Topline
Labubu dolls are suddenly more available than they’ve been in months as retailers like Amazon, Target and Walmart list verified versions of the toy for affordable prices in a sign shoppers’ insatiable appetites may be curbing, but another Pop Mart doll is poised to take center stage.
Walmart has partnered with StockX, an online reseller, to sell Labubu dolls several times over the last few months and toys from the latest re-stock are still available on the website, at prices as low as $39 per doll.
Target has Labubus from Pop Mart's collaboration with "One Piece," a Japanese manga series, in stock online for $39. At Amazon, Labubus are on sale for Prime Day for as low as $20, some from series like “Wacky Mart” and “Lazy Yoga.”
On eBay, where sellers have made upwards of $10,000 on special edition Labubus, few dolls are listed for more than $2,000 and none of 60 most expensive listings have garnered bids.
At the height of the Labubu craze earlier this year, the toys sold out in a matter of seconds each time they re-stocked on the Pop Mart website and resellers were making hundreds to thousands of dollars on each wacky, toothy doll.
The high prices and low inventory drove a rise in counterfeit Labubu and stores with the dolls in stock were being overrun by customers brawling and yelling at each other to secure their toy.
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The next big thing. Another Pop Mart plush called the Hirono Living Wild Doll soared in popularity this week after a member of the Korean boyband BTS named V, aka Kim Taehyung, was seen with one at Incheon Airport. Within hours, the same doll sold out on Pop Mart's website in China with upwards of 500 units reportedly sold. The Hirono Living Wild Doll is currently listed for resale on eBay for as much as $175—more than triple its original price.
The Labubu toy was designed by artist Kasing Lung a decade ago and first debuted in a picture book called “The Monsters Trilogy” in 2015. Lung licensed his designs to Pop Mart in 2019 and the company turned them into collectible toys. Labubus have skyrocketed in popularity over the last year thanks largely to endorsements from celebrities like Lisa from the K-pop group Blackpink, Rihanna and Dua Lipa, and also through TikTok “unboxing” videos that shot them to viral fame. Fans have lined up at Pop Mart stores and vending machines for hours, even traveling overseas to get their hands on one, CNBC reported. Pop Mart pulled the dolls from all U.K. stores following reports of customers fighting over them earlier this year. In August, the Better Business Bureau issued a warning to online shoppers after dozens of people reported they've fallen for scams when trying to buy the dolls and, in some cases, lost hundreds of dollars.
$43. That's what shares of Pop Mart stock were trading for at the end of August, its highest point in the last year. Shares were trading at $32.80 on Wednesday, a 24% drop from the stock's peak.
Wang Ning, 38-year-old founder of toy maker Pop Mart International Group, has an estimated net worth of $20.5 billion. In September, when the first signs of a cooling demand for Labubus emerged, Ning's net worth plummeted by almost $6 billion in less than a month. He joined the ranks of China’s top 10 billionaires for the first time in June. Pop Mart went public in Hong Kong in 2020.