36Kr Exclusive: MINISO Bets on "Southeast Asian Trendy Toys", and Multiple TOPTOY Stores Open.

Author | Xie Yunzi

Editor | Zheng Huaizhou

Images | Corporate Official Weibo

36Kr has learned that on October 19, TOPTOY, a trendy toy brand under MINISO, opened its first store in Thailand.

The store is located in The Mall Lifestore One Bangkapi in Bangkok. At the same time, in another shopping center in Bangkok, MEGA BANGNA, the TOPTOY "Good Night" themed pop-up store opened; the first TOPTOY store in Malaysia is also under preparation.

For Chinese trendy toy brands, Southeast Asia has become an important market for going global. At the end of August this year, TOPTOY made its debut in the flagship store of MINISO in Jakarta in the form of a store within a store. Previously, Sun Yuanwen, the founder of TOPTOY, publicly disclosed that the company's strategic deployment this year is to open stores in 5 to 6 countries overseas.

"After Pop Mart educated the market, it is imperative for TOPTOY to enter the Southeast Asian market." When talking about the above store opening information, a trendy toy practitioner told 36Kr directly. However, he also emphasized that the shortcoming of TOPTOY still lies in the original IP.

According to public information, TOPTOY was founded in 2020, and MINISO positions it as a "global trendy toy collection store", mainly selling core categories such as blind boxes, trendy toys, figurines, doll models, assembly toys, and building blocks.

In April 2021, TOPTOY opened its first flagship store in Shanghai and released three self-owned original IPs: Twinkle, Tammy, and Yoyo. However, from the perspective of consumer perception, the response to these three original IPs of TOPTOY was mediocre.

According to insiders in the toy industry and IP licensing, the IP product development form of TOPTOY is mostly to sign cooperation agreements with internationally renowned IPs and then develop exclusive trendy toy product images.

Statistics from the Cultural and Creative Trends Weekly column show that in the first half of this year, several series of the TOPTOY Tmall flagship store have entered the TOP20 best-selling blind boxes on Tmall. These include: TOPTOY Piggy Man Classic Blind Box, Bandai BNFQ Kamen Rider Kabuto Complete Set Kabuto Blind Box, Disney Stitch Funny Diary Series, etc.; the above three original IP products were not seen.

However, for the MINISO Group, which "layouts globally and focuses on interest-based consumption", TOPTOY always has an important strategic position.

In the 2023 financial report, MINISO plans to focus on establishing and strengthening the brand awareness of TOPTOY in the near future, expand its TOPTOY store network in first- and second-tier cities in China, and expand to lower-tier cities.

By the first half of 2024, TOPTOY has ushered in the fastest store opening pace in the first half of the year. As of the end of June this year, the number of its stores has reached 195, an increase of nearly 100 compared to two years ago. In terms of revenue, during the reporting period, TOPTOY achieved an income of approximately 429 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 37.9%. In terms of products, the number of SKUs has reached 9,800.

It should be noted that while the performance is growing rapidly and the products are continuously enriched, the average customer transaction value of TOPTOY has slightly decreased. The financial report shows that its average customer transaction value in the first half of the year was 111.2 yuan, lower than 124.7 yuan last year.