By seizing the rare marketing opportunities created by the Spring Festival and Beijing Winter Olympics, collectible toy suddenly became a niche market. Prior to that, collectible toys, with mystery box and PVC figure being the most representative ones, have become the most sought-after gadgets by young people, and collectible toy sector has also become a form of new economy.
Many collectible toy brands saw rapid development last year, with a great many collectible toy stores being set up at major shopping malls in different cities of China. As a newcomer in the collectible toy sector, TOP TOY was particularly impressive in terms of market sales. However, TOP TOY is ready to take a sensible move, which is to continue to win popularity and navigate the incremental market on top of the market stock.
To navigate the incremental market and boost the sales in the beginning of 2022
According to the official data released by TOP TOY, till February 20, the sale revenues contributed by TOP TOY’s various sale channels had exceeded 100 million yuan, with merchandise stores accounting for 90% of the sales. The sale volume of its champion store reach 250,000 yuan a day, and the number of visiting customers reached 8,000 a day. In terms of product mix, building block became the second most sought-after collectible toy, after mystery box, and over 200 Chinese building block-themed activities had been held in various merchandise stores across the country.
TOP TOY, understanding too well the marked preference of younger generation, seized the rare opportunity created by the Spring Festival and increased its marketing efforts.
It is an indisputable fact that young people have become the main force of the consumer market nowadays. Their diversified consumption attitude and longing for fashionable items have enabled them to add collectible toys into the shopping list for the special purchases for the Spring Festival.
According to the official data released by TOP TOY, the sale volume of TOP TOY stores almost doubled for the period between January 10 when the online Spring Festival shopping festival kicked off and the end of Spring Festival holiday. Many TOP TOY products became the most favorite gifts of young people, in particular the fortune cat series, an originally designed product by TOP TOY, was the no.1 selling item among all TOP TOY stores during the Spring Festival.
Mr. Sun Yuanwen, founder and CEO of TOP TOY said, “Fortune cat series immediately gained popularity when they were launched, and were particularly appealing for the auspicious occasions such as the Spring Festival. Many young people loved to choose them as gifts”.
The sale volume contributed by merchandise stores at third- and fourth-tier cities was unexpectedly high, and according to Sun Yuanwen, it was because TOP TOY had adopted a store distribution strategy that did not have any partiality for first-tiered cities. “During the Spring Festival, some people stayed where they were or returned back to their hometowns. TOP TOY set up merchandise stores in many cities, regardless of first-tiered cities or fourth-tiered cities, thus allowing consumers to purchase their favorite collectible toys anywhere anytime”.
Apart from satisfying the consumption demands by those collectible toy lovers, TOP TOY has taken active measures to increase its exposure by greater audiences of different ages or with different consumption circles, for example, its partnership with e-sport, a pop culture that is fondly loved by young people.
Prior to this year’s Spring Festival, in collaboration with EDG, a leading e-sport club in China, TOP TOY released its Umasou x EDG, which immediately created a sensation among collectible toy fans and e-sport fans alike. On the first day of its release, the media exposure exceeded 100 million page views, the purchase in advance was much better than the previous expectation, and all 1000% Umasou x EDG products were sold out within 48 hours.
“We are very optimistic about the future of e-sport. E-sport and collectible toy work perfectly well with each other. The partnership with EDG is a strategic move taken by TOP TOY to enter the e-sport market. We want to create a circle culture that can effectively resonate with our customers, thus facilitate the mutual recognition between young people and our brand”, added by Sun Yuanwen. In the near future TOP TOY would intensify its cooperation with EDG, particularly in the co-creation of product, content and culture.
China's New Year holiday period is traditionally considered to be best time for the release of big budget Chinese movies. Having noticed such a phenomenon, TOP TOY reached a cooperation agreement with the distributor of “Only Fools Runs In”, a movie to be released during this year’s Spring Festival, and two of its IPs, namely Umasou and Fortunate Cat, were applied to produce limited edition of PVC figures, which were immediately sold out.
In recent years blockbuster movies released during the Spring Festival had showed sign of Siphon effect. The linkage between a collectible toy brand and a particular blockbuster movie proves to be a win-win marketing solution, capable of enhancing the brand recognition of two parties. In addition, the joint product launched this time was designed to address the needs of young people, for example, fortune cat-themed collectible toys were introduced to accompany the movie “Only Fools Runs In” and helped create an auspicious atmosphere during the Spring Festival.
Behind these joint marketing efforts are TOP TOY’s quest for continuous improvement. By making full use of various fashionable elements and re-defining the consumption scenarios of collectible toys, TOP TOY is able to increase the scope of collectible toy consumers.
To open more merchandise stores
The partnership with blockbuster movies released during the Spring Festival helped TOP TOY improve its sales at the beginning of the year 2022. For a young brand with only one year’s history, TOP TOY has accumulated many tested experiences in its rapid development.
Customer experience is the fountainhead of value creation for the retail industry, and it is particularly so for the collectible toy sector. TOP TOY’s approach is to navigate new consumption scenarios and offer the best possible customer experiences with merchandise store as the main venue.
Till December 31, 2021, the number of TOP TOY merchandise stores had exceeded 90, including over a dozen DreamWorks stores and over 100 unmanned retail stores among 100 business circles in China.
With Guangdong as its base camp, TOP TOY has opened merchandise stores in over 100 business circles in first- and second-tiered cities, as well as Lanzhou, Yinchuan, Urumchi, Hohhot and other major cities in China. With the merchandise stores being set up in more and more cities in China, TOP TOY is able to access a growing number of potential customers exponentially.
Sun Yuanwen acknowledged that the collectible toy sector was relatively sluggish since the second half of last year due to the adverse factors caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and macroeconomic policies; however TOP TOY would continue its merchandise store expansion plan this year, “We will further adjust our merchandise store expansion plan from time to time based on the latest epidemic prevention and control policies, and will take active measures to make adequate preparations in terms of talent reserve and resource accumulation and promptly open new stores when epidemic prevention and control policies have been eased”.
It is an established norm for the consumer market to keep having younger consumers, and therefore it is inevitable for any commercial project to face the challenge posed by the younger consumers. Unable to resist the lure of the huge market potential and massive passenger flow of collectible toy customers, shopping malls are all willing to allocate special space for shopping items that are fondly loved by young people.
A collectible toy shop, incorporating the functions of exhibition, entertainment and shopping, has become an important growth engine for the shopping mall; while a prestigious TOP TOY store naturally has a greater say in its business model design.
move that proves to work effectively in attracting a larger number of visiting customers and facilitating customers to come to a re-purchase decision. TOP TOY store at GrandvTOP TOY has decided to allocate at least one third of the store space for exhibition, a iew Mall is a perfect example. Its sale volume keeps reaching record high in the past one year, and more importantly at least 30% of its customers are returned ones.
With the ever improving satisfaction rate of consumers' material needs, most businesses agree that it is of great importance to expand consumers’ life experiences through creative scenario setting, for example, IP-themed flash mob and commercial art display are now used frequently.
By taking advantage of its dozen of independent IPs TOP TOY has organized many commercial art display exhibitions, helping shopping malls to increase customer flow and facilitating customers to come to a re-purchase decision. For example, TOP TOY installed BUZZ and Twinkle-themed giant sculptures respectively at its merchandise store at Ins.Park of Hangzhou and Grandview Mall of Guangzhou. These sculptures became new scenic attractions for the business circles and injected new consumption volatility to their respective shopping malls.
In an effort to attract the visits by young customers, shopping malls are required not only to occupy consumers’ shopping time, but also provide them with social space to engage in diversified entertainment activities.
TOP TOY is particularly strong in this area. By giving full play to its brand resources, TOP TOY frequently carries out offline launches of new products, designer signing and other activities, or staged theme activities at major marketing occasions, such as Double 11, Valentine's Day, so as to create high-quality consumer interaction to both TOP TOY and shopping malls.
As Sun Yuanwen once put it in regard to the TOP TOY-shopping mall partnership, TOP TOY is more than a shop owner, but a whole-chain partner of shopping malls. Through store opening, commercial art display authorization, artist signing activities, TOP TOY can help shopping malls achieve consumption conversion rate improvement with better quality and more accurate traffic. Its past performances have also proved to the public that TOP TOY has such capabilities.
To Sun Yuanwen, sale volume is not the most important KPI to evaluate a TOP TOY store’s performance. The most important task for a TOP TOY store is to create customer value. A store is a venue where customers access quality products and services, as well as a traffic entrance to accommodate customers.
By catering to customer needs, TOP TOY has established three types of offline stores, namely DreamWorks shop, Trendy Collections ship and robotic convenience store, with every tiny detail of the store being thoroughly considered, and a “Wow Moment” program is introduced to create the best possible customer experience beyond expectation.
TOP TOY also values highly of the cultivation of online marketing ability. Through community marketing and membership system building, TOP TOY has integrated the online and offline channels and achieved user acquisition and retention. As for online channel, TOP TOY has built a high-quality content ecology and a complete trading system.
In terms of content creation, TOP TOY has launched many live streaming and short video programs at its WeChat video channel, which are very popular among users. TOP TOY launched a live streaming event to cover last year WF exhibition, with the number of online viewers exceeding 200,000 during peak hours, and many of these viewers later became the active members of TOP TOY’s private domain user community. As of now the number of loyal fans of TOP TOY has exceeded 3 million.
To stick to the original aspiration and follow a path that is suitable for the collectible toy sector of China
Different from other collectible toy brands with mystery boxes as their main products, TOP TOY is positioned to become a “global trendy collections” service provider. With the introduction of a “9+X” product model, TOP TOY succeeds in realizing the all-in-one customer integration, rejecting the stereotype of collectible toys being a hobby enjoyed by small crowd.
The product is the brand foundation, and the IP is the core and driving force of any collectible toy brand. As of now, TOP TOY has developed many independent IPs, such as Twinkle, Tammy and YOYO, signed contracts with many leading artists, including Li Wei&Liu Zhiyin, two famous sculptors in China, Kow Yokoyama, a Japanese illustrator and modeler, Philip Colbert, a key figure of new pop art from UK, and cultivated many promising designers internally, such as Dingding and Bai Xiaohu.
By leveraging all available IP resources and as a collectible toy brand having the integrative competence of IP incubation and supply chain management at the same time, TOP TOY becomes the unexpected winner in the collectible toy market in China. This year, TOP TOY will try to maintain the stability of the creation cycle, continuously cultivate new products, and use IPs to strengthen brand recognition, and develop more collectible toys that suit aesthetic taste of Chinese consumers.
Sun Yuanwen said, “TOP TOY will frequently interact with young people, motivate them to engage in collectible toy related activities and promote collectible toy culture to greater audiences”. Sun also confirms that TOP TOY will seek more crossover cooperation opportunities in areas such as sports, entertainment and science and technology, so as to promote new incremental growth and add new vitality to the collectible toy sector of China.
It is worth mentioning that amid the rising popularity of collectible toys in China, TOP TOY has succeeded in finding a niche in the collectible toy market, which is Chinese building block. Sun Yuanwen also predicts that the year 2022 will become the first year of golden development of Chinese building block.
In collaboration with many Chinese building block brands, TOP TOY initiated the very first Chinese building block festival during the mid-autumn festival in 2021; and after that TOP TOY took many effective measures to promote the power of influence of Chinese building block in an interactive environment, including the establishment of over 20 Chinese building block merchandise stores across China, designated areas of Chinese building block within TOP TOY stores, and the launch of Chinese building block assembling classroom program.
TOP TOY will continue its marketing efforts on Chinese building block this year, so that Chinese building block can become a carrier to tell Chinese stories and spread the Chinese culture. Sun Yuanwen said, “We will release over 100 sets of 7 series of innovatively designed Chinese building block products this year; we will promote our building block classroom program at both online and offline customer communities, so as to raise public awareness on Chinese building block; as for sale channel, we will set up a building block-themed Tmall flagship store, and apply the use of a uniformed Chinese building block logo in all our merchandise stores”.
TOP TOY attaches great importance to Chinese building block, viewing it as a second best-selling item after the mystery box. Sun Yuanwen was unabashed to reveal his ambition, “Just like people will instantly think of Coca-Cola after seeing the color red; when people seeing the Chinese building block, I want them to think of TOP TOY and the brand value of TOP TOY”.
Collectible toys meet the personalized needs of generation Z, follow the new development trend and naturally are popularly accepted by the market. The future of collectible toys depends largely on collectible toy brands’ ability in satisfying consumer demand and delivery of quality products.
TOP TOY has a very distinct brand value and is capable of producing high-quality products to win the hearts of customers from the generation Z.
The future success of TOP TOY is yet to be told.
