Junior high school students spend 3,000 yuan a year to buy blind boxes?

  Expert advice: Parents should balance the experience of "opening the blind box" and buying on demand

  "Everything can be a 'blind box'", recently, a consumer in Ningbo, Zhejiang complained to the Ningbo Consumer Protection Commission that the child bought a set of 24 pens in a row in order to extract a hidden money from a certain stationery blind box as a gift. 20 sets, the total price is 2000 yuan.

How popular is the "blind box"?

How to guide children to rational and healthy consumption?

On the 24th, a reporter from the Yangtze Evening News conducted an investigation and interview.

  Juvenile Chronicle editor Xu Binwen

  Yangzi Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Wang Ying Video Zhang Siwei

  Market research: Junior high school students spend 3,000 yuan a year to buy blind card boxes

  On February 24, the reporter came to a stationery store near a school in Nanjing and noticed several middle school students gathered at the entrance of the stationery store, sharing today's "unboxing" results.

One of the third-year students, Xiao Lan (pseudonym), told reporters that they bought the "Naruto" card blind box, which is very popular among middle school boys.

  Xiaolan showed the reporter his collection of cards, "This series of blind boxes is divided into four grades: 1 yuan, 3 yuan, 5 yuan and 10 yuan, and the cards drawn from each grade are different in type and rarity. If you draw a duplicate card, you can also sell it to a classmate you want, or someone in the card circle. The rarer the card and the more people who want it, the higher the price." Xiao Lan said, he will sell the card. The usual pocket money was saved to buy a blind box, which cost about 3,000 yuan a year.

  The reporter learned that at present, there are not a few primary and middle school students who spend thousands of yuan every year on buying blind boxes.

Parent Ms. Wang told reporters that in the past two years, blind box cards have become popular in the streets and alleys, and almost all of them are sold in food stalls, supermarkets, shopping malls, and stationery stores.

The two sons in the family like to save Ultraman cards. This kind of card packs range from 1 yuan, 2 yuan, 3 yuan, 5 yuan, 10 yuan, 30 yuan to several hundred yuan, and the expensive ones are good cards. probability is slightly higher.

Buying a card is addicting and feels like it's never ending.

On the New Year's Day, one or two children with their New Year's money in their pockets spent 100 yuan in an instant, in exchange for a few cards.

  Parent feedback:

  Ten yuan is acceptable, but you can't buy it if you want

  The reporter saw in a cultural and creative store in a shopping mall in Nanjing that the blind box of stationery is generally not priced very high, ranging from 6 yuan to 20 yuan for a box.

Blind boxes are generally classified according to IP (the collective name of all famous cultural and creative works) themes, such as Conan themes, and different item categories will be designed under each theme, such as stationery, cards, pendants, etc.

In addition to blind boxes, some themes also have blind bags, which are combinations of multiple items.

"In the era of 'everything is a blind box', we are also following the trend to satisfy the surprise that customers want," said the clerk.

  "The stationery blind box captures children's psychology, and the packaging is beautiful and cute, which is especially popular with girls. An ordinary pen may cost four or five yuan, but once it is put into the blind box, it may be priced at 9.9 yuan." Parent Mr. Han said .

  "Of course, children are addicted to blind boxes. As a parent, you must control it, not just buy it if you want. Children can get such rewards through hard work."

  Xu Lu, the parent of the student, told reporters that she could accept spending 60-100 yuan each time on the purchase of blind boxes, but she could not accept spending a lot of money on one-time purchases. , but if you buy too many blind boxes at one time, you will not actually feel the surprise of opening the blind boxes, which is contrary to our original intention of buying it."

  Expert advice:

  Balancing the Open Blind Box Experience with Buying on Demand

  "I think the blind box is also a kind of 'cultural consumption'. Each blind box has cartoon images that children like, there are surprises every time, and there are hidden models. Children like blind boxes, on the one hand, they like This sense of surprise, on the other hand, may be the need for social interaction, everyone communicates and discusses together, and enjoys the feeling of being watched and paid attention by everyone." Wang Chengjun, a psychology teacher at Jinling Middle School, said that in general, parents of blind box stationery for more than ten yuan will Buy it for the child, but when the child can't stop buying, the parent realizes the seriousness of the problem.

"Parents can take the method of gradually reducing the frequency of purchases to reduce the pleasure of the child's timely feedback, and gradually the child's interest will fade."

  Yin Fei, vice-chairman of Jiangsu Family Education Research Association and Ph.D. of the Institute of Moral Education of Nanjing Normal University, said that merchants use children's curiosity and the expectation of randomness to carry out marketing, which is in line with business logic, but it is easy to violate Educational ethics.

Education needs to cultivate children's rational ability, that is, to buy on demand, to buy whatever stationery they need, so that children can learn to judge and learn to control themselves.

Balancing the experience of opening the blind box for children and buying on demand can guide children to buy toy blind boxes for game experience according to the family's economic conditions and consumption plans, while the purchase of stationery is still based on the principle of on-demand purchase.