Which stores in the commercial district attract more customers? There are many answers to this question, but one of them is definitely a baby catching machine shop.
With the popularization of mobile Internet and mobile payment, traditional toy sales have gained new opportunities, making the sales models that were gradually forgotten, such as baby grabbing machines and egg twisting machines, come back to life. Some toy stores have started to combine other products with toys for sale, such as self-service vending machines, which have become a new channel for offline toy sales. In addition, there are toy retail machines that combine different models and gameplay, such as micro dimensional vending machines.
Baby grabbing machines, egg twisting machines, self-service vending machines, and micro dimensional vending machines are all important ways of selling toys through machines, forming an important component of the new toy retail industry. Some of these formats are already very mature and can serve as channels for selling various types of toys; However, some other formats are still in the exploratory stage, and their development prospects are worth paying attention to.
01 Micro dimensional vending machine
Mini products highlight low-priced random selling points
Starting from the second half of 2022, terminal channels have gradually reported good sales of products with low average customer price. To meet this demand, more exquisite small toys have emerged in the domestic toy market. In the new type of toy retail industry, a specialized sales model for micro products has emerged, known as micro dimensional vending machines.
According to the visit, the appearance design of the micro dimensional vending machine is similar to that of the claw machine, and the gameplay is also similar - both require coins to be used. However, the difference between micro dimensional vending machines and them is that they are charged on a per use basis. For example, the smart vending store of Gifts Baba charges 2 yuan per use; After depositing coins, press the button to randomly obtain different quantities of products, and each time a product is obtained, it will not be in vain; Inside the machine, there are various miniature products, including miniature backpacks, miniature pastries, miniature water bottles, etc. Some machines also have intellectual property themed products such as miniature trendy toys.
After studying multiple micro dimensional vending machines, media reporters found that most of the products sold by these machines do not have packaging boxes, which means that consumers cannot clearly understand the brand and manufacturer of the products. Therefore, it is worth pondering whether this sales model complies with relevant national regulations, whether the products sold are safe, and whether the quality is guaranteed.
Image source network, gift Ba Ba intelligent sales store
02 Baby grabbing machine
The vigorous flow of people is developing towards "all things can be grasped"
The 2024 Spring Festival consumption insight released by Meituan shows that during the holiday period, Meituan's leisure and entertainment related orders increased by 190% year-on-year, while experience projects such as "catching dolls" have sparked a craze across the country, with orders increasing by 350% year-on-year. Gu Chengshan, the general manager of Linyi Tianyuan Toy City, also mentioned that during this year's Spring Festival, the business of the toy grabbing machine store was booming, and children had a lot of fun playing in the store. In contrast, the simple sales form was not popular.
Overall, today's baby grabbing machines are no longer randomly placed in various shopping malls and rely on the natural sales of mall foot traffic. Instead, they have entered a refined operation stage and are operated in the form of specialized stores, namely baby grabbing machine stores. The notable feature is that consumers can not only complete the process of purchasing coins, depositing coins, and grabbing dolls on their own, but also seek help from staff in a timely manner when encountering problems; In addition, in addition to providing machine doll grabbing services, the store also offers various gameplay options such as point redemption, exchanging small-sized plush for large-sized plush, etc; The team has a clearer division of labor, including replenishment, coin replenishment, cash register, coin recycling, promotion, and other aspects.
Baby grabbing machine shops have become a very common commercial form, especially in places with strong pedestrian traffic, such as the underground passage from Fashion Tianhe Commercial Plaza to Zhengjia Plaza, and within Fashion Tianhe Commercial Plaza, multiple shops are often densely distributed, and even two baby grabbing machine shops may become neighbors. In addition, the scale of the baby grabbing machine shop is also diverse, some of which are smaller and only store about 10 machines; Some have a large scale and can accommodate hundreds of machines, for example, Gifts Bus has opened a baby grabbing machine store on the negative second floor of Guangzhou Diwang Square (Jiaochang West Road store), displaying 400 machines.
The term "claw machine" originally referred to a machine used to grab plush toys. Nowadays, various claw machine stores mainly focus on plush toys, but it is not limited to this. Instead, it is developing towards the direction of "grabbing everything", including plush toys, blind boxes, dolls, toy cars, jigsaw puzzles, building blocks, deformation and various other toys, as well as snacks, drinks, and so on. However, plush toys are still the most popular category of toy grabbing machines.
Image source network, ubiquitous baby grabbing machine stores in commercial areas
03 Egg twisting machine
Increase in domestic products from conventional to "giant eggs"
Recently, at PO PARK Oriental Baotai Shopping Plaza, reporters discovered an official Wan Dai twisted egg specialty store. There are rows of exquisite egg twisting machines placed in the store, divided according to different IPs and themes. Each egg twisting machine gathers eggs with the same IP or theme. These IPs include "Pok é mon", "Ultraman", "His Royal Highness the Prince of Songs", "Sakura of the Magic Card Girl", "Saint Seiya", "Gundam of Mobile Warriors", and so on. The price of each twisted egg varies depending on the IP and product type, ranging from 30 yuan to 150 yuan. Customers can scan the QR code on the machine, use WeChat or Alipay to pay the corresponding amount, and then twist the button to randomly obtain a twist egg.
Image source network, Bandai Official Twisted Egg Specialty Store
As a traditional and important sales channel, egg twisting machines have long been in the domestic market. However, traditional egg twisting machines rely on manual cash register, which greatly limits their placement. In addition, the quality of the egg twisting toys sold needs to be improved, so their influence and attention are relatively small. However, around 2017, new egg twisting machines combined with mobile Internet began to appear in major business districts. This type of twisted egg machine not only supports mobile payment, but its backend system can also monitor sales in real-time, thereby assisting dealers in adjusting product structure in a timely manner.
The gameplay of egg twisting is similar to that of blind boxes, while egg twisting machines provide consumers with a fun similar to "drawing blind boxes". Therefore, in recent years, the number of egg twisting machines in commercial areas has been increasing. These egg twisting machines are all new models, further divided into egg twisting machines suitable for conventional eggs (with a diameter of about 65mm) and egg twisting machines suitable for "giant eggs" (with a diameter of over 100mm); At the same time, it also gave birth to egg twisting machine stores such as "Star Sea Egg Twisting Machine". Since April 2022, the official twisted egg specialty store of Bandai has entered the domestic market and has gradually settled in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and other places.
Image source network, Star Ocean Twisting Egg Machine Store
With the increase in the number of egg twisting machines, it has correspondingly driven the growth of egg twisting sales. To be precise, twisted eggs are a form of packaging, and the toys inside can cover various categories, but most of them have intellectual property attributes. Due to the origin of twisted eggs and their machines in Japan, for a long time, the twisted eggs sold in the domestic market were mainly dominated by Japanese brands and intellectual property rights. For example, toy distributors from Kaifeng and Ningbo reported that the twisted egg machines placed in their stores mainly sold Wan Dai twisted eggs.
Nowadays, the number of domestically produced egg twisting machines is gradually increasing, including overseas intellectual property products authorized by domestic brands, such as intellectual property themed egg twisting machines like "SpongeBob SquarePants", "Wang Wang Team Achieves Great Achievements", and "Sanrio" in Chaosheng Animation; There are also some domestic original intellectual property themed products, such as "Super Flying Man" and "Egg Party"; In addition, there are also some original design products, such as Bibo dolls. The variety of products in Twisted Egg is becoming increasingly diverse, including building blocks, dolls, slow rebound toys, car models, assembly models, and dolls.
04 Self service vending machines
Adding cards to the display area as highlights
A successful case of combining vending machines and toys for selling fast-moving consumer goods is blind box vending machines, which include brands such as Bubble Mart, TOP TOY, and 1983 TOYS that have established their presence in this field. Compared to the initial sales of standard size blind boxes, the current blind box vending machines not only have an additional physical display area, but also can sell blind boxes of different sizes.
With the increasing popularity of cards in the domestic market, related brands have also begun to combine cards with vending machines, launching card vending machines such as Star Card vending machines and offline card game twisting machines. From actual experience, the operation of the offline card twisting machine in card games is very simple: click on the screen to select the card you want to purchase, scan the code for payment, wait for the card to be shipped, and pick up the card. The entire purchase process only takes a few minutes to complete.
Image source network, card game offline twisting card machine
In 2018, multiple manufacturers had already noticed this business opportunity. However, in the past six years, the combination of toys and vending machines has not been widely adopted. There are two reasons for this phenomenon: firstly, toys are not essential items in daily life, but rather a non essential item that is usually not purchased frequently, making them less suitable for sales using vending machines; Secondly, the popularity of the product is also a key factor. For example, in recent years, products such as blind boxes and cards have been highly sought after, with high consumer attention and enthusiasm for purchasing. Moreover, the purchase method of blind boxes can easily trigger repurchase behavior, making them more suitable for sales through vending machines. Therefore, if you want to expand traditional toys into vending machine sales channels, the key is to solve the problem of repurchase rate.
Article source: Zhongwai Toy Network, for reprint and sharing only. If there is any infringement, please contact our company to delete it.
