This year’s 618 online shopping festival turns out to be a stress test for all participating businesses, as the old clever tricks of selling lose their magic and cut-throat competition becomes commonplace. Pure luck is never meant to be the only winning attribute for those surviving players.
There were laughter and tears when the sales statistics of designer toys for this year’s 618 online shopping festival were unveiled. Many prestigious brands, such as POP MART, Finding Unicorn and Mihoyo, continued to maintain their overwhelming superiority in the top selling list; however some other brands vanished as soon as they appeared.
One brand is particularly eye-catching, that is TOP TOY, a brand that participated in the 618 online shopping festival first time and immediately became one of the top 10 selling brands.
Is collectible toy or designer toy a lucrative business?
The answer is a definite Yes. According to a latest research report by CITIC Securities, the market size of collectible toy is expected to reach 50 billion yuan in China in 2022.
However, it is never easy for any collectible toy brand to make the breakthrough from 0 to 1, and the challenge is never as simple as making toys.
The collectible toy sector has two essential cores.
Firstly the product itself must be of high commercial value, the value that is shared by both original IPs and classic IPs and can win the hearts of customers and encourage them to grow an irresistible urge to collect these products. The reality is so cruel, as winner takes all. The IPs that fail will never be given a second chance, and therefore all players must strike to win.
Secondly the brand must possess an Omni-channel distribution ability, regardless of online content production and off-line event staging. The brand must know how to cultivate customer loyalty and allow its products to be collected by devoted fans. Customer loyalty is the very magic trick, and an Omni-channel distribution ability will help grow customer loyalty.
The secrets behind TOP TOY’s success in this year’s 618 online shopping festival is largely due to these two factors.
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Product development ability is of utmost importance.
It was the first time for TOP TOY to participate in this year’s 618 online shopping festival, and to the surprise of many, its sales figure was at the forefront of the top selling list of all collectible toy brands.
TOP TOY has an overwhelming advantage: its products are so much fun to play with.
Consumers express their support to TOP TOY through their purchase decisions. It is not that young people nowadays are particularly fond of toys, but toys become so much fun to play with due to the introduction of a benign competition.
In other words, similar to the widespread popularity of any new consumer products, collectible toys succeed in responding to new market demand through the old supply system. In an effort to satisfy consumers’ new demand for toy products, any toy brand must process an exceptional product development ability, which is the concrete manifestation of the upgrading of China’s consumer goods industry and surely will usher in a golden era of China’s original IPs.
How great is TOP TOY’s product development ability? TOP TOY is particularly strong in designing hot-sale products that are extensively discussed by loyal fans.
Prior to this year’s 618 online shopping festival, TOP TOY officially announced that it had partnered with Yue Hua Entertainment and would launch a Hua series of mystery boxes, containing collectible toy figures of celebrity entertainers from Yue Hua Entertainment.
Apart from leveraging the power of influence of entertainment celebrities and adding entertainment value into the collectible toys sector, TOP TOY launched a reverse marketing campaign: Du Hua, the most popular celebrity from Yue Hua Entertainment, was made into an item within the mystery box with the lowest presence probability. Such a bold move immediately aroused the avid interest among celebrity fan clubs and collectible toy fans. TOP TOY became a trending topic of Sina Weibo three times in two days, with number of page view reaching 300 million and a discussion volume of more than 100,000.
Intimate knowledge of user preference and remarkable original IPs-based product design capacity, the combination of these two enables TOP TOY to stand out from the crowd.
During this year's Spring Festival, TOP TOY’s originally designed fortune cat series instantly became hot-sale products, with the sales volume ranking the first among all collectible toys in all selling channels. These fortune cats became something of a novelty during the auspicious Spring Festival, and their massive sales were aligned with young collectible toy fans’ aspiration for a better life.
During this year’s 618 online shopping festival, a total of 21 TOP TOY products were launched, including 12 types of building block and 9 types of mystery boxes and large-sized products. The sales of exclusive products and new products were extremely impressive, accounting for 71% of the total sale volume. Some exclusive products, such as Hua Hua World mystery boxes, Sanrio Family snacks planet mystery boxes, Sanrio Family strawberry park mystery boxes, Sanrio Family flower and bakery mystery boxes, were also sold well in the market, with the combination of the top 5 selling items accounting for 50% of the online GMV.
The sale of building block products is equally impressive, accounting for 11% of the total sale. TOP TOY has identified building block as a strategic product for the year 2022. According to Sun Yuanwen, founder and CEO of TOP TOY, the year 2022 will mark the first year of Chinese building block.
TOP TOY has launched a series of China-themed originally designed building block this year, for example, the series of vintage, printmaking and cities, and TOP TOY even set up its first Chinese building block-themed Tmall flagship store on April 15 this year.
Sun Yuanwen’s remark on building block products really hit the bull’s eye. He said, “What the customers in need are not inexpensive building block, but building block with bland value”.
It is known that, by adopting “Chinese building block” as the underlying structure, TOP TOY will carry out multi-dimensional product development this year that involves Chinese aerospace, Chinese style, fun collectible toys, urban streetscape, high-tech toy cars, and green plants and flowers, so as to create new value for players by leveraging intimate customer knowledge and quality product development ability.
Comment by the author: Not only collectible toy sector, but all other sectors within the new consumption era are having this unique characteristic. It is essential to have original contents at the bottom, integrate all available resources in and out of a specific sector, and allow quality product to become accessible to greater audiences from different circles.
In this era, there is no functional products anymore in the absolute sense, and old products need to be re-designed by new consumption ideas and methods. The definition of a good product has many essential dimensions other than functional upgrade, for example, connotation upgrade and value upgrade.
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2.Omni-channel distribution network: sale volume of online platform sees a year-on-year increase of 294%, and transaction volume of an off-line store exceeds 10 million yuan
By leveraging its originality and know-how of creating commercial value, TOP TOY succeeds in producing high-quality products; however, as for market penetration, TOP TOY has to rely on its Omni-channel distribution network to boost sales and realize its vision of “allowing young players to have fun”.
The so called Omni-channel distribution network is referred to a closed loop formed by both online and off-line selling platforms, as well as both public domain and private domain. Another attribute of Omni-channel distribution network is to respect “content is king”. The combination of original content with Omni-channel distribution network will help build a branding flywheel.
The massive sale of TOP TOY products during this year’s 618 online shopping festival is largely due to its Omni-channel distribution network. Take a look at the online sale first, the sale volume of TOP TOY products at online platform sees an increase of 294% compared to that during last year’s double-11 online shopping festival, while its sale at Tmall sees a rise of 326% year on year.
What are the engines behind TOP TOY’s rapid growth?
Firstly it is TOP TOY’s Omni-channel communication ability. Through the combined use of multi-dimensional and multi-platform simultaneous promotion, circle marketing and User Generated Content (UGC) solicitation, TOP TOY succeeded in becoming a trending topic of Sina Weibo six times a week, with the number of page view exceeding 630 million.
Secondly it is TOP TOY’s ability in unlocking the live-streaming potential of showbiz celebrities. During this year’s 618 online shopping festival, TOP TOY adopted the mode of “content+product launch+celebrity”, and accomplished singer Su Xing was invited to make his presence at the live streaming studio and explicitly endorse the TOP TOY brand.
And the last step is to increase traffic from both public domain private domain to form a close loop, and give full play to the community marketing and membership system. By leveraging its exclusive IP resources in the public domain and fan club, TOP TOY first encourages its fan to join its IP-based interest groups, and then activates existing old customers to engage in purchase, content co-creation, information sharing and other communication-related activities, so as to attract new customers. It is estimated that during this year’s 618 online shopping festival the media exposure of TOP TOY within private domain had exceeded 24 million page views, and the sale volume in private domain saw a year-on-year increase of 275%, which guaranteed the massive sales of TOP TOY products during the year’s 618 online shopping festival.
In other words, TOP TOY has succeeded in creating an online-channel close loop from public domain to private domain and back to public domain again, as well as a low-cost content creation eco-system, thus allowing TOP TOY to reap this round of industrial dividend. However, it is only the beginning; the methodology is ready, but continuous efforts are needed to ensure greater success.
The first step of this closed loop is to create a vibrant community and a membership system, allowing a brand to have a first-hand user base with in the private domain. With the availability of this reliable self-owned sale channel, TOP TOY is able to launch a new collectible toy product in a “cold boot” manner anytime.
The second step of close-loop building is the introduction of an integrated approach featuring content creation, product launch and celebrity endorsement. A new product will be launched at a precise platform, coupled with live streaming of celebrities, and as a result TOP TOY is able to increase traffic significantly and keep building on its practical expertise.
The third step of close-loop building is the establishment of an offline retail system, as offline stores are the very base camp of TOP TOY. During previous “Chinese Building Block Festival” and “Children’s Day Collectible Toy Festival”, the sale volume of TOP TOY’s offline stores reached a record high. For example, the sale revenue of TOP TOY offline stores exceeded 10 million yuan on the first day of Children’s Day Festival. Its store at Po Park launched a sale promotion, with t Collectible Toy he customer queening time exceeding 12 hours.
As a collectible toy brand, TOP TOY is indeed a brilliant player.
Comment by the author: Collectible toy sector has a very distinct attribute of being playful, and most people therefore have a mistaken assumption that owners of collectible toy shops must be fun-loving. In fact, any brands with young people as their target audience must be fun-loving.
Being fun-loving is more than having the ability to stage events and increase online traffic, these are merely practical techniques; however when taking a closer look, the essence of being fun-loving is the ability to make use of all available resources, that is the Omni-channel distribution ability.
An entrepreneur is a consumer at the same time. The binary opposition between supply and demand is no longer necessary, instead, both supply side and demand side should be treated as an integrated entity and interact with each other at a level playing field, and only by doing so can a clear insight to the much needed contents and methods be gained.
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Collectible toy is a lucrative business.
Toys are innate cultural projections of human beings, and it is never a new phenomenon for young people to fall in love with toys. However the collectible toy sector does have new wings in the digital era.
From the perspective of industrial attribute, collectible toys are products with the contradictory rigid demand in the digital era. On the one hand, collectible toys are not mass consumer products; on the other hand, they are products with rigid demand, as young consumers are always in the hunt for innovative and fun-loving products. Affected by the information dissemination in the digital era and the popular culture, it is natural for leading enterprises of collectible toy sector to satisfy a significant portion of market demand.
It is worth mentioning that collectible toy is not a sector that a winner takes all, but an inclusive sector, and any collectible toy brand can achieve rapid growth when an opportunity has been seized.
TOP TOY has indeed grasped a rare development opportunity. By focusing its energy on improvement of product quality and giving full play to the complementarity of various sale channels, TOP TOY succeeds in mapping out a dual-growth strategy that highlights content creation and user relation. As a result, TOP TOY manages to meet the diversified demands on collectible toys by young users.
Through continuous product innovation and gaming innovation, top brands are able to bring happiness to customers. This is perhaps one of the core values cherished by any top brand, which enables them to secure a firm foothold amid cutting-throat competitions.
