At 01:30 in the morning, most residents of Ho Chi Minh City were asleep. Thanh Linh, a 19-year-old girl, and 2000 netizens were watching the blind bags in a studio in TikTok. She bought 10 blind bags. She waited for the shopkeeper to finish reading her name, eager to open them to see what gifts she had got.

In Vietnam, such studios are popular online, especially when there was an explosive growth in September, where trendy products such as blind bags are often out of stock, mostly from China.

According to Metric, in the third quarter, the total revenue of 539 blind and lucky bag stores on the five e-commerce platforms of Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, Sendo and TikTok Shop exceeded 4.6 billion dong and 168000 items were delivered.

Bubble Matt, as a bigger fashion game brand in China, has opened online flagship stores in Shopee and Lazada in Vietnam, while carrying goods live on TikTok.

Other fashion play brands such as premium products, 52Toys and ToyCity have also opened online stores on various e-commerce platforms in Vietnam, and are also accelerating the layout of offline stores.

There are signs that Vietnam is becoming the next growth highland for China to go out to sea.

1. Vietnam Tide is hot, more than 80% are from China.

Fashion play is popular in Vietnam and began in the middle of this year.

In the TikTok studio, young people are keen to play with goods, ranging from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dong.(a few yuan to ten yuan)Cheap blind bags to hundreds of thousands to millions of dong(tens to hundreds of yuan)The blind boxes have been robbed one after another.

In Vietnam, TikTok live streaming sells "blind bags" for every 3 to 4 live broadcasts. Thanh Phong, a seller on TikTok Shop, said: "five of the 10 customers want to tear blind bags. 'blind bags' products accounted for 50% of his live broadcast revenue last month, far more than household goods and clothing."

From the local media reports in Vietnam, we can see how enthusiastic young people are towards blind bags. Anh Dao, a 26-year-old girl, recently watches live tearing blind bags on TikTok every night. "at first, when I saw players buy a few 'blind bags' but won 20 or 30 toys, I was very curious and unwittingly became addicted to them, spending about 300000 to 400000 dong per night," she said.(RMB 85 ~ RMB 113)Buy a 'blind bag' in the live broadcast. "

Thanh Dung, a 24-year-old boy, initially spent only 79000 dong(about RMB 22)I bought blind bags, and then when I heard the anchor call his name in the studio, he bought 15 more blind bags.

Most blind bags are cheaper, and blind boxes are more expensive. An avid collector spent nearly 350 million dong in the past two years.(nearly 100000 RMB)Thousands of blind boxes were purchased.

According to VnExpress survey data, more than 50 "blind bag" associations and groups have emerged on the Facebook social network in Vietnam in the past three months, with an average membership of 50 to 300000, with the hashtag "# t ú im" on TikTok.(blind bag)"there are hundreds of video and live sessions, mainly for exchanging information or buying and selling information.

The Vietnamese tide is so hot that Chinese brands naturally won't miss it. Bubble Matt in Vietnam's Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop and other major e-commerce platform stores have opened one after another.

In the second quarter, on TikTok Shop, 43 Popomat stores sold 145000 LABUBU-related items, with a total revenue of more than 3 billion dong.(about 850000 RMB)An increase of 2.8% over the quarter. The 116 stores of LABUBU Shopee and Lazada sold about 19500 LABUBU-related products, with revenue of 2.2 billion dong.(about 620000 RMB), up 278%.

Fashion brands such as Mingchuang Premium, 52Toys and ToyCity have opened stores on e-commerce platform Shopee, as well as TikTok Shop, B2C platform Tiki, Alibaba's Lazada, and Vietnam's second largest e-commerce platform Sendo, which are gathering young people.

A large number of white-brand trendy products in Vietnam are purchased from China, such as through online channels such as Taobao and Alibaba, as well as directly from China. According to the trend data of the global trendy game market, Vietnam imports more than 80% of the blind boxes from China, and the market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 4.57%.(CAGR 2024 / 2029).

Chinese companies are also expanding their offline channels in Vietnam.

Previously, Popomat was sold only through toy stores and other channels in Vietnam, but now it is accelerating its expansion in Vietnam, where three stores have opened.

In addition, the famous premium Sanrio character-themed store also opened in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on September 1, making it the second such store in Southeast Asia.

Why is Blind Box so popular in Vietnam

Fashion play, as its name implies, is a fashion toy, also known as an art toy. The main buyers are not children, but young people aged 15-34. Around 2010, trendy toys began to become popular, especially the hot trend launched in blind box mode in 2015.

After 2021, Chinese blind box enterprises began to accelerate the pace of going out to sea, and Southeast Asia became the focus. And blind boxes, blind bags and other products are not without reason in Vietnam:

Vietnam has a population of over 100 million, with a large proportion of young people.

By the end of 2023, according to the Vietnam Bureau of Statistics, the population of Vietnam has reached 100.3 million, ranking 15th in the world with a population of over 100 million, including the working-age population.(aged 15-64)Accounting for nearly 70%, Vietnam is quite young, and Japan's working-age population is 59%.

In 2021, half of Vietnam's population is under 35, and the proportion of people aged 15 to 24 is 21.1%, an all-time high. Overall, women account for 50.1% of Vietnam's population, and women are the main consumers of trendy play.

Second, Vietnam's economy is in a period of rapid development, with per capita GDP ranking sixth in Southeast Asia and third in terms of purchasing power parity.If you have purchasing power, you will have the consumption potential of buying and playing.

As of 2023, Vietnam's per capita GDP was US $4284, ranking sixth in Southeast Asia. In purchasing power parity terms, Vietnam's per capita GDP is US $14,400, ranking third in Southeast Asia after Indonesia.($4.4 trillion)And Thailand.($1.6 trillion).

Third, Vietnam and China have similar consumption habits and preferences, with a large number of Chinese and relatively small cultural differences.

At present, there are about 800,000 Chinese in Vietnam, and most of them live in Ho Chi Minh City. Although the Chinese population only accounts for 6% of Ho Chi Minh City's population, it has strong economic strength. Some organizations estimate that it accounts for about 30% of Ho Chi Minh City's economy. At the same time, Vietnam has been influenced by China culture since ancient times, and these have become the basis for the spread of blind box culture.

Fourth, China trendy toys brands are concentrated in Vietnam to accelerate market development and carry out differentiated marketing, resulting in short supply of trendy toys products.

For example, the Sanrio-themed store of famous premium products uses images such as IP Hello Kitty to open up the market. Blind boxes in Sanrio themed store are the main items for sale, and others include fashion accessories, aromatherapy products, plastic cups, etc. Under the "Blind Box +IP" strategy, Mingchuang Products created the TOP TOY series of independent trendy toys brands, accounting for 6% of total blind box sales in Thailand.

In addition to launching differentiated IP, marketing is also gradually localized, combining brand design styles and distinctive product IP, and cooperating with local kol celebrities to expand the influence of brands and products.

3. There are two risks that cannot be ignored

Vietnam is a popular market with great potential, but there are also many uncertain challenges and risks.

The first is the challenge of religious practices.

Religious customs vary in Southeast Asian countries. Vietnam is multi-ethnic and multi-religious and may encounter problems in adapting to local customs and religions. For example, some companies must provide prayer rooms in their physical stores in Malaysia to respect the customs of Muslims. Such behaviors to adapt to different customs and religions will generate additional uncertain costs, and similar problems may be encountered in Vietnam.

Second is policy risk.

When blind box became popular in China, there were also some chaos. Later, new blind box regulations were introduced to regulate the development of the blind box market, including "blind box operators are not allowed to engage in gambling in the name of blind box or in disguised form." In terms of marketing,"blind box operators are not allowed to make false or misleading commercial publicity about box drawing rules, drawing probability, sales status, product quality, etc., to deceive or mislead consumers."

At present, some Vietnam media have poured some cold water on this wave of blind bags and blind boxes craze, but they are all concerned about small issues, such as a large number of blind bags packaging plastic bags polluting the environment, collectibles have no practical value, and blind boxes and blind bags continue to rise in prices.

Whether Vietnam's policy supervision will become stricter in the future, and whether it will introduce regulatory measures similar to China's bans on gambling and hype will be the sword of Damocles hanging over trendy toy brands.

These have added some uncertainty to the fact that China trendy brands have gone abroad to Vietnam.