Aditi Bharade
Securing the new mini Labubu when it dropped out in Asia proved to be as hard as getting a Taylor Swift concert ticket.
When Pop Mart’s latest “The Monsters Pin For Love Series,” featuring 4-inch tall Labubu dolls, dropped in Singapore on Friday morning, it was a bloodbath.
Less than three minutes after it launched at 10 a.m. local time, Pop Mart’s website said the blind boxes, priced at $18.90 Singapore dollars or about $14.70, were out of stock.
The Chinese toymaker’s store on e-commerce platform Lazada also ran out of stock almost immediately, per checks by Business Insider. The tiny dolls in this series came in 30 different colors.
The same chaos unfolded in China on Thursday when the series dropped at 10 p.m. local time, per a Thursday Bloomberg report. The outlet reported that the dolls went out of stock almost instantly.
Fans tried their luck finding mini Labubus in-store
To avoid the snaking queues Pop Mart is known for, the company only made the dolls available online. The lucky few who succeeded in purchasing them online could come and collect them in Pop Mart’s brick-and-mortar stores in Singapore, staff told Business Insider.
Still, that did not stop Labubu fans from trying their luck in-store. When Business Insider visited a Pop Mart store in Orchard, the city’s high-fashion shopping district, it was packed with customers who flocked around “The Monsters” island in the shop.
Aditi Bharade
Adil, a store staff member, told Business Insider that he had been answering questions about the mini Labubu since the store opened on Friday. He said many people were unaware that it was an online drop and hoped to get their hands on it in person.
Sarah, who works in marketing in Singapore, visited the Pop Mart store to check out the mini Labubus on display. She said she wanted the beige mini Labubu, which corresponded with the letter “S,” her initial.
Although she’s an avid collector of Labubus — she said she has collected 12 in two years — she did not even try buying the mini Labubu online on Friday.
“I knew there was no point; it was too competitive, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it,” Sarah told Business Insider. She said she would wait for them to be available in resale shops.
Justus Ong, a store staff member in Singapore’s Plaza Singapora mall, said there was a queue of about 50 people outside the store before doors opened on Friday.
“We had a lot of people come in to try their luck in getting the mini Labubu,” Ong said. It was his first day on the job, and the crowds throughout the day had been way larger than he’d expected to face on day one.
The “Pin For Love” drop was another reminder of Labubu’s massive appeal and popularity. Pop Mart’s “The Monsters” IP contributed 4.81 billion Chinese yuan, or about $674 million, to the company’s total sales in the first half of this year, per its earnings report released on August 19.
The company reported a 204% increase in revenue in the first half of the year compared to last year, with global sales of 13.87 billion Chinese yuan.
It also reported a 401% increase in profits compared to the year before. Its stock is up more than 600% in the past year.
The post The hunt for the mini Labubu is on appeared first on Business Insider.
