Labubu is everywhere – from TikTok edits to custom BBLs, to collectors spending hundreds to make theirs one of a kind. In our previous Labubu episode, we spoke about the business behind Popmart and why it is so popular. In this episode, we go further into the consumer’s psyche, over a toy that has no practical purpose.
Tengian, Elody, and Phyllis discuss:
- How customisation, scarcity, and storytelling drive fan cultureThe emotional psychology behind spending on toys with zero utilityHow Pop Mart turned Labubu into its #1 revenue driver — surpassing MollyWhy fights are breaking out in stores… and what that says about hype economics
Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcast.
Featured materials:
E103: Behind Labubu Craze: Popmart Business explained
[AI-generated Transcript]
Phyllis: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Impulso Podcast Today. As you can see, we are here with Resident Labubu, collectors, Elody, Phyllis. And Tengian, who is honestly confused as to why we’re spending any money on this, but more interested in the business side of things.
Phyllis: And our very special guest, Zimomo, who is a’s best friend. So in our last Bubu episode, we explored why Labu are so popular, and as you can see, we have totally fallen victim to the whole crease. And we also discussed if this craze would have tapered down by now, but it seems to have only gotten stronger and has even started new trends.
Phyllis: I saw on TikTok that a user actually customized their laboo to look like Darth Maul. Darth Maul is a, a villain in this very popular horror franchise called Insidious. So people are actually stripping down their labubus and turning them into completely different characters.
Elody: Yeah. For me, I also customize my lab. So for this one. Um, it’s a real [00:01:00] Labubut from Pot Mar. And then I sent it off to some customization in on Taobao. Then they help me to customize in this color because, if you know cats in this color, they are general, they’re generally very fierce in. I, I like that character, so that’s why I pick this color and customize my loveable to be in this one.
Elody: And I like to brought it everywhere I go, like when I’m traveling and take picture of her.
Tengian (2): Mm-hmm. Yes, I know. Before, before dyeing. The, the hair, uh, the personal personalization is just very simple. Like dress them in different clothes and then add some decoration on different part. But I also know that besides from dyeing their hair, some people even do.
Tengian (2): BBL. Yeah.
Phyllis: So BBL is short form for Brazilian butt lift. So I was just gonna say that like on TikTok, people are giving their love boost Brazilian butt lifts, that’s very different as a taste I would say I would never do that to my Labubu. Yeah. So there’s also like [00:02:00] quite a culture thing because it’s very cultural Westerners they’re doing true.
Phyllis: So in China, there’s actually a service where people are altering their Labubus.
Elody: Yes. You, you can easily find that on Taobao. There are accounts that, uh, TikTok, I mean doing account specifically, do that and post and they go viral because of the customization.
Phyllis: In the previous episode, I remember mentioning that I would never buy clothes for my laou because I think it’s such a waste of money.
Phyllis: But imagine buying clothes for your laboo. Yes. That cost the same price as cost you buy. Yeah. Yeah. So how much do you spend on this?
Elody: Oh, that’s almost a double the price of the original double boo. So that’s quite expensive. So you could have bought two Labu boos for one. Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. But you think of, um, when you buy the, uh, like that one mm-hmm.
Elody: That one’s quite expensive as well. ’cause it’s a limited edition. Oh. When you buy specific type of lovable, um, it’s, it also cost you a lot more than the normal ones. Mm-hmm. [00:03:00] So if you customize one in. And is. And it is one of a kind. Yeah. You have it. It costs something similar to the limited edition from official channels.
Elody: It feels alright to you actually. Ah, okay. So for context, this is bought from the retail store, right? Yes. And this is a limited edition Bubu, which you can buy, but it is, I mean, it is more on the rare side, but for something like this, it is. Unique only to ldi. And LDI even brings her lab boos out for photo shoots.
Elody: So people on are doing this right.
Elody: S many of them.
Phyllis: So how much do you spend on that?
Elody: That one I bought from a pop store in Pop Pop Mart, official store in China. It cost me 1, 2, 9 9 in Chinese wine, which is around, around two, $300 in Singapore dollars.
Tengian (2): Can you get it easily or It is limited. You need to,
Elody: I know the first edition, which is called Hawing is more. It’s the brown brown one [00:04:00] in this similar size. They stop to offer it anymore, so, so that one is more expensive to get, but this one actually quite easy to buy in China.
Phyllis: We talk so much about, uh, people customizing their la boo boo, and it has. Gone off on a completely new tangent where people are like, they’re ripping apart the fur, they’re dying the fur, they’re changing their eyes. It’s not just clothes anymore.
Phyllis: Why do you think people are doing this? Oh, why do you do this?
Elody: I feel that has a stronger emotional value to me and a stronger bond to this specific, um, lovable that I like to take her out. It’s a feeling of that you are part of this, um, this bubu story. Mm-hmm.
Elody: So that, um, my lab bou is different from anyone else. Then it’s unique to myself and I can create own story for her that I travel everywhere.
Phyllis: So it’s really a lot about the emotional value, right? Yeah. So for me, um, every time I buy a laboo, it just [00:05:00] makes me happy. But for you, it’s like you’re actually, you’re actually giving a life to your labu.
Elody: Yeah. You think of when you buy one ou it gives you happiness already. Yes. But that’s once. Yeah. And when you create a story for your own ou, um.
Elody: It’s actually continuing the happiness.
Phyllis: If we compare to the old Disney IP era, for example, for Mickey Mouse or Mini Mouse, what’s. Like trademark or what’s iconic to them is the original Red and black mini Mickey Mouse. Yes. Right. But then now for ou there’s no trademark color. Not even a look.
Elody: Yeah. Um, I mean you, if you go to eu, you see all kinds of bubu, which is not authentic. Yeah. In very shitty it. And LA too. Yeah. And you got all kinds of there, but. Um, people posting it on Instagram and TikTok and also to make fun of it, but it also draws attention to those who haven’t know about Labu yet.
Elody: So you don’t necessarily need to limit the attention to [00:06:00] these fake labu that actually helps you to marketing about the real ones.
Tengian (2): True for me, I will spend like 300. Yu on a real, but if La Tutu or LA just 10 Yu, that’s very, I cry a lot for my friends family.
Elody: This is
Tengian (2): fun
Elody: Like it looks funny. You need to post a small, small latu. Okay, I’ll put the picture. This is very.
The
Phyllis: whole reason why we started this podcast was because Ian came to the office one day and very excited, told me, oh my God, look what I saw on WeChat. And she showed me a picture of Laou and Latu, right? Yes.
Tengian (2): It’s just all this looks very similar to the real one. Mm-hmm. But it is a bit ugly.
Phyllis: Fundamentally, la. Have no purpose to it, right?
Elody: Yeah, true. Um, it’s, uh, for decoration .
Phyllis: So why do you spend so much money on these seemingly useless things?
Elody: I’ll quote from a interview of the CEO of Pop Ma, which I [00:07:00] feel very interesting is, um, he gave a comparison between, you think, um, you think of you have a fountain, a pretty fountain in front of your house, which costs you, 400 US dollars a day, versus if you have a leaking tab in your house that costs you 40 US dollars a day.
Elody: Which one you want to have lead your customer to For sure. Your customer won’t be interested in buying the 40 US dollar leaking tap because it’s no emotional value at all. In obvious that waste. But for the 400, 400 US dollar fountain, um, you actually have something that you will think of.
Elody: It is useful, although it. That’s nothing. That’s nothing.
Phyllis: It’s really all about the emotional value because you’re paying 400 USCA day for this emotional value of every time you enter your house, you look at this like gorgeous fountain as opposed to something that is more practical, that is $40 a day.
Elody: Yeah, I think that’s something, um, customers [00:08:00] will , be more interested in.
Phyllis: The CEO of PMA also mentioned that their best selling point about bubo is actually the fact that they are, that they serve no practical purpose, right?
Elody: Yeah. Yeah. He also gave this very interesting, um, example you think of Molly, if you pull off her head and there’s a new disc anxiety, you probably won’t buy that much because you would think, oh, I already have one new disc at my house. I don’t need another U disc, but. It’s completely useless than you just keep collecting it.
Phyllis: Actually, that is very true. Because now that this serves no real purpose and I’m already spending money on it. Why, why not spend money on more that that would bring me more happiness.
Elody: Yeah. The only thing I would think of stopping me to buy more is I don’t have a display enough room. I’ll always think of somewhere to display it.
Elody: So when I have an empty space at in my display board, then I of course keep buying it.
Phyllis: When we talk about Pot Mar, now we all synonymously think of Pop Mar together with Labu Boo. But Erdi also mentioned that she’s [00:09:00] actually a huge fan of their other ips, for example, like Molly, right?
Elody: Yeah. Uh, I just recently got this too.
Elody: They, they are Molly. Um, this is not Molly Scout. These are scout Penta, um, ladies generation. So actually they. Changed from the original IP a bit to make it appealing to the, um, mass market more. You can see it’s different, um, style from Laboo, which is a bit, how you say cocky. Quirky.
Elody: Quirky. Very true. But these ones are just generally pretty and cute.
Tengian (2): Yeah. Personally, I prefer Scout penda to. Hopeful.
Elody: Um, but I think they are consistently, like from starting from Maori, which is their first viral, viral ip and moving on to have more viral ips that can sustain their business model.
Phyllis: Yes. So like Crybaby is also a new IP that, uh, pop Mar has, and they’re also [00:10:00] becoming very, very popular, especially in the Southeast Asian regions.
Phyllis: Mm. So. This is a crybaby. This is actually, um, powerful girls. But then they brought over the IP to make it like crybaby style. But what I learned from Tanya just now is that Pop’s best selling IP was actually not bubo before that, it was actually.
Tengian (2): Uh, before that it’s actually Molly. Molly, yeah. And then like last year, LABU only contribute like 6% of the revenue of the whole company. But this year, 2024, it has grew. It has grown a lot. And even surpassed Molly become the number one, uh, contribution of the whole, the revenue.
Tengian (2): This account for more than 20%. So it’s like you can see from 6% to more than 20.
Phyllis: A few weeks ago, pod Mark came up with their performance and they reported a revenue of 13 billion grand.
Phyllis: Yes. In 2024,
Phyllis: and there was 107% increase year on year? Yes. In terms of [00:11:00] revenue? I think so. Pomar has really, really been steadily growing in terms of the popularity,
Tengian (2): A bit more than 100% growth. Double. Almost double.
Phyllis: Yeah. So there was actually, um, a 300% increase in sales outside of mainland China.
Tengian (2): Yes. And
Elody: the sales outside mainland China actually compromised about about 40% of their total revenue.
Tengian (2): Yes. So we can see the overseas expansion is one of the key. Strategy.
Phyllis: Yeah. Do you know that in uk they actually banned the sales of Bubo in stores? Just last week? I think in In May. I heard of that.
Elody: It’s It’s because they fight in the store. Yeah. Start to fight in the store. Then it’s very dangerous. Then they have to close, close down the store.
Elody: Yeah. I think one store in China recently also happened the same thing. The store just got open. The new store just opened Then for pot Mat. Yeah. Then people rush into Juan Rush in what’s second? Sellers secondhand sellers. [00:12:00] Uh, resellers, resellers. Resellers. Then the resellers start to, um, rush into the store and hop into just to, to to to snatch sales.
Elody: Yeah. Yeah. And then they have to, then the real customers got complain, start to complain, so they have to close down the new shop.
Phyllis: So Tanya, will you ever buy one of these?
Tengian (2): Mm, I will not buy this for collection. I would buy this for resale. Maybe because you buy it for, for investment. Yeah. Yeah. You buy one. Is I, I want. Read an article and it said that we buy one lab for like maybe 600 UN and then you can sell it on, which is Taal second secondhand platform for like maybe 20 times of the price.
Tengian (2): 20 times, yes.
Elody: Yeah. Actually I think it’s true. So yeah, especially if you have one of the limited additions can probably sell this. If it was unboxed in, I throw away the box already and that’s a very round decision [00:13:00] and that the, I throw away immediately when after I bought it in hand on my back. Then the, uh, stall as this system was very shocked.
Elody: Are you sure you don’t want keep this back then? I don’t know. I can resell it. So when she said, I said, okay, I just had it on my back. Then I request so much now.
Phyllis: So that’s the end of this episode. I hope you guys enjoyed this very, fun and short and hopefully insightful episode. Don’t forget to like, share and subscribe to tune into the latest happenings and trends in the new retail tech and broader digital economy.
Phyllis: Thank you. Bye.
The post Labubu makes no sense – and that’s why it sells | Impulso E124 first appeared on The Low Down - Momentum Works.
