Beijing News reporter Li Menghan intern Zou Zhenzhen Lin Jingyi editor Yue Caizhou
In a stationery store in a school district on Beijing's Second Ring Road, Ding Ding, a little boy in the second grade, was alone picking out today's blind box cards.
He chose three packs of 20-yuan card packs, then took two 10-yuan card packs, and then threw a hundred-yuan bill directly to the cashier of the stationery store without raising his head.
After settlement, Tintin unpacks, sorts cards, removes duplicates, and organizes rare cards in one go.
The result of the first card draw did not satisfy Tintin. He told reporters that he planned to use all the remaining 40 yuan in his pocket to continue to buy blind card boxes.
Going to the blind box card package sales area again, Ding Ding pocketed all the 10 yuan card packages on the shelf for today's second wave of card draws.
After spending all his pocket money, Tintin proudly showed reporters today's loot -- 14 "good cards".
In order to draw these cards, Tintin spent a total of 120 yuan today.
The remaining "Puka" was abandoned by Tintin in the trash can of the stationery store.
The owner of the stationery store told reporters that Ding Ding is an "old customer" in the store. He frequented it when he was in school. He would come here at least twice a week during the summer vacation. Recently, when the school is about to start, he will come to draw a card every day, and the amount is fixed at about 100 yuan.
"School is about to start, and the little boy is a little bit competitive," the stationery store owner explained to reporters why Tintin was addicted to drawing cards.
The reporter noticed that in the blind box card sales area of the stationery store, there was a poster of the "Sunshine Convention", the third line of which read "Customers under the age of 8 must be accompanied by a guardian when purchasing card game products in the store. conduct".
Ding Ding told reporters that he was 7 years old and just entered the second grade of primary school.
On August 16, the State Administration for Market Regulation publicly solicited opinions on the "Guidelines for the Standardization of Blind Box Business Activities (Trial) (Draft for Comment)", which stipulates that blind box operators shall not sell blind boxes to minors under the age of 8.
For sales of blind box products to minors aged 8 and above, the consent of the relevant guardian should be confirmed through on-site inquiry or online identification.
The draft also emphasizes that relevant local departments are encouraged to introduce protective measures to specifically regulate the sales model of blind boxes around primary school campuses, including distance and content.
In June of this year, the Zhejiang Provincial Market Supervision Bureau and the Provincial Consumer Protection Committee jointly released the "Analysis Report on the Top Ten Behaviors Harming the Rights and Interests of Minors". The "Report" lists the top ten behaviors that endanger the rights and interests of minors. Adult over-consumption tops the list.
However, with the arrival of the school season, blind boxes for children and teenagers around the school have made a comeback.
The Beijing News Shell Finance reporter found that some stationery and toy blind boxes on the market are expensive, and the profit of the products is much higher than that of ordinary stationery and toys; when businesses sell blind box products, there is a phenomenon of deliberately enticing minors to consume irrationally; in addition , Some three-free stationery blind boxes and pornographic stationery blind boxes are still circulating on the market.
Blind box "captured" stationery store,
Blind box products sell for thousands of yuan
The traditional stationery store seems to have turned into a blind box store, and buying stationery has gradually become an adventure similar to the above-mentioned card drawing game.
At the entrance of the Chenguang store in Beijing Bairong World Trade Center, a publicity board for the opening of the school season is particularly conspicuous.
The propaganda board reads the hottest products in the store. Among them, the "National Tide Blind Bag" and "Explosive Blind Bag Pen" are located in the most conspicuous positions of the propaganda board.
Walking into the store, three rows of shelves are filled with blind box stationery products, and the shelves are located in the center of the stationery store, next to the cashier.
The ordinary stationery is distributed on both sides of the stationery store.
At this time, it was on the eve of the school year, and there was an endless stream of students and customers who came to buy stationery. Miaomiao, a little girl who was about to start the third grade, was one of them.
Miaomiao holds a green blind box in her hand, and is concentrating on choosing the second blind box stationery.
Although Miaomiao's father tried to take his daughter away many times on the grounds of "fancy packaging and no use", he was still unable to resist the child's coquettish offensive.
Miaomiao told reporters that the blind box pen she was picking had an image of a little girl who would blow bubbles with her eyes closed. ..." Miaomiao gushed about the "benefits" of this blind box pen to reporters.
The reporter found that the blind box pen that Miaomiao chose was named "Lin Shenzhishi". 7 yuan each.
The other green blind box is the same IP, but in addition to the gel pen, each blind box also includes a laser collection card and a sticker - these stickers are also the favorites of Miaomiao and other children. In my eyes, limited-edition stickers are more precious than pens.
In fact, in the blind box area, the price of a pen of 7 yuan is not expensive.
The reporter observed and found that there are many blind box pens priced at about 10 yuan in the store - a "Famous Painting Series" straight liquid roller ball pen is priced at 9 yuan each, and a panda academy press neutral pen is sold. The price is 9.5 yuan each, and the price of another Ari Flower Night Walk series is 10.5 yuan each.
In addition to gel pens, all kinds of stationery blind bags are also products that appear more frequently in the stationery blind box area. A pack of lucky bags includes four random small stationery, and the price ranges from 12.5 yuan to 20 yuan.
In addition, blind box erasers and blind box figures also appear in the stationery blind box area. A penguin-shaped blind box eraser is priced at 36 yuan each, and a Paulina girl magic dessert house figure is priced at 65 yuan each. indivual.
In the stationery blind box area of the store, words such as "limited", "random", "collected", "hidden" and "exclusive first release" are prominently placed beside the blind box products.
In the queuing area at the checkout counter, there are also two blind boxes of lucky bags listed in the special area for customers to choose.
Behind the transformation of the stationery store, the company that supplies it has also changed its course.
In the semi-annual report just released by the stationery leader Chenguang, Chenguang said: Domestic stationery consumption is showing the trend of branding, creativity, personalization and high-end, and the demand for high-quality cultural and creative products is further highlighted, which promotes the transformation from stationery to cultural and creative life. Upgrading and transformation.
As early as four years ago, Chenguang launched Chenguang Life Museum and Jiumu Sundries Club, two themed retail stores focusing on trendy toys and cultural and creative stationery. As of the end of June 2021, Jiumu Sundries Club has a total of 403, and 60 Chenguang Life Museums.
Not only in the Chenguang store, but in the three large stationery stores visited by the reporter in Bairong World Trade Center, the blind box products occupy almost half of the store. Box hand account lucky bag, blind box star lucky bag have everything, the price ranges from four or five yuan to hundreds of yuan per box.
More and more stationery and toys in stationery stores are being sold in the form of blind boxes, and the overall stationery is also showing a trend of toyization. Even in some stationery stores, more and more blind toy boxes have begun to emerge.
It is worth noting that there is no shortage of expensive products in these blind boxes.
In the Chentong Stationery Wholesale Store, the reporter noticed that a small box black diamond version of the Ultraman card blind box is priced at 100 yuan per box, and another slightly larger rectangular blind box is priced at 358 yuan.
In the stationery store where Tintin bought blind boxes, the store owner told reporters that the most expensive Ultraman card blind box in the store sells for thousands of yuan, but there are still some consumers who are willing to buy products, and they need to replenish regularly. .
At the final checkout, Miaomiao bought a total of two blind box pens and a bag of blind box lucky bags, and took out a total of 17 pens.
During the summer vacation this year, Tintin bought an Ultraman card blind box twice a week on average. In the weeks approaching the start of school, Tintin visited the stationery store almost every day, and each time he spent about 100 yuan.
Zhang Jing, an associate professor of child developmental psychology at the School of Psychology of Jiangxi Normal University, interprets the popular reasons for the popularity of stationery and toy blind boxes among minors from the perspective of children's psychology.
Zhang Jing believes that, first, the blind box fits the characteristics of minors' pursuit of freshness and strong curiosity, and the uncertain factors behind the blind box will strongly attract children; Behind the behavior is the pursuit of social identity. In the process of unboxing and blind box exchange, children establish groups with interests as their circles, forming small interest circles, such as pocket circles, etc. Finally, compared with In previous generations, today's minors have become more "self" due to factors such as educational concepts and era backgrounds, that is, they are more concerned about their own feelings and pay attention to their own needs. Happiness is their core need.
Zhang Jing said that blindly banning minors from buying blind boxes will not fundamentally solve the problem of addiction. Adults can better help children get out of the predicament only by first understanding their children's psychological needs.
In response to the phenomenon of minors indulging in blind boxes, Sun Hongyan, director of the Children's Research Institute of China Youth Research Center, put forward several suggestions from the aspects of family and school education: First, parents and teachers should fully understand the psychological needs of children.
Behind the addiction to blind boxes is likely that some psychological needs of children in daily life have not been met. For example, children with withdrawn personality lack friends. Collecting blind boxes and rare cards can give them a certain sense of satisfaction and achievement; left-behind children Lack of parental love and maternal love, indulging in blind boxes can help relieve loneliness and so on.
Secondly, parents can make efforts in their children's daily life to enrich their children's leisure life, such as guiding their children to do housework, accompany their children to play, increase their children's reading, and cook with their children.
"Our research found that most children who are not rich in leisure life and lack companionship will indulge in certain hobbies, such as online games. This is a reflection of children's self-protection, and they always want to have some fun and immerse themselves in it."
Finally, it is necessary to cultivate good habits in children, especially the cultivation of self-control.
It is very important to do more self-control training when children are young.
Rare models in blind boxes have gradually become social "hard currency",
Business-to-child precision marketing
Talking about the blind boxes sold around the school, Zeze's first reaction when he was in the fifth grade of elementary school was Xinxin, his friend who was extremely envious of him when he was in the third grade.
In the third grade, the Ultraman card blind box spread like a plague among the boys in the lower grades. The rare card became the most popular toy among the little boys for a while, and it was also the hard currency in circulation among the boys, which could almost be exchanged. all other toys.
And Xin Xin, who holds a large number of rare cards, has naturally become the "King of Children" that boys are eagerly pursuing.
When school is over, a large group of boys in the class will follow Xin Xin to the stationery store in front of the school to observe Xin Xin's card drawing process.
"A group of classmates surround Xinxin, and when they draw a rare card, Xinxin will hold the card high so that everyone can see it." At this time, Zeze's eyes were always shining, and he was scrambling to get the closest. Xinxin's location, check the content of each card Xinxin draws.
However, due to the small pocket money, Zeze can only get the reward from his mother when he scores well in the test, and experience Xinxin's "King of Children" feeling once again.
In the eyes of these little boys, drawing a rare card not only means that they can get the envy of their classmates, but the rarity of the card itself seems to mean that they can invest more money in a new round of card drawing games.
Xiaohu, a boy in the sixth grade of primary school, told reporters that the boss of the stationery store near his school would recycle rare cards at a high price, and a card he had drawn was recycled by the boss at a high price of 50 yuan.
In this way, in the repeated card drawing game, Xiaohu firmly believes that the blind box cards he bought are not useless, and the card drawing game is a profitable business.
However, Xiaohu's mother told reporters that in the years when Xiaohu was most obsessed with card drawing games, the money the child earned from selling cards was far from the money spent on drawing cards.
Another parent, Ms. Mao, also told reporters that her son has been addicted to the Ultraman card drawing game since he was 5 years old. Every time he goes out, his child will ask to buy a card. , "The Ultraman draw cards at home can be piled up into mountains."
At the same time, in the sales of other blind boxes of stationery, the marketing methods of the merchants are not inferior.
In the stationery stores near the primary and secondary schools in Beijing visited by the reporter, sales slogans such as buy 6 get 1 free for blind box pens, collect all styles and then give a blind box pen will appear in the stationery store from time to time.
When the reporter consulted a Yiwu stationery manufacturer as a purchaser, the other party told the reporter: "There are no products that can't be sold, only businesses who can't use their brains."
The businessman took a werewolf killing blind box pen sold in his store as an example, and taught reporters marketing skills: "A set of pens includes a commoner, a werewolf, a witch, and a total of nine characters, and each pen is accompanied by an identity card. You can mark it in the store as 'get a box for free if you collect all nine styles, it is very possible to take out the hidden character', children will be curious about this hidden style, desperately collect styles, and even exchange with classmates, pulling classmates to come together Buying, isn’t this business going to continue? You can also tell them that there are exquisite ID cards inside, and everyone can use the cards to play werewolf killing games and so on.”
Among the several blind box pens sold by the merchant, the largest one has 12 different characters. Taking the retail price of each 10 yuan as an example, a child needs at least 120 yuan to collect all the characters.
However, due to the lack of relevant laws and regulations, it is difficult to characterize and regulate this kind of marketing behavior of merchants.
Xiong Bingqi, president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, believes that before the emergence of relevant guidelines and policies for blind boxes, the marketing behavior of businesses for blind box products such as blind box stationery is a normal market behavior. "As long as the price is clearly marked, it is appropriate", but considering When the minds of minors are not yet mature, blind box cards, blind box stationery, etc. themselves have a gambling nature. When children buy blind boxes, it is easy to have a gambling mentality, and then indulge in them.
Liu Junhai, a professor at the Law School of Renmin University of China, said that it is immoral for a stationery store to guide minors to consume irrationally, and it has not shouldered the social responsibility of adults to protect minors.
According to relevant laws and regulations on the protection of minors, minors under the age of 8 are persons with absolutely no capacity for civil conduct, and minors over the age of 8 are persons with limited capacity for civil conduct. Agent agrees or ratifies.
There are three non-products flooding in the blind box,
The price of ordinary stationery sets with blind boxes has skyrocketed several times
Under the packaging of a number of exquisite shells, the specific appearance of the products in the stationery blind box is unknown. According to the reporter's interview, some children even spent more than 90 yuan to buy the blind box online. It was found that the value of the products in the blind box was much lower than the selling price. .
In addition to buying at a disadvantage and being fooled, the products in some stationery blind boxes may also have certain safety hazards themselves.
In the Chentong stationery wholesale store on the fourth floor of Bairong Mall, the reporter visited and found that some stationery blind boxes in the store did not have product implementation standards, manufacturers, factory locations, materials and other relevant signs, such as a product called "Xingdailu". The outer packaging of the blind box lucky bag has no other information except the cartoon character, product name, model and product barcode.
In addition to the blind box lucky bag, the phenomenon of three non-products frequently appearing in the blind box pen is more serious.
The Beijing News Shell Finance reporter visited the stationery area on the 5th floor of Beijing Souxiu shopping mall and found that there are a wide variety of blind box pens in major stores, including many anime IPs that children are familiar with, such as Conan, Pikachu, One Piece, Sanrio Yuguigou Wait.
In a small stationery store, the reporter randomly selected a Pikachu blind box pen. After careful inspection, it was found that there was no product implementation standard, manufacturer, factory address and other relevant information on the outer packaging of the blind box; in another one printed with Ultraman The reporter also did not find the relevant logo on the outer packaging of the blind box pen with the pattern and a blind box pen with a pink rabbit pattern.
These three-free stationery blind boxes may also involve infringement issues.
Some merchants also said that because of infringement issues, there are very few manufacturers of Pikachu blind box pens now.
The newly revised "General Requirements for the Safety of Student Supplies" officially implemented in my country in February this year stipulates that the stationery label should at least contain the product name, manufacturer's name, factory address, product standard number, product instructions, applicable age range, and safety warnings. and other signs, and the signs should be legible and durable.
"Three nos" products are prone to excessive levels of toxic and harmful substances, and students' long-term exposure to such products may have adverse health effects.
When the reporter asked the merchant as a student's parent how to ensure the quality of the three-free blind box products, the merchant carefully checked the outer packaging of several stationery blind boxes and the outer packaging of the product box that they sold, only to find that they did not have any safety signs and manufacturer information. and so on.
In this regard, the merchant said that he did not pay attention to the labeling of the product's outer packaging when he purchased the product, and opened a blind box product to show reporters, "the blind box is an ordinary pen, which is no different from other pens."
In addition, some blind boxes of stationery that play pornographic edge balls are also worthy of parental vigilance.
The cartoon characters on the cap of a decompression pen displayed in the Bairong Chentong store expose the private parts, and the designer also specially expanded the private parts into flesh-colored silicone for children to rub and decompress.
The reporter learned that the animation image is the image of a well-known animation protagonist group.
The store staff told reporters that the stationery in the store is mainly wholesale, and the products will flow to stationery stores in Beijing and surrounding provinces and cities, such as Tianjin, Hebei and other places.
When the reporter expressed that he wanted to order the blind box pens in large quantities, the stationery business in Soxiu City tried his best to promote the three-free blind box pen products in the store to the reporter, and said that if the reporter ordered such products, he could get more than the blind box pens of the brands such as Chenguang and Deli. Big discount offer.
In the store, the relevant production signs and safety signs of Chenguang and Deli blind box pens are readily available.
On the short video platform, the reporter happened to see a Pikachu blind box pen under the work of a Yiwu boutique stationery account, which is consistent with the outer packaging of the blind box pen seen in the offline visit.
Then the reporter called the stationery manufacturer as a wholesaler, and the other party told the reporter that the wholesale price of this kind of blind box pen is about 1 yuan, the usual market retail price is 5-6 yuan, and the wholesale price of another ordinary gel pen is 0.5 yuan Around, the market retail price is 1-2 yuan.
That is to say, once the ordinary gel pen is put on the blind box shell, the value will immediately "surge" several times.
In another Yiwu stationery wholesale store, the reporter also got a similar offer.
In an interview with a Shell Finance reporter, Sun Hongyan said that his team found in the survey that there are many problems with the blind box of stationery, among which product safety issues bear the brunt.
Sun Hongyan believes that selling stationery blind boxes is more profitable than ordinary products. Driven by huge profits, merchants take making money as their main goal, and their product safety awareness is not strong. "Under the cover of blind boxes, merchants are likely to produce for profit. Products with substandard quality, some Sanwu stationery products are likely to have substandard pigment content under the fancy appearance, contain a large amount of heavy metal substances and some small parts that are not suitable for young children, which poses a great safety hazard.”
In response to the problem of the blind box of pornographic stationery, Liu Junhai said that the blind box economy has long been focusing on development, ignoring norms, and growing savagely. Demonstration benefits, we should have zero tolerance for pornographic elements.
In response to the chaos of blind boxes in the market, Liu Junhai suggested from the regulatory level that for companies that disregard the physical and mental health of minors, the guiding role of laws and regulations should be brought into play, so that the legal system of blind box governance is sound and there are laws to abide by.
In response to the blind box trend, it is necessary to establish and improve a strict grading sales system, strictly classify according to age, establish an all-weather, all-round, cross-market, cross-region, information sharing, fast and efficient supervision system, and truly create a minor-friendly blind box. economic environment.
In addition, in the process of implementing laws and regulations, it is also necessary to ensure that the specifications are finally implemented to the smallest unit of the business.