Pop Mart has elevated toy-buying to an act of trendy connoisseurship among China’s young affluent consumers. Now it wants to emulate fellow domestic brands such as social media platform TikTok and online fashion retailer Shein by capturing the attention of western consumers.
Such is the popularity of the group’s colourful cutesy characters in its home market, the buying craze for them prompted one state-affiliated group to warn that Pop Mart was fuelling overconsumption and waste.
The reprimand came after an avid collector in January bought 106 KFC meals at once just to get his hands on a Pop Mart toy as part of a promotion. Others paid proxies to order food for them or simply discarded their meals after buying them.