Chinanews.com client, Beijing, January 28th (Reporter Xie Yiguan) Blind box, as the name suggests, is to place different products in the same box. Consumers do not know in advance which one is in the box, but there is a certain probability that they can get it. Your favorite product.
This kind of marketing strategy, which is similar to a lottery, can easily stimulate consumers' desire to buy, and has quickly become one of the marketing methods to attract young people to consume.
As businesses from all walks of life find the blind box market profitable, from the initial toys to catering, beauty, stationery, books... "Everything can be blind box" has become a trend.
The Mob Research Institute estimates that the domestic blind box market will exceed the 10 billion mark in 2021 and reach 30 billion yuan in 2024.
Data map: A dazzling array of blind boxes in a certain brand store.
Photo by Xie Yiguan
At present, blind box operators have many marketing methods: through cooperation with celebrities, variety shows, Internet celebrity anchors, etc., they constantly "sense of existence"; through player sharing, discussion, exchange, etc., arouse consumers' collection psychology and show off Psychology; create the concept of "series", and set a "hidden item" that is the most difficult to obtain for hunger marketing, the probability of winning is mostly "one out of a hundred", etc.
“This has prompted many consumers to enjoy the uncertainty and surprises brought about by blind box opening, and irrational consumer behavior.” The China Consumers Association said, especially the young people, because they are curious, like to compare and consume. The concept is not sound, and it is very easy to become "addiction" to blind boxes.
A reporter from Chinanews.com once found that in a 1,000-person blind box exchange QQ group, many members of the group spent thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan on dolls, and many people directly “end the box” in order to win the “hidden money”.
In 2019, an e-commerce platform survey found that every year 200,000 consumers spend more than 20,000 yuan on blind boxes a year, and some consumers even spend millions of dollars a year to buy blind boxes.
However, compared with ordinary products, blind boxes have strong information asymmetry. Consumers can only rely on merchants’ advertising to buy, which is extremely easy to be false by merchants such as exaggerating product value, fictional probability of winning, color and style inconsistency, etc. Misleading by publicity.
"At present, while the blind box economy is developing rapidly, there are mainly problems such as excessive marketing by merchants, suspected false propaganda, inconsistency between the goods and propaganda, and product quality difficult to guarantee." China Consumers Association pointed out.
According to media reports, Bubble Mart has launched a new "Private Gift Package" blind box product in 2019. The advertisement claims to send players a new blind box of the month and a set of postcards of the month for 12 consecutive months.
But in January 2020, consumers received not new products, but old models pre-sold in December 2019, which triggered complaints from consumer groups.
Data map: Xi'an people stopped in front of the blind box unmanned vending machine.
Photo by Zhang Yichen
At the same time, because product quality is difficult to guarantee, fake and inferior, "three-no" products also appear in blind boxes.
After consumers open the blind box, some products may not meet the safety indicators of the relevant national standards; some may be counterfeit products or secondary sales; some do not have the production date, quality certificate, and the manufacturer’s "three no "Products; there are quality defects such as scratches, paint peeling, and stains.
The Consumer Protection Committee of Shanghai Pudong New Area commissioned a professional testing agency to test 10 sets of blind box products of different brands in December 2019, and found that 8 samples have hidden dangers of "small parts", which may cause children to block the respiratory tract and isolate the air. Danger of suffocation caused by circulation.
"Some operators do not have strong competitiveness in their products, and only think about the marketing enthusiasm of blind boxes; some operators also use blind boxes as a tool for'clearing inventory'." In the opinion of the China Consumers Association, if you operate People who rely excessively on blind box marketing gimmicks mislead consumers to buy impulsively, and use some shoddy products to fool consumers, which will quickly consume consumers' trust, and then be spurned by consumers, winning immediate benefits but losing long-term reputation .
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