On Christmas Eve, a netizen posted a video saying that he had bought an unsealed blind box in Pop Mart International's Vientiane store in Jinan, questioning the clerk's second sale.

The netizen returned to the store and found that the same situation also existed in other blind boxes in the store. In the video posted by netizens, the staff at the scene said that they would start an internal investigation into the matter and find out whether it was the collusion between the shop assistant and the outside, or the personal behavior of the shop assistant, and the results will be released to the public in time.

In the early morning of December 24, Pop Mart International officially replied to the netizen thatIn this matter, 5 shop assistants opened 11 blind boxes by themselves, took what they wanted before checking out, and the relevant shop assistants involved have been fired.

Rush into the hot searchNetizens complain crazily

The second sale of Pop Mart International quickly rushed to Weibo Corp hot search on Christmas night. So far, nearly 200 million people have read the topic.

A number of netizens from Beijing and Shanghai said that they had also encountered secondary sales.

Not only are there "secondary sales" in offline stores, Pop Mart International's online customer service has also met with crazy complaints from many netizens.

A number of netizens said that the quality of Pop Mart International's products was also very poor, and there was an unpleasant smell when they were taken apart; some netizens said that the quality of the products sent by Pop Mart International's customer service also went wrong many times.

However, the fund also found that there are still many netizens who say that those who do not understand the joy of opening a blind box will never understand.

Why would the shop assistant open the goods privately?

It is understood that a set of blind boxes is generally composed of 12 "ordinary" and 1 "hidden", and the probability of obtaining the latter is very low. On second-hand trading platforms such as Xianyu, the prices of "hidden money" and "hot-selling money" are even ten times higher than the original price, which leads to the shop assistants' profit-making behavior of favoritism.

According to previous deep burning observation reports, Pop Mart International, whose cost is less than 10 yuan, has two major IP--Labubu generation "Mountain Pepper Fish Pink Pearl out of print" at the highest price of 7800 yuan on Xianyu, which is 100 times the price of an ordinary blind box. Dimoo's "Lu Ying" model even sells for more than 10,000 yuan.

It was on Xianyu that the hype about hidden money and hot-selling money made many Pop Mart International shop assistants take risks, not only opening blind boxes privately, choosing what they liked to pay again, then selling them on Xianyu, and even colluding with scalpers to seek personal gain.

Xianyu propped up the "Maotai of the post-90s"?

Pop Mart International was listed in Hong Kong on December 11 and quickly rose to HK $77 a share, up 100% from the subscription price of HK $38.50 per share, and the company's market capitalization exceeded HK $100 billion.

As of December 24, Pop Mart International's share price had fallen back from its high on the 22nd, but its total market capitalization still exceeded HK $120 billion. Founder Wang Ning, 33, and his wife hold nearly 49.8 per cent of the shares, and the couple are worth more than HK $60 billion.

Since Pop Mart International's first day on the market, doubts about it have never stopped in the market.

Pop Mart International's controversial point lies in the way the blind box is played. People who don't play with trendy toys or smoke blind boxes question: what's so funny? It's intelligence tax, right? But there are always people who are addicted to the "blind box" and are satisfied with the instant heartbeat when drawing the central instrument style, as well as the senior players who are obsessed with it, who form their own circle and have a high degree of loyalty.

In fact, in recent years, the trendy playing track in the new consumer market has come into the spotlight. In addition to the blind boxes with their own social and emotional comfort attributes, all kinds of hands are also money-sucking experts.

Behind the popularity of the fashion play market is the rise of consumption power of Generation Z."buying blind boxes, opening blind boxes, selling blind boxes, collecting blind boxes" has become a routine operation among children. Many players hang Xianyu on the styles they do not like or repeat, in order to achieve part of the "blood return", so that idle blind boxes re-circulate. On the other hand, they "picked up leaks" through Xianyu to find the favorite styles and hidden money that could not be drawn, and put together the whole set as soon as possible.

The latest data showXianyu has become the largest blind box secondary market in China. According to the person in charge of leisure fish tide play, there are currently more than 440000 blind box players trading on Xianyu. The trading volume of idle blind boxes exceeded 120 million yuan in November, an increase of more than 70% over the same period last year. The annual blind box trading volume of the platform is close to Pop Mart International's annual revenue. According to Pop Mart International's prospectus, revenue in 2019 was 1.683 billion yuan.

It is undeniable that the scarcity and uncertainty of blind box goods doomed the prosperity of its second-hand market. Blind box players in order to draw hidden money, will inevitably draw repeated styles, at this time can be sold or exchanged through the second-hand trading platform.And some large IP limited edition large dolls, is the second-hand trading platform popular, is the circle of hard currency, and even said that Pop Mart International is "post-90s Maotai."

The post-85 couple are worth more than 60 billion yuan.

According to the prospectus, Pop Mart International founder and CEO Wang Ning and his wife Yang Tao own 49.8%. According to the latest market capitalization, Wang Ning and Yang Tao are worth more than HK $60 billion.

Wang Ning, who was born in 1987, was admitted to Sias International School of Zhengzhou University in 2005 to major in advertising, according to the Global Elite. During his study, he set up a "Days Studio" studio to report freshmen to school, orientation parties, and various community activities. Made into CD-ROM sales and well received, Wang Ning also became a start-up star in the school.

After graduating from university, Wang Ning chose to work in Beijing and worked in an educational institution and Sina successively. But the boring work and life day after day bored him.

Leaving Sina in 2010, Wang Ning went to Hong Kong to visit his girlfriend and was attracted by a trendy retail chain called LOG-ON. It is mainly engaged in all kinds of toys, cosmetics, stationery and all kinds of innovative commodities, which is very popular. Wang Ning believes that similar forms of operation can also be popular in the mainland.

After returning to Beijing, Wang Ning founded Pop Mart International and opened the first Pop Mart International store in Zhongguancun Europe and America Shopping Center, which mainly deals in cosmetics, toys, stationery and daily necessities.

At that time, JD.com, Vipshop Holdings Limited and other e-commerce tracks were crazily sought after by capital. Wang Ning's Pop Mart International, as an offline project, was not a good project in the eyes of investors.

Just when Wang Ning could not hold on, in 2012, angel investor Mai Gang gave Wang Ning his first 2 million investment, which allowed Pop Mart International to open three more stores in Beijing.

Since then, Pop Mart International has risen rapidly in the youth market and his business is getting better and better. But what really made Pop Mart International successful was in 2015, when Wang Ning represented the Japanese Dreams company's styling character doll Sonny Angel, which was sold in the form of "blind draw", covering hidden and limited editions.

When taking stock at the end of the year, Wang Ning found that Sonny Angel brought more than 30 million sales to Pop Mart International, accounting for 30 per cent of total sales.

Seeing the strong money-absorbing ability of the tide play market, Pop Mart International quickly signed Molly, a work by Hong Kong designer Wang Xinmin, in 2016, building the first brick of the "Blind Box Empire".

In 2016, Pop Mart International launched the first "Molly Zodiac" blind box series, which became popular in an instant, with rapid growth in business and gradual increase in sales.

The controversy is controversial, but Pop Mart International's ability to attract money is obvious to all. From 2017 to 2019, Pop Mart International's revenue reached 158 million yuan, 514 million yuan and 1.683 billion yuan, with net profits of 1.56 million yuan, 99.52 million yuan and 451 million yuan, respectively, according to the prospectus.

At present, among the nearly 100 IP in Pop Mart International's hands, only Molly, Dimoo, PUCKY and other four IP have accumulated sales of more than 100 million yuan.

But whether Molly and other IP can continue to attract money, when MINISO Group and other ten-yuan shops also came to the blind box market, Pop Mart International was in crisis. It remains to be seen whether the continuous exposure of product defects and lax internal supervision will damage the company's reputation and cause the stock price to collapse.