This article is transferred from WeChat public account: Ran Finance (ID: rancaijing) author: Yan Li Jiao, editor: Chang Zhou fan
On February 9th, Big V finally decided to go to the Wonder Festival (WF) hand-made model exhibition held in Tokyo, Japan. He dragged a suitcase of toys by himself, did not let colleagues go with him, and barely brought promotional materials.
70% of the exhibitors in Tokyo wear masks. As of February 8, 89 cases of Japanese new crown pneumonia have been confirmed, and it has become one of the countries with more severe outbreaks outside China. WF is the world’s largest hand-made model exhibition. It has a history of 36 years. It is an exhibition that toy creators and enthusiasts must attend every year.
This is one of the reasons why Big V had to go to Tokyo to exhibit at the risk of an epidemic.
Da V booked 3 booths in WF. The original plan was to have a group of more than a dozen people. In addition to toys, they also prepared hand-painted postcards for the surroundings and designers. The postcard has been designed, but because the print factory could not be found, the surroundings and promotional materials were not produced. Although Big V went to the exhibition, the final effect was conceivable and not very satisfactory. The sudden outbreak has caused many domestic exhibitions to be cancelled or postponed, and those international exhibitions still being held have been greatly affected by the absence of Chinese exhibitors.
BTS in Beijing last August, some fansEven came in line at 5 in the morning. In the first half of this year, this kind of scene should not be seen in China. On February 25th, Shanghai WF, which was originally scheduled to be held in April, was postponed to the National Day holiday, and the refund channel has been opened. In addition, in the first half of this year, there are two large international toy exhibitions-Thailand Thalland Toy Expo (TTE) and 2020 Shanghai International Trend Toys Exhibition (STS).
Shanghai STS announced the extension to June, and Thailand TTE has not yet been postponed. But the participating designers also worry about safety. For exhibitors, whether they can participate smoothly depends not only on the epidemic situation of the destination, but also on the re-engineering of domestic factories. If the factory produces the products on schedule and the exhibition is not delayed, they can at least catch up with the big V. The epidemic has brought a series of effects to the tide play industry. Short-term is the cash flow pressure of related businesses, followed by a chain reaction.
For the trendy play industry, especially for independent designers, exhibition sales account for a large portion of sales. The tide-play designer accurately acquired customers through the exhibition, pulled potential buyers into the WeChat group, and then sold follow-up products through the community. Now that the show is gone, it means that important sources have been cut off. Coupled with the shutdown of the manufacturing plant and the shutdown of the painting factory, all links from product production to sales are linked and each link is affected. For the tide play designer, it actually cuts off almost The way.
chaowan business
For Big V, he can also choose not to participate in the exhibition. Failure to do so means that the booth fee, construction fee, toy sales, etc. invested in the previous period are lost.
Of course, this can be estimated, and the potential loss that cannot be calculated by the new cooperation has added to his pressure. After assessing the risks, he decided to go alone. JumpWorks (Plaything Recovery) exhibited in WF in Japan. Big V is a person in the toy industry who typically turns his hobby into a profession. Born in 1985, he is a senior toy fan. Before, he had a job in a pharmaceutical company, and he was totally different from toys Stained.
In the process of growing up, some animations and toys deeply affected him. In 1989, Transformers began broadcasting on Beijing TV. Since then, peripheral toys have been sold in Beijing. In 1990, the well-known cartoon “Slam Dunk” by Japanese manga artist Inoue Inoue began serialization. For post-85s and post-90s generations, the peripherals of toys derived from Riman IP accompanied their young age.
“Basically starting from junior high school, there are very few toys suitable for the age group at the time. At most it is assembled toys, which can make people feel more difficult. Jumping from elementary school to college, even after work, there is a middle of playing toys Deadline. During the blank period, the boys were busy playing basketball and surfing the Internet. “Da V recalled. During that time, people with a sense of collection could still leave a few toys, most of which were simply thrown away by parents. After working, when they want to go back and find these things, very little can be saved.
When a generation grows up, they can afford toys that they could n’t afford when they were young. In addition to collecting hobbies, they also do not rule out vengeful consumption and make up for the self-esteem of those who have been thrown away by parents. Some of them were grown up, some were grown up, and those who hadn’t been grown up had to be grown up. In the process of playing, a lot of circles have gradually formed in China, so there are many more fashionable wholesalers, and wholesalers have spawned countless retailers.
In 2016, Da V opened a Taobao shop, specializing in hand-made and statues, and has always made the shop two crowns. It was one of Taobao’s larger two-dimensional statue shops at the time. There are more and more people starting to play and gather together to start a business with interest. “Instead of playing this every day, it is better to do this work by yourself and take interest as a career.
Sometimes going to work is not necessarily your hobby, you may not be so motivated. “Da V simply quit his job and worked full-time in the toy business. After that, his work focus has changed to running exhibitions around the world, dealing with designers, signing agents, and discussing cooperation. Last year, he signed his own Designers have their own brands and then push their products to markets such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand.
At the same time, Big V also opened its own physical store. However, this epidemic’s blow to offline physical stores is also fatal. Although the mall is open, 80% of the merchants are closed. During the Spring Festival, Big V was open for two days on a trial basis, but none of them were there. He finally had no choice but to close the shop. However, the greater impact comes from the suspension and postponement of all offline toy shows.
Go to Exhibits
In the tide play industry, new designer debuts, relying heavily on offline toy exhibitions, which starts from the sales channels of tide play designer products. Chaowan’s offline sales channels mainly include large and small exhibitions and cooperative physical stores around the world each year; online channels include WeChat fan groups, public accounts, various e-commerce, crowdfunding platforms, etc. Among them, the toy show is the most important.
At the toy exhibition, designers can expand their fan base offline, especially newcomers who do not yet have a reputation and fan base, and can complete the first batch of original accumulation through the exhibition. At the same time, offline fans have a strong stickiness, high loyalty to the brand, and stronger purchasing power. Running shows are also an effective way to increase exposure.
A brand that is hot enough and high in exposure can complete a product’s sales with just a dozen fan bases. The purchasing power of core fans is sufficient to support all online sales of a product. Photo courtesy of Japan WF / Respondents in 2020. Big V estimated the purchasing power of fans of a well-known trendy play brand.
Each core fan purchases nearly 20,000 yuan of original-priced products that are officially on sale each year, which is not even the acquisition of idle fish and the secondary market. Most limited-edition products are not available to most players. Before the official sale, fans need to draw the eligibility for purchase by lottery, and those loyal fans who have not been drawn will enter the secondary market for trading.
To calculate, on a brand, each core fan consumes more than 20,000 yuan per year, which can be 2 times or more. For many independent designers, in addition to relying on the exhibition for income, the exhibition is also an important opportunity for them to discover other designers and communicate with fans. For many independent designers, the essence of online sales is just a photo.
Tide play is a typical experiential consumption. It needs to be seen intuitively, and physical touch can also lead to purchases without visual impact and impulsive factors. For most online sales, the brand is aimed at a limited fan base, while offline exhibitions contribute a steady stream of new customers. There are several types of materials for making tide play.
The softer is vinyl, and most of the materials used are PVC and heavy resin. Different materials determine that different toys will have different touch and delicateness. This is the different charm of Chaowan and other products. Through touch and color, the effect of connecting players and designers is achieved.
Stab Ball is a typical art creator who graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London, specializing in character animation. Chaowan design is another of his hobbies. He is also the head of The Foxfrank Studio brand. The IP Fox Fox created by him is a bit dull fox who loves food and travel, and is curious about life. This fox tide is played with resin. Although it is sometimes fragile when carried due to material reasons, he believes that touch is also a way for designers and fans to talk.
The weight of the resin is what he wants to show, but it is incomprehensible only by looking at the photos. From another perspective, the work of the thorn ball “Fox Lanke” does not consider it to be the flashpoint of online sales of Chaowan during the epidemic. “If buying food and eating is a problem, and logistics is not convenient, players may not have so much thought about other consumption.” For Chaowan, including other non-required entertainment products, online consumption during the epidemic may only solve A small part of the problem.
Factory resumed work
Xiao Li, a contract designer of Big V, is the author of the original IP “Forest Post Office”. She is now a student at Communication University of China. Every time she participated in the exhibition, she will prepare 1-2 new products. New products need to be made in advance with the factory.
The exhibition was postponed. Originally, it could still be sold online, but the factory was shut down and Xiaoli had no choice. The domestic Chaowan factory is mainly located in Dongguan and Shenzhen. Many workers were unable to return to work due to isolation measures. Although some factories have resumed work, the production speed is much slower than before and prices have increased.
Designer Jiang Xiao made two prototypes after the factory resumed work. The original cost of two or three hundred yuan more than doubled. There are more than 600 toys for the stab ball. The deposit was paid at the end of last year, and it was supposed to be shipped in March this year. Due to the epidemic, the factory has not resumed work, and the delivery period has been delayed.
“The factory is not producing your own goods, and it will be done one after the other after the resumption of work. You can only wait for the resumption of work to communicate.” Thornball did not know when the goods would be available. The hand-painted works of the spur ball The contracted designers and independent designers, full-time designers and non-full-time designers suffered different degrees of losses in this accident.
Spurs also have a job that can guarantee at least a source of income, and Xiao Li becauseSigned a big V studio, can share the risk with the company, the company will also actively contact other online channels, and help her solve factory problems. For many newcomers to the industry, the first pit to step on is the factory.
Chaowan is a creative product that especially shows the independent will of the designer. Maybe the designer wants 60% of the factory’s result, and only 30% of the product may be left on the product. In addition to the tide play manufacturers, there are also painting factories responsible for coloring toys throughout the production process. There may be errors in the intermediate links. The new designer does not understand the factory routine, and even at the early preparation stage, it may lose hundreds of thousands of costs to “pay tuition.”
In 2017, the domestic tide play market began to become hot, and the bubble matt, which was established in 2010, made the tide play attract more attention. Many tide play designers have begun to emerge, but to this day, they are still dominated by designers who have debuted for one or even six months. Big V has also held offline exhibitions, with more than 80 participating brands, and designers with more than one year accounted for only 20%.
Luke is like many designers, because she likes toys and turned herself into a part-time designer. The outbreak of the tide play market in 2019 made her see the hope of starting a business. Earlier this year, Luke resigned from his previous unit and rethought his life and career plans. The sudden outbreak disrupted her planning and left her with almost no income for two months.
Cultivate internal skills
For Xiao Li, despite her vacation time, she is still constantly creating and thinking about new color schemes for her previous toys. She planned for herself at least for the style and toy image of the next three issues.
“Because toys have a constantly updated process, new things need to appear at any time.” In addition, Xiao Li also bought a full set of painting tools and painted them by hand with white molds at home. Nuby’s head painting. Under normal circumstances, designers will keep some white molds in their hands. The so-called white mold is the most original product produced by the factory and has not yet been sent to the painting factory for color painting.
Once a product image is determined, it can be mass-produced. But the designer will adjust the colors or accessories according to the same model to suit the toy show or customized versions for different festivals. The design and production process of Chaochao is roughly that the designer first establishes a character universe. For example, Xiao Li, her “Forest Post Office” is not only a single character, but more of a scene.
The protagonist Nuby is one of the characters. Xiao Li defines Nuby’s quirk as “Growing a temper all day without sleep and laziness.” Nuby’s memory point is her mouth, looking fierce. Nuby’s designer manuscript After a product role or world view is set, the designer creates a model on the computer according to the design drawing, renders the color, and sends it to the factory.
Then there is repeated communication, modification and correction, until the relatively rough samples become closer to the designer’s imagination. For independent designers, there may only be dozens of them in the first batch. After encountering other festivals, such as Valentine’s Day, dozens of them may be pre-sold. Most of them have small production capacity. Generally, large manufacturers do not like to take such orders, and can only find some small toy factories. In special times, when production capacity is limited, it is more difficult for them to obtain the right to speak than the big Chaowan brand.
Spurs, his last batch of products were sold out. But the fan base still needs to be active, and someone needs to keep communicating in the group. Asspurs did not sign a contract with the company, he needed to take care of the WeChat group with the little housekeeper. Sending benefits to fans and staying active has become a new routine for spurs. “I will draw a small portrait for them, and I will prepare some other benefits.”
Large V used this gap period to focus attention on strengthening product design. For them, it was time to do these things. Now he has arranged several lines, including new image, new brand, all focusing on design. According to his plan, before the factory resumed work, they had to complete the design work for half a year to a year. Once the factory resumes production capacity, it can help them arrange production.
Interaction and Union
Zhang Xiaoyin has been in the toy industry since 2004. He is one of the earliest entrepreneurs engaged in creative toy business in China. At the time, there was no such concept as “tide play” or “IP”. Around 2005, the Internet gradually became popular, and blogs that had been popular for 5 years became the earliest exchanges of “baby friends”. Zhang Xiaoyin sold toys through blogs and forums. Players exchanged and purchased messages, and then remitted money by bank card transfer. Finally, Zhang used the postal system to send out “courier services.”
In 2006, Zhang Xiaoyin established Beijing Chen Xingfu Toys Co., Ltd., which covers toys, derivatives and surroundings. In 2019, Mi Tang Wen Chuang, who he founded, has launched an independent trendy play brand “Lazy Convenience Store”. At present, their main sales are around online, and some lighter offline models, such as pop-up stores, unmanned vending machines, etc. Zhang Xiaoyin, a collaboration between the Lazy Convenience Store and the movie “Tang Tan 3”, is glad that they considered expanding the offline market last year and first did some pop-up stores to test the market response.
However, the outbreak still has a significant impact on the plans that follow. In 2018, the company’s overall product sales amounted to 1.5 million units, and sales in 2019 exceeded 1 million units, but he estimates that sales in the first half of 2020 will decrease by 50% year-on-year. He found that after the outbreak, another obvious change was that more resumes were received.
On the direct employment of BOSS, the volume of resumes he received this year has increased by 15% compared with the beginning of last year, and the number of job seekers in designer positions has suddenly increased by 30%. In the past, the state of the brand seeking an excellent designer to sign a contract was reversed. However, he believes that for the industry, this crisis may not be all negative. “After the epidemic, some individual stores and companies with weak capabilities and combat effectiveness may indeed encounter crisis or even close down.
But through this epidemic, the investment policies and rent policies of real estate companies will be adjusted accordingly. “Zhang Xiaoyin judges that if they stay the same, everyone will face greater pressure, so they will definitely give in to each other and make some adjustments.” The toy industry, especially physical stores, may be the best expansion opportunity in the second half or next year. . “
The pop-up store of Lazy Convenience Store, Zhang Xiaoyin made 15 games large and small in 2019. During the epidemic, Zhang Xiaoyin quickly organized a short video team and continued to focus on the online. Now their main work every day is focused on discussing short video scripts, auditions, and voice actors. The new short videos will also be shot in the near future. Compared to companies that are simply playing games, they have a better ability to deal with risks. In addition to doing co-branded goods with other brands, heWe also have our own product development and supply chain management capabilities.
“Most of them are purely toys, mainly relying on sales channels. For us, they also include some brand associations.” A more comprehensive and complete business model has a stronger ability to resist risks. “After this period of time, I just settled down and made some content storage and IP accumulation. I think it is a good thing.” Among them, it actually reflects another problem. Many people in this industry hope that there will be more interaction and cooperation in the tide play field.
“You can see a lot of designers, they don’t actually consider the market completely. Of course, there are also many companies investing capital to study what young people like to consume in the future. At present, the domestic tide play is only concentrated on several categories .In these categories, there aren’t really many really good designers or people who have formed experience and are sufficiently clear about the market. “
So he believes that for industry head companies or leaders, they need to do industry integration and can also help some small design teams and designers. “People in this industry are relatively personalized, and may not be as commercial, including myself.
But I hope that this Black Swan incident will reach more people, put down their bodies, join together, and complement each other with some shortcomings, instead of doing their own. Only in this way can the tide play industry break the original ceiling. “