Chinese consumers are increasingly going blind

Pop Mart, the Chinese tchotchke purveyor behind the charmingly creepy Labubus and other dolls, may have stumbled onto an infinite money glitch in China: “blind boxes,” where items are packaged in a way that the exact contents are a mystery to their buyer.

This sales model is catching on across the country’s economy, as businesses are finding it can encourage repeat purchases from consumers.

• At the main Confucius temple in Beijing, visitors can buy a variety of items packaged in the blind-box format, including an ice cream treat with a blessing from the famed Chinese philosopher for $4.50.
• Fliggy, Alibaba’s travel services platform, is offering blind-box flight tickets, where travelers select a Chinese departure city and get assigned one of multiple options for dates and destinations.
• The NYSE-listed Chinese retailer Miniso offers blind boxes of watches, adhesive tape, stationery, and ballpoint pens.

But not everyone’s saying “you do you Labubu.” The People’s Daily, a Chinese state-run newspaper, recently called for stricter regulations of the trend, calling the practice a “‘commercial trap’ that precisely targets the psychological vulnerabilities of minors.”

Coming to America: As of July, Labubu sales in the US—where each doll retails for $27.99 or more—jumped 5,000% from a year earlier, catapulting parent company Pop Mart to a market cap bigger than US toy giants Mattel and Hasbro combined.