▌How hot is the furry ‘little guy’?

In recent years, the plush doll market can be described as a pop-up frequently, from strawberry bears to star Dailu, from Sanrio to Ling Na Beier, as well as the new net red lively aubergine, although the brand is different, the shape is different, but the young consumers are willing to pay for it, and even in order to buy dolls, there have been thousands of people in the subzero temperature of the cold winter queuing all night. Therefore, it has been said that plush toys have become the contemporary young people's ‘spiritual sugar’.

Of course, in the plush doll consumer army, in addition to college students, there is also a part of the crowd is a mother. Li Xiaoxia is one of them. Initial contact with these products or when she was pregnant, she was preparing toys for the baby, was attracted by the cute Bonnie Bunny, and since then the enthusiasm to buy it was uncontrollable. Today, she has collected more than ten brands of plush toys. And these toys are cleverly distributed in all corners of the home: small and delicate vegetables, fruits and dessert toys are neatly placed in the living room display cabinet, and the adorable Lina Belle dolls are placed in the bedside ......

On online platforms, the topic of plush toys is also widely spread. In social media such as Xiaohongshu and Jieyin, there are countless topics related to plush dolls, of which the number of views and playbacks of a certain brand alone is as high as 570 million and 660 million respectively. In addition, fans of plush dolls also ‘secondary creation’ of these dolls, making them into a variety of emoticons to use.

from xiaohongshu

Streaming Toy Prices Skyrocket

There is no doubt that plush dolls have now become the top stream in the toy world. Of course, being top of the line, their selling price is extraordinary. Unlike non-branded plush dolls on the market, these branded dolls are no longer sold for a few dollars or tens of dollars. Browsing Taobao shops you can find that most of the branded dolls are now priced between 119 and 1,699 yuan. For example, the smallest size of the classic Bonnie Bunny 13 cm, priced at 99 yuan; the largest size of 108 cm, priced at 1699 yuan. In addition to size, model, colour and other factors will also affect the doll pricing, and the price difference can reach 20 to 40 yuan.

Taking the newly purchased plush dolls, Li Xiaoxiao frankly: ‘These dolls are not cheap, if the second-hand platform to find, almost all of the price increase in the purchase.’ She introduced a 6cm gift box shape plush toy price tag up to 129 yuan, and this is only an entry-level product in the brand dolls. Previously, the official price of 219 yuan Ling Na Beier plush doll was snapped up as soon as it came out, and she purchased it on Idle Fish at a cost of 400 yuan, with the highest selling price on the same platform at the same time of nearly 800 yuan. She was surrounded by several plush dolls ‘enthusiasts’, some time ago in order to get together a series of out-of-print dolls, in the second-hand platform to three times the price of the dolls bought the desired.

Perhaps by the market demand, in addition to the second-hand platform price increases, the brand plush dolls official sales platform has also quietly increased prices. Li Xiaoxia turned out their own purchase records introduced, in 2017, she had 950 yuan price in the overseas flagship shop purchased a 67 cm beige Bonnie rabbit, last year, during the brand promotion season, she intends to buy the same product again, found that even if the use of various types of concessions still need to pay 1024 yuan, this year, the product has been in a state of shortage. Not coincidentally, the reporter found that before a 51 cm doll only 447 yuan, now has risen to 619 yuan. Some netizens said, three years ago to 160 yuan to buy the brand plush doll, now has appreciated to 1299 yuan.

Aiming at small dolls to develop a big industry

In the face of value-added so fast plush dolls, many people predict: ‘the next ten billion trend track or will appear.’ Yangzhou, with the title of ‘China's plush toy gift capital’, how to grasp this opportunity?

Some experts give advice: ‘to aim at small dolls to develop a large industry, must be from the processing to do brand, do standards change.’ In their view, the industry to go far, the brand is the core competitiveness. Yangzhou plush toy industry started in the 1950s, its plush toy exports accounted for the highest share of 95% of the country, and now has become a relatively complete industrial chain of long plush toy manufacturing industry base. Although and many traditional industries, the industry is also facing a gradual shrinkage of market share, the competition between local enterprises is becoming increasingly hot situation, but for the current situation, the enterprises have combined with the current industrial demand for continuous transformation and upgrading. At the same time, Yangzhou has a national toy testing centre, there are 2578 plush toy-related enterprises, covering production, design, e-commerce sales and other industry chain, Yangzhou has the strength and ability to achieve industrial breakthrough.

‘The transformation process is not easy, but there is no need to be pessimistic, just to live in a different way by taking the road of branding, culture and creativity.’ In the view of some experts, the current development of plush doll industry needs to focus on the creation of IP, can be a very high visibility of the international classic IP, can also be widely spread on social networks, ‘Netflix’ IP, only in the creative aspects of the continuous input, to capture young people's curiosity, stress reduction and other psychological needs, play breakthroughs! To break the limitations of the traditional image, so that plush toy products closer to daily life, touching the young people's desire for a better life psychology, can resonate with consumers.

The reporter learnt that, aiming at the plush doll industry, Yangzhou, many e-commerce is through short videos, live and other interaction with netizens, to create a ‘fan co-creation mechanism’, so that the netizen's suggestions become a source of creativity. At present, many enterprises are entering the e-commerce platform, around the harmonic terrier and other IP content to create products, emerged from the YouQiYouPin, Aiside and other businesses. Yangzhou plush dolls are from ‘manufacturing’ to ‘create’ step forward.

Declaration: This article comes from the Jiangsu Economic Daily.If copyright issues are involved, please contact us to delete.