Stores massively sell off Baby Three toys

Less than a year after becoming a hit, Baby Three dolls - a Chinese blind box toy - are facing a strong boycott in Vietnam. Suspected products containing images related to the "cow tongue line" have caused many stores to sell off their products despite losses, while authorities tighten inspections.

Baby Three, also known as "Baby Three", are represented as round-faced, expressive characters and are often designed according to diverse themes such as festivals, seasons or special events.

Ms. Ngoc Hang, owner of a toy store in District 12 (Ho Chi Minh City), said that Baby Three's purchasing power dropped by half after information about the product containing sensitive drawings appeared. "Consumers rushed to boycott, forcing me to reduce prices by 30-50% to clear inventory. With more than 200 boxes having to be sold at a loss, I lost tens of millions of dong, not to mention import and operating costs," Ms. Hang said.

Ms. Hang is selling Baby Three Town Rabbit from 350,000 VND a box, reduced to 199,000 VND. The Baby Three MCR Wet Eye Rabbit line is only 150,000 VND. With Baby Three insects, the price is only 85,000-99,000 VND a box.

Not only Hang, many other shop owners are also struggling. A shop on Phan Huy Ich Street, Go Vap District (Ho Chi Minh City) accepted to sell at a loss, reducing the price of Baby Three to 100,000-500,000 VND per box.

The store representative said that in the past, this doll was always out of stock, expensive but still sought after by many people. However, after a few days of suspicions that Baby Three had the "cow tongue line" printed on it, the number of customers dropped sharply. Although the store owner advertised it for sale in all groups, the product still "sat still on the shelf, no one cared".

On online trading groups, the sale of goods is happening in a big way. "Before, everyone was hunting for Baby Three, now even though it's cheap, there are few buyers," Hong Tram, who specializes in selling this type of product, lamented.

The crisis erupted after streamer ViruSs (Dang Tien Hoang) announced that he would stop selling Baby Three, claiming that the doll’s design contained sensitive details. The online community responded to the boycott call, causing many store owners to frantically clear out their inventory.

Faced with this situation, the Department of Domestic Market Management and Development (Ministry of Industry and Trade) requested local Market Management Departments to increase inspections of children's toys related to Vietnam's sovereignty.

The document stated that some children's toys such as Baby Three were reported to have images similar to the "cow tongue line". These products are sold in traditional forms and on e-commerce platforms such as Shopee, Tiktok Shop, and Facebook. In case of detecting violations, the authorities require strict handling according to regulations.

Baby Three is a "blind box" stuffed animal, launched in May 2024 and quickly became a trend. The product costs from 100,000 to several million VND per box. According to statistics from e-commerce data platform Metric, in just 1 month (from October 15 to November 15), Vietnamese people spent 8.8 billion VND to buy nearly 37,800 "Baby Three" dolls on Shopee and TikTok Shop, an increase of 105% compared to the previous month.

Baby Three sales in Vietnam reached 40.6 billion VND after just a few months, but this fever could be quickly extinguished by a wave of boycotts.

According to Cognitive Market Research, the global blind box toy industry is estimated to reach $14.2 billion this year, with the Asia-Pacific region contributing 23% of the revenue. In Southeast Asia alone, consumers are expected to spend $226.17 million in 2024 and grow at an average of 9% per year through 2031.