In the Guzi store on the B1 floor of the shopping mall, it is filled with young people dressed up in elaborate Cosplay costumes.

Text | Lan Jie

Editor | Qiao Qian

In the first week of December, Fengfeng has gone to the Xifanli Mall, which is nearly 30 minutes away from her company, for five consecutive days.

During this period, Fengfeng cosplayed as her favorite character - Xia Yan in the otome game "Unresolved Cases", taking pictures and checking in. But more often, the not-so-easy internship only allows her to have a quick meal in the mall. But "as long as you walk in, you are already in that atmosphere."

Xia Yan has short orange hair, red eyes, and a charming and somewhat proud personality like a kitten. December 5th is Xia Yan's birthday, and fans spontaneously held a birthday party for Xia Yan in Xifanli. From the entrance of the mall, there are posters and roll-up banners everywhere to celebrate Xia Yan's birthday.

Looking around, this mall located in Wudaokou, Haidian District, Beijing, is now filled with "Goods stores". "Goods" is a transliteration of the word, referring to peripheral products derived from IP works such as anime, games, and comics.

The gathering of "Goods stores" has brought a lot of business to the entire mall. According to "Vista See the World", as of July this year, the average daily passenger flow of Xifanli on weekends has reached 11,000 people, and the number of collections on Dianping has reached 53,000. Before this, this mall was the Wudaokou Clothing Market with a history of 30 years.

Xifanli Mall near the subway station, Picture source: Taken by the author

The Beijing Chaoyang Joy City, where young people gather, has similarities with Xifanli. Since the second half of 2024, the concentration of the second dimension on the B1 floor of the mall has significantly increased, and many individual Goods stores have opened. The trendy toy retail brand Coolala has specially set aside a new area to sell Goods, and the store of The Green Party, another trendy toy store, is also covered with second-dimensional posters. Yuewen Group has also mixed its IPs such as "Full-time Master" and "Little Dragon" to open a Goods store called "Yuewen Good Stuff".

According to an incomplete statistics by 36Kr, more than 60 core business districts in first- and second-tier cities in China are gradually building second-dimensional consumption landmarks.

The players in the downstream of this industry chain can be roughly divided into three categories: trendy toy chain stores like Miniso that have signed many authorized IPs, cultural companies like Yuewen and Pop Mart that have their own IPs, and many smaller chain stores and individual stores.

The Goods economy originated from the second dimension is reasonable to be developed online. How does its spread offline occur?

The Second Dimension Needs Offline

At first, Fengfeng was just curious about otome games, and the change occurred at the end of 2022. Before that, Fengfeng only regarded "Unresolved Cases" as a casual game and even once wanted to give up because of the increased difficulty of the game. But suddenly, she saw a video about Xia Yan on social media that was edited and spread by fans.

"You finally answered. I thought something happened to you." "You forgot to check your phone during the dinner? Okay, then what did you eat... Did you go with someone you have a good relationship with?" This is the phone call Xia Yan made to the player after getting drunk, which is also the content of the above video.

Fengfeng was moved by this phone call and suddenly felt that Xia Yan was very vivid and had a real existence. In Fengfeng's eyes, Xia Yan is not perfect. "He is the kind of person who gives a lot but retreats in front of his own needs and expectations." "There is a sense of unworthiness." But at the same time, Fengfeng also felt cared for and respected, which is the relationship state she has always pursued.

So far, Fengfeng has almost bought all of Xia Yan's Goods, spending nearly 1,000 yuan. Although it is not a lot, compared to her "freeloading" state in the game, it is already generous. "I want to add some interesting rituals to the dull life to make myself happier."

The check-in spot on Xia Yan's birthday, located on the first floor of Xifanli, Picture source: Taken by the author

Aying is also a second-dimensional enthusiast. Because she is a bit socially anxious, she rarely participates in offline activities, but she also observes that there are many offline behaviors in the group she is in.

In Aying's opinion, some people who want to participate in offline activities want to give a sense of ritual to their favorite characters, like Fengfeng. Another part is that they like to find like-minded people, who can exchange materials or "expand the friend list", or "collect stamps" with cosplayers, which is a behavior of taking pictures and checking in with cosplayers.

Exchanging materials is a very common behavior in the second-dimensional circle. Because the most common category in Goods - badges (that is, pins), are usually sold in blind boxes. Consumers often have their own psychological expectations in the process of drawing blind boxes. If they accidentally draw a character they don't like, the exchange behavior occurs.

In front of some Goods stores, there are often consumers in cosplay costumes setting up stalls on the spot - after finally drawing their favorite characters, they can sell the repeated or disliked Goods and expand the friend list to make friends with like-minded people at the same time.

The second-dimensional groups like Fengfeng and Aying are expanding rapidly. According to CIConsulting's prediction, in 2024, China's core second-dimensional users will reach 120 million, non-core second-dimensional users will reach 380 million, and the pan-second-dimensional group will be about 500 million - more than one-third of China's population.

From Buying Peripherals to Selling Goods

A child who has loved the second dimension since childhood, was influenced by the culture represented by Japanese comics and anime during adolescence, and after earning the first pot of gold in life, opened his own Goods store - this is the experience of many Goods store owners.

DEVIL, the owner of the Shigu Convenience Store in Xifanli, is a typical example. DEVIL was originally an Internet industry practitioner. Out of his love for this industry and seeing the explosion of the Goods economy, he chose to start a business in August this year. "Opening a store is definitely for making money and making myself happy. To put it simply, I want to earn money uprightly."

DEVIL likes the feeling of opening his own store. He can immerse himself in the second-dimensional atmosphere every day. Consumers come to buy things, and because of the same hobby, it is easy to become friends. And the owner of a Goods store, in addition to being familiar with a series of industry jargons such as "badges", "transparent cards", "painless materials", etc., also needs to be able to understand the psychology of consumers, which is directly related to the store's product selection ability.

DEVIL's store once sold a set of "Seaview Goods" - comparing it to the high-priced seaview houses in buildings to describe the sky-high priced Goods. It was a set of "gold-foil square" badges of the Japanese anime "Haikyuu!!", which in the eyes of outsiders are just a few small iron pieces, but finally sold for a high price of more than 10,000 yuan. However, DEVIL also said that the main income of the store is still supported by ordinary Goods, and Seaview Goods are hard to come by.

But when it comes to the real business, it may be another story. How much does it cost to open a Goods store in a business district? Can it really make money?

DEVIL told 36Kr that the major cost of opening a store is rent and goods. The rent of three months as deposit and three months in advance is nearly 100,000 yuan. Because the Shigu Convenience Store mainly sells Japanese Goods (Goods produced in Japan), the cost of goods is even higher than the rent, totaling about 300,000 yuan.

Ms. Liu, the owner of the Dimensional Bookstore on the first floor of Xifanli, also started her business more than a month ago. With rich e-commerce experience, she believes that the current e-commerce platform promotions are normalized and all about low prices. "It's not interesting." Because her store's Goods are not only Japanese Goods and the goods are relatively less, the cost only needs more than 200,000 yuan.

The labor cost of a Goods store is not much. Take the Shigu Convenience Store as an example. In addition to DEVIL himself, the operation of the store can be managed with the help of a part-time employee. In addition, there are two friends living in Japan who help bring goods. These are all the labor costs. The Dimensional Bookstore also has the same staff composition of the owner and a part-time employee. During the peak period of weekend passenger flow, Ms. Liu's husband will also come to help, which easily fills the gap of insufficient staff.

After operating for more than three months, the Shigu Convenience Store has not yet returned to its capital. In DEVIL's expectation, this cycle is one year. In the past few months, the monthly income of the Shigu Convenience Store is between 120,000 and 130,000 yuan, and the gross profit is between 30% and 40%, which is already a good level in the industry. There are also some stores with a gross profit of about 20% - 25%, or even lower.

Earlier, there have been media reports that Goods stores have experienced a wave of closures, and some industry insiders said that more than half of the stores in the country are not profitable.

The Business Strategy in the Trend

Many consumers complain that the product selection of offline Goods stores is too consistent, and there is no difference after visiting several stores. In addition, some consumers make impulsive purchases in the Goods store, but then find the same products online at a cheaper price.

For Goods stores, the consistent product selection is because the number of popular IPs is not many, mainly including "Haikyuu!!", "Jujutsu Kaisen", "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba", "Genshin Impact", "Love and Deep Space", etc. And the product selection around popular IPs is relatively safe and not easy to cause goods to be hoarded. In order to cover the venue and labor costs, the price of physical stores is also difficult to be lower than that of online stores.

According to several practitioners, most of the Goods stores that fell in the trend are opened by people who follow the market trend and quickly join the track. Therefore, these stores often have limited understanding of the industry and are more likely to fall into the above situation.

Aying said that the Goods sold in the offline stores she visited are mainly resident Goods (which can be understood as common Goods of popular IPs) that can be bought on the official website at any time, while second-dimensional enthusiasts usually prefer "limited Goods", and resident Goods are not the best choice.

Jin Ye, the brand operation director of the chain Goods store Migoo, told 36Kr that he and the founder are both entrepreneurs "born from the second dimension" and know better what second-dimensional users want. "So we will not be limited to taking a lot of goods of one type of IP in the product selection. We will constantly look for which IP will be popular in the future and which IP has better sales."

Just like "Harry Potter" is a well-known IP, but if the store chooses to buy 100 Voldemort's Goods to sell, it is likely to cause the goods to be hoarded, but many people do not understand these tricks.

On the first floor of Xifanli, second-dimensional enthusiasts are setting up stalls to sell Goods, Picture source: Taken by the author

Similarly, the Shigu Convenience Store chooses Japanese Goods as the main selling object, not only because there are more and more popular Japanese anime IPs, but also because in the second-dimensional circle, Japanese Goods are generally more recognized than domestic Goods. The price of domestic Goods is usually between 10 and 20 yuan, while the price of Japanese Goods is generally 2 - 3 times higher, and the price can reach 30 - 50 yuan.

Jin Ye and Migoo founder Ma Yimin are both post-95s. Last December, they opened their first store in Tianjin. In about four months, the monthly turnover of Migoo Tianjin store has reached about 300,000 yuan, which has covered the initial cost of about 400,000 yuan, so they began to expand to Beijing.

In May this year, Migoo successfully opened its second store in Beijing, and so far it has expanded to seven - the second-dimensional market and population base in Beijing are much larger than those in Tianjin, and the second-dimensional business format also has a more obvious agglomeration effect.

In addition, among the six stores of Migoo in Beijing, there are three franchise stores. Before communicating with 36Kr, Jin Ye just finished a business invitation call. "When we have enough stores, we have a strong enough channel to make a resource exchange with the upstream IP with the channel resources." Jin Ye said, "It is expected that our stores will open to 15 next year."

But in terms of the large-scale trend of stores, the original players in the track like Migoo still need to face the competition from some trendy toy brands that already have scale advantages, and many manufacturers with IP resources may also join the large-scale expansion path.