{"id":108575,"date":"2025-05-17T08:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T08:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/108575\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T08:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T08:40:09","slug":"how-europe-went-crazy-for-chinese-blind-box-toys-and-why-it-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/108575\/","title":{"rendered":"How Europe went \u2018crazy\u2019 for Chinese blind-box toys \u2013 and why it matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of fans were already waiting in line \u2013 some young, some old, some pushing prams \u2013 when Camille Lacroix arrived at the opening of Chinese toy giant Pop Mart\u2019s latest Paris location in the La D\u00e9fense business district last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI arrived at 10am, but guess how many people were already there before?\u201d she wrote in a post about her visit on TikTok. \u201cSpoiler: it was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others who survived the opening day crush flocked to the comment section to share their experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI arrived at 7.30am and there were already 87 people ahead of me,\u201d one user wrote, adding the scared emoji. \u201cBut I got what I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having conquered large parts of East and Southeast Asia, the cult of Chinese blind-box toys<\/a> has now made landfall in Europe.<\/p>\n

For the uninitiated, brands like Pop Mart specialise in selling cute collectible dolls that can be clipped onto a key ring or a handbag. The twist: the toys are often sold in mystery boxes, so customers are never sure which character they will find inside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of fans were already waiting in line \u2013 some young, some old, some pushing prams \u2013 when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[49491,1550,49492,26315,49494,3650,24332,2000,299,5187,49493,49489,1411,49496,49490,49495,15848],"class_list":{"0":"post-108575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-arnold-ma","9":"tag-byd","10":"tag-chinese-commerce-minister-wang-wentao","11":"tag-chinese-government","12":"tag-chinese-products","13":"tag-deepseek","14":"tag-dji","15":"tag-eu","16":"tag-europe","17":"tag-european","18":"tag-la-defense","19":"tag-labubu","20":"tag-paris","21":"tag-pop-mart","22":"tag-qizhi","23":"tag-sacha-courtial","24":"tag-southeast-asia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114522280681154513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}