MiniSo, a 2-dollar store chain from China, has established a new designer toy sub-brand, TopToy

According to Chinese media reports, 2-dollar store chain brand MiniSo recently established a new sub-brand TopToy. The chain will be used to sell designer toys that are popular in Asia and compete for head-on with PopMart, another Chinese unicorn company.

MiniSo is a Chinese 2-dollar store chain inspired by the Japanese lifestyle. It quickly became popular in China by selling gadgets for daily use at a low price and of acceptable quality. At the same time, in the seven years since its establishment, it has opened more than 1600 stores outside China, which is an outstanding achievement among Chinese brands.

Miniso listed on the New York Stock Exchange in October because of its excellent business performance.

Also See: How does two-dollar store MiniSo from China succeed?

Its new sub-brand TOPTOY will focus on selling Asian designer toys (“潮玩”, aka trendy toy). The target consumers are children and young people aged between 10 and 40, with commodity prices between 39 to 69 yuan.

Designer toys have been very popular in China in the past two years. It is sold in the form of a “blind box”(盲盒), which stimulates people’s desire to buy. The blind box is actually a kind of gacha, that consumers don’t know what kind of toy they will get before paying for it, so in order to put together a complete collection, consumers have to buy a lot of it over and over again. This has significantly boosted the sales of this commodity.

According to statistics, the retail market for designer toys in China increased from 6.3 billion yuan (US- $964 million) to 20.7 billion yuan (US $3.167 billion) from 2015 to 2019, with a compound annual growth rate of 34.6%.

Also See: PopMart : A microcosm of Chinese designer toy market

Earlier this year, PopMart, a Chinese designer and toy giant, announced that it would go public in Hong Kong.

TOPTOY’s first flagship store is scheduled to open in Zhengjia Plaza in Guangzhou on December 18 and will initially sell 1500 different products. In addition, TOPTOY plans to open stores in Shenzhen, Chongqing, Xi’an, and other cities in January 2021.

At present, TOPTOY has no plans to set up stores overseas.