Reporter Zhang Yiqi.
Customers shop in MINISO Times Square, New York, USA.
Exterior view of Bubble Mart's first store in Thailand.
Customers shop at MINISO Camden*** in London, UK.
Customers shop for trendy toys at Bubble Mart's first store in Thailand.
MINISO integrates intangible cultural heritage into product design to showcase the charm of Chinese culture. This edition** is provided by the interviewed companies.
On February 9, the Chinese New Year's Eve of family reunion, Chinese trendy toy brand Bubble Mart ushered in a memorable day - Thailand's third offline store opened in Bangkok's Central Rak Shopping Center. Since the opening of the first offline store in Thailand in September 2023, in just half a year, Pop Mart is accelerating the layout of overseas markets at the "speed of light". Not only Thailand, Pop Mart has opened stores in nearly 20 countries such as Singapore, South Korea, France, Australia, etc., and continues to expand into new markets.
On February 17, the Chinese daily necessities retail brand MINISO opened its largest store in the UK in Camden, London, England, which is the 26th store of MINISO in the UK. In the past 9 years, MINISO stores have spread to 107 countries and regions around the world, with more than 6,200 stores.
In recent years, many Chinese brands have continued to promote their overseas business, not only in the field of cross-border e-commerce, but also in opening offline stores overseas, developing "localized" ** chains, and constantly taking root overseas.
I open a store in a popular place.
Nowadays, enterprises are no longer simply selling products produced in China abroad, but opening stores abroad to fully show the brand concept to overseas consumers.
The store is selected in **, and it is necessary to go through in-depth market research, combined with brand characteristics, and finally make a choice.
In July 2023, Thai Nok joined Pop Mart, which was a critical period of preparation for Pop Mart's first store in Thailand. As soon as she joined the company, she and her team immediately devoted themselves to the location of the store.
Choosing the location of our first store in Thailand was not easy, and we did a lot of research and discussed it repeatedly. "Eventually, my team and I agreed that the first store would be in the heart of Bangkok, surrounded by international and local brands that would attract locals and foreigners from all over the world." ”
The store address was finally selected in Central World Shopping Center, located in Bangkok's CBD business district, which is currently the largest shopping center in Southeast Asia. "When customers come to Shangtai, they can see our store for the first time. Nock said. The end result also confirmed the importance of site selection - on the opening day of the first store, more than 1,000 fans lined up, and the daily turnover exceeded 2 million yuan.
"The day was far more than expected, and despite all the preparations, we were amazed by how hot the scene was." ”
In May 2023, MINISO's first world*** store opened in Times Square, New York, USA. On the opening day, there was a long queue in front of the store, and the store's first-month sales were eight times the average sales of the brand's other U.S. stores, setting a new monthly revenue for the brand's stores worldwide.
A store that sells lifestyle products has been able to gain a foothold in New York's Times Square, not only because of the appeal of the products, but also because of the careful choice of store location.
One of the key points of MINISO's brand upgrading strategy is to open a super-large brand in the high-potential urban business district, and use the super high popularity of the urban business district to increase the brand's popularity, so as to achieve the purpose of increasing performance. Ye Guofu, founder of MINISO, said that only by opening a large store can we better improve customer awareness of the brand and help increase sales.
Since November 2023, MINISO Indonesia's first Sanrio pop-up theme store has opened in Margo City, a popular shopping mall in Indonesia. The world's first blind box store opened on Shaftesbury Avenue in central London, UK; The 100th store in the U.S. opened ...... the prestigious Florida Mall in Orlando
As Ye Guofu said, choosing to open stores in urban business districts has greatly boosted the popularity of stores, and these stores have delivered satisfactory results in the first month of opening.
Products are the key to opening up overseas markets.
The key to making a company take root overseas is the product, and having a product that is popular with overseas consumers can make it smooth sailing to "go overseas".
In recent years, Chinese tea drinks such as Hey Tea and Honey Snow Bingcheng have set off a boom in opening stores overseas. From August 2023, Heytea will open its first local stores in a number of new overseas markets: in August, the SOHO store in London, UK, opened; In October, stores in Melbourne, Australia, Burnaby, Canada and other places opened one after another......
Different from the traditional powder brewing abroad, Heytea uses real milk, real original tea, real fruit, and real sucrose to make milk tea, which is popular in overseas markets. After the opening of the London SOHO store, the highest single-day sales of a single store reached 2,000 cups, the average daily sales exceeded 1,300 cups, and the highest single-day sales exceeded 1£20,000; The highest single-day sales volume of the Melbourne Swanston store is nearly 3,000 cups, and the highest single-day sales exceed 30,000 Australian dollars.
In the early days of "going to sea", MINISO paid a lot of "tuition". "Some products sell well in China, but overseas consumers don't necessarily like them. Consumers in different countries and regions have different interests and needs, which requires us to pay attention to localization while going global. Ye Guofu said.
Both globalization and localization are the principles that MINISO adheres to when designing products in overseas stores. MINISO has in-depth insight into the overseas consumer market, deeply cultivates interest consumption based on "globalization proposal, localization customization", and customizes and develops products based on local consumer preferences. For example, waterproof makeup has been launched for Southeast Asia, small pocket wipes for the Middle East, and large-size figures for the European and North American markets.
In the process of exploration, "IP" (the copyright content of literary and creative works) has entered the field of vision of MINISO. Ye Guofu said that IP is a powerful tool to directly target young consumers, and can quickly and efficiently establish a deeper emotional connection with consumers. MINISO has established copyright cooperation with more than 80 world-renowned IPs such as Disney, Pokémon, Sanrio, etc., and has become a lifestyle brand featuring IP design. The blind box designed according to the IP has become very popular overseas and has become a star product sold in stores.
Since 2019, MINISO has launched a number of Marvel IP black and gold theme stores around the world, and has jointly launched a number of superhero-related products such as Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, etc., which are sought after by young people. The movie "Barbie" IP series products, covering 12 categories of MINISO, were launched on the shelves in China and the United States at the same time during the movie hit. The product was launched for 2 weeks, and the sell-out rate reached 70%.
IP is also an important magic weapon for Pop Mart to deepen the overseas market. Evolving from trendy department stores to trendy toys, Bubble Mart relies on an important IP - Molly dolls. The image of a blonde and blue-eyed, pouty little girl, coupled with the marketing method of blind boxes, has made Molly sought after by the market, and has also made Bubble Mart change from a channel provider to an operator.
After Molly became popular, Bubble Mart took advantage of the momentum and continued to operate new IPs, such as The Monsters, DiMoo, and Skullpanda. These products have many stories to tell in the operation of overseas stores.
After the store opened, a 75-year-old lady noticed us during a casual stroll and came to the store. Nok shared the story of the first store in Thailand, "This lady loved our products when she saw them and bought a lot of them on the spot. ”
This was a common thing, but what Nock didn't expect was that the next day, the lady came to the store again. She bought a lot of more products and said she wanted to give them to the company's employees. "We are very happy that Bubble Mart has made a good impression on her, and we hope that those who receive gifts from this lady will also feel happy and good." ”
Show the charm of Chinese culture to the world.
Nowadays, Chinese brands are full of vitality overseas, which also brings new opportunities for the spread of Chinese culture.
In May 2023, a unique display of Chinese tea culture was held at Heytea Singapore's Westgate store, where Teochew Gongfu tea inheritors from Guangdong performed tea art for local consumers. In recent years, China's new tea drinks have become popular in Southeast Asian countries, and gradually entered the European and American markets. With the help of new tea drinks, Chinese tea culture is constantly influencing consumers around the world and driving them to understand Chinese culture. For example, the tea brand Bawang Chaji integrates design elements such as Chinese painting and calligraphy into the cups sold in overseas stores, so that consumers can enjoy traditional Chinese calligraphy and painting art while buying tea.
China's profound cultural heritage has brought rich and diverse design inspiration to MINISO. Panda, Forbidden City and other elements empower product innovation, attracting the attention of overseas consumers. According to the relevant person in charge of MINISO, MINISO will also launch the "Chinese Cultural Innovation Global Development Plan" to cooperate with the inheritors of the three national intangible cultural heritages of paper-cutting, Beijing kite making skills and Nüshu to create national tide products, and promote Chinese culture to go out with the help of the channels of MINISO globalization.
Turning China's Bubble Mart into the world's Bubble Mart" is a goal that Pop Mart has always been. Chinese trendy toys are going to the world, and the Chinese culture behind them is gradually going to the world. Holding trendy toy exhibitions and participating in various expositions is an important way for Bubble Mart to "go to sea" in recent years, and the exhibited products are full of Chinese elements: the co-branded Labubu gold-faced bronze figure launched in cooperation with Sanxingdui Museum, the co-branded treasure MEGA with the famous artist Han Meilin, and the Tang Palace Night Banquet series ......
Our IP has strong plasticity, and various elements can be combined with it to form different images and products. Trendy toys have also become a carrier to show Chinese culture. Wen Deyi, President of Pop Mart International, said.
Jin Ge, an associate researcher at the Institute of Regional and Country Studies at Peking University, believes that no matter how far "going to sea", the profound cultural heritage has always been the confidence of Chinese brands, and it is also an inexhaustible "rich mine". In the process of internationalization, Chinese brands should strengthen their cultural self-confidence, continue to promote Chinese culture, and let the world feel the charm of Chinese culture.