'Blind box' purchases is a fool's game

Young girls are posting the unboxing video of the gift that is attached to the bottom of the milk tea they bought on the mainland's hottest social media platforms, including TikTok and Little Red Book.

When they pay for a cup of milk tea, customers will get an extra random gift such as luxury-brand lipstick, eyeshadow, and hairpins. Many have driven dozens of kilometers from other districts to buy milk tea after seeing the unboxing on social media. Some will even order dozens of milk teas at once to get the lipstick.

By targeting the white-collar workers and Z-generation students as they accounted for 62.6 percent of consumers, mystery box marketing has contributed an up to threefold increase to same-store sales, mainland media reported.

Facing the competitive milk tea industry in mainland China, MYGIRL, an Hangzhou milk tea brand has successfully grabbed people's attention by putting a Dior lipstick in their milk tea blind boxes.

The daily sales of its shops in Shandong surged from 3,000 yuan (HK$3,600) to more than 10,000 yuan after launching the mystery box, said MYGIRL's marketing manager, Li, in an interview with mainland media. Daily sales have also remained at 5,000 to 6,000 yuan although the craze has passed. "Revenue is still double than before," Li says.

Choosing the coupled milk tea is also part of the tactic of blind box marketing. For example, milk tea series with relatively high gross profit is more preferable in offsetting the cost of mystery gifts. Also, milk tea with a cream topping or a beautiful appearance will be chosen, as it looks more appealing for people to take photos and upload on social media, while such photos and videos become a sensation and turn into free promotion of the brand.

The marketing strategy not only works well with the milk tea, but the "blind box+" business model has also worked well in other industries.

LY.com, the mainland travel app, also launched a blind booking in April this year. After entering their identity information and selecting the departure airport, a customer will receive a single domestic one-way ticket to a random destination and a random date at 98 yuan.

If they are not satisfied, a full refund is made. However, the ticket cannot be refunded or changed after confirmation.

The first launch of the blind booking wasn't gaining much attention until the day before the Ching Ming Festival holiday this year. But after the trend was triggered by someone showing off their random tickets on TikTok, LY.com had been pushed up to the first place of travel category in the Apple App Store in the mainland.

During the short three-day tomb-sweeping holiday, more than 10 million people snapped up the mystery ticket and the booking system was even paralyzed. Although the event ended on the last day of the Ching Ming Festival holiday, the frenzy has not diminished and was followed by other travel apps and even airline companies in the May 1 Golden Week.

Participants are mostly young users born in the 1990s and 2000s and female groups are the majority. Mainland media reported that the topics related to the "Ticket Blind Box" have exceeded 100 million on TikTok and Little Red Book.

On social media such as TikTok and Little Red Book, many users share the blind box tickets they have drawn, and posts like "looking for travel buddies" and "travel tips" have been booming and are all the rage.

The hot topic plus the connection on social media has satisfied people's desire to show off and participate triggering a phenomenal spread.

However, some netizens also reflect that the 98 yuan one-way ticket may be just a smokescreen as people need to further invest in return ticket, hotel accommodation, catering, and time.

After some netizens bought tickets on impulse - as they only have 30 minutes to consider whether to confirm the booking, they ended up spending hundreds of dollars, far more than the original price of the "blind tickets."

According to statistics, the flying dates for those tickets are basically on weekdays, and are mostly red-eye flights.

A travel agency told the mainland media that most tickets are leftovers with low occupancy rates. The blind booking is actually another trick for airlines to clean up their residuals.

However, the concepts like "ultra-low price of less than 100 yuan" and "unlocking the unknown", have drawn many people who have previously postponed their travel plans due to the epidemic. Participants bear no cost but take advantage of cheap tickets.

Whether participants take the flight or not, all the stakeholders will be winners. As traveling apps can win popularity and user information, airlines can clear up the leftover tickets, and even if participants pay for the return, their expenses for air tickets have been reduced. Accommodation and catering can further boost the tourism industry in the destination.

With this kind of imitation, the blind box has been redefined again and again in various businesses and has been extended and interpreted by various means.

Last year, Henan Museum rolled out an archaeological blind box that allowed consumers to experience "the joy of digging cultural relics as an archaeologist" at home. Attached with a mini Luoyang shovel, people can have a hands-on experience harvesting the cultural relics - in a miniature version.

The archaeological blind box generated sales of over 500,000 yuan in the first five days of launch and has even caused a shortage. Such cultural and creative products have also been described as a successful popularization of history by using the "language" of younger generation.

Blind boxes are also found in fresh food catering, in which people are making their dinner based on ingredients provided in a 9.9 yuan fresh food blind box.

Tracking back to the origin of the blind box trend - Pop Mart (9992), the first and the only designer toy company that has gone public, is believed to be the pioneer and key promoter of pop toy culture in China.

As of last Friday, the company's shares ended at HK$52.5, 36.36 percent higher than its initial offering price of HK$38.5 per share last December.

Analysts believe blind boxes perform the thrilling and adventurous psychology of young people. People are paying for the souvenir or the sense of interaction instead of the product itself. In the current era of high material abundance, sales have evolved from selling goods to selling entertainment, and causing the upsurge of the "blind box economy," analysts say.

Not only does the "blind box+" business model maximize the economic effect of surprises, but in a sense, blind boxes also have a social nature.

Analysts believe that by linking consumers of different ages, blind boxes create a common interest and common topic for netizens. The products in a blind box have a high degree of uncertainty, becoming a carrier of entertainment, communication, exchange, and purchase for a new generation of young people, occupying the surprising economy, loneliness economy, and social economy of young people.