubu.
In fact, in order to put an end to the phenomenon of reselling, Pop Mart has very strict requirements for its employees.
Lin Zheng (pseudonym) is a front-line employee of Pop Mart. He told 36Kr that whenever Labubu vinyl products arrive at the store, employees are only informed by email 5 minutes before the arrival, and they also need to count the number of consumers in the store within 5 minutes.
"Five minutes later, we will first update the arrival information online, and at the same time shout 'Labubu is restocked' in the store. Another colleague will quickly put the products on the shelves, and basically three employees need to operate simultaneously."
According to Lin Zheng, whether users can get the hot-selling products depends entirely on luck. "Once when the 'Macaron' was restocked, the SF Express delivery guy happened to be there and directly took away several boxes. We also see scalpers wandering around the store day and night, but there is nothing we can do."
Pop Mart store in Central World, Bangkok; image from 36Kr
Timing and Initiative, Accident and Inevitability
In the Thai market on the other side, consumers' love for Pop Mart has not diminished. 36Kr found that in many Pop Mart stores in Bangkok, more than 70% of the products are shown as sold out.
Kwan's daily work is to understand the daily operation and inventory situation of the store, be meticulous about the placement of each product, and also keep abreast of customer feedback at any time.
In his observation, 90% of the store's consumers are from Thailand, and most consumers buy more than four blind boxes at a time.
Wen Deyi, the president of Pop Mart's international business, once frankly told 36Kr that considering factors such as taxes, labor costs, and exchange rate fluctuations, Pop Mart has different product pricing in each country or region, and the product prices in Thailand are generally 5% to 10% higher than those in China.
Based on the most common blind box price of 69 yuan in China, the average customer unit price for Thai consumers to buy Pop Mart products at one time is about 303.6 yuan, equivalent to about 1,419 Thai baht.
Before Lisa promoted Labubu, Kwan had seen the scene of "long queues" several times. "Many regular products in the store are basically sold out in the afternoon after arriving in the morning."
According to the person in charge of Pop Mart in Southeast Asia, the company has optimized the problem of high sold-out rate by placing orders in advance and planning goods.
According to him, Pop Mart has connected the warehouses of all stores in Thailand. The main warehouse replenishes goods two to three times a week, and the stores replenish goods daily. New products are released every Friday, and consumers make an appointment to enter the store by signing up online.
According to the current ranking of Pop Mart's market share in overseas markets, Southeast Asia is undoubtedly the first.
Financial report data also shows that as of June 2024, Pop Mart achieved a revenue of 560 million yuan in Southeast Asia, with a year-on-year growth of 478.3%, accounting for 41.1% of the total overseas revenue. During the same period, the revenue in East Asia, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan was 480 million yuan, and the revenue in the North American market was 180 million yuan.
Pop Mart's overseas revenue situation; 36Kr made the table based on the semi-annual report of 2024
In Wen Deyi's perception, Pop Mart's success in the Southeast Asian market is both accidental and inevitable.
The accident lies in Lisa's free publicity and the timing of Pop Mart's entry into the Thai market. "Thailand focuses on tourism and has suffered a very big blow during the epidemic." Wen Deyi believes that if Pop Mart entered the Thai market two or three years ago, it might not have this effect.
The inevitability lies in that Pop Mart's exploration of the overseas expansion model is quite mature.
Due to geographical and economic advantages, in 2018, Pop Mart chose Seoul, South Korea, Wen Deyi's hometown, as the first stop for its overseas expansion.
In the following year, Pop Mart began to seek partners, hoping to establish joint venture companies in various places, gradually shifting from the B2B overseas supply model to the DTC model that directly faces customers.
In 2021, Pop Mart began to focus on Southeast Asia and set foot in "Lion City". In Southeast Asia, Singapore has an absolute role as a billboard and showroom. And in the process of expanding its territory, Pop Mart is not blind in its choice of destinations.
According to Wen Deyi, Pop Mart will first comprehensively judge whether a market is worth entering based on the sales volume of cross-border e-commerce and the interaction of consumers on social media.
At the same time, even during the epidemic, Pop Mart never missed Thailand's largest trendy toy exhibition, TTE. This gave Pop Mart the opportunity to come into contact with excellent designers from all over the world, including the local Thai artist Molly.
In 2021, Pop Mart collaborated with Molly to launch the Crybaby figurine. Judging from the feedback from the current Southeast Asian market, Crybaby has become the second most popular Pop Mart IP product after Labubu. All these have led to Pop Mart having accumulated enough market attention when it opened stores in Thailand.
Pop Mart Crybaby related products; image from 36Kr
How Long Can the Southeast Asian Dividend Last?
For trendy toy enterprises, the Southeast Asian market has its particularity.
Among the 11 countries in Southeast Asia, the population of six countries - Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam - accounts for 90% of the total population.
According to Euromonitor data, in three countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand - the population aged 13 to 44 accounts for more than 40%, and the demographic dividend has brought huge consumption potential.
However, Pop Mart is not the only enterprise eyeing this cake in Southeast Asia.
At the end of 2023, 52 TOYS, which focuses on Chinese trendy culture, opened its first store in Thailand; in January this year, 52 TOYS also announced the launch of the Overseas Hundred Stores Plan.
Not long ago, TOP TOY, a trendy toy brand under MINISO, opened its first store in Southeast Asia in Indonesia. Subsequently, TOP TOY also collaborated with Butter Bear to launch related products. Another insider told 36Kr that TOP TOY's store in Bangkok is already in the pipeline.
Just from the perspective of the expansion method, TOP TOY, which relies on the franchise chain model, is undoubtedly faster than Pop Mart, which opens direct-sale stores one by one in a joint venture manner.
Of course, Pop Mart, which always adheres to original IP and takes the lead in setting trends in Southeast Asia, has already built a competitive barrier that is difficult to surpass in a short period of time. According to the founder Wang Ning, the company is confident of "replicating" another Pop Mart overseas. In the fourth quarter of this year, Pop Mart's overseas revenue is expected to exceed 40% of the total revenue.
The key question is how this Chinese trendy toy enterprise can continue to heat up Labubu in Southeast Asia? Can its success in the Thai market be replicated in other overseas markets?
A trendy toy practitioner once told 36Kr that behind Labubu's popularity, the celebrity effect is still significant. He believes that what Pop Mart needs to focus on now is how to avoid repeating the "old path" of the domestic blind box trend fading in 2022.
On July 19, Pop Mart opened its 100th overseas store in Jakarta, and it is expected to open a total of 20 stores in Southeast Asia by the end of this year and more than ten new stores next year.
36Kr made the table based on public information
In Wen Deyi's view, Pop Mart's localization experience in each country is very important, but it cannot be simply copied to other markets.
Take the Philippines as an example. Different from the salary system of Chinese enterprises, some enterprises in the Philippines will pay salaries twice a month, on the 15th and 30th. Therefore, if Pop Mart opens a store in the Philippines, it needs to prepare the source of goods in advance according to these two time periods.
Another example is that the traffic in Bangkok is "the worst in Southeast Asia". The replenishment of robot stores (vending machines) mostly relies on motorcycles and manual carts, with low efficiency, and it also takes some time to convert the text pages of the machines. This is also the reason why robot stores have not been quickly popularized in Thailand.
However, with the expansion of overseas stores, Pop Mart may need to pay more attention to the unity of localization and standardization. Wen Deyi also added, "This even includes the brightness of the store and the wattage of the light bulbs."
In his plan, the focus of Pop Mart's overseas store openings will gradually shift to tourist cities outside the capital, such as Chiang Mai and Pattaya in Thailand, and Bali in Indonesia. On the supply chain side, the production capacity of the factory that Pop Mart cooperates with in Vietnam will also reach 10% of the global total production capacity by the end of the year.