Pop Mart Enters Laopu Gold’s Core Turf, but Labubu’s Secondhand Prices Are Collapsing
Pop Mart is making a full-scale push into Laopu Gold’s market segment, aiming to carve out a share for itself.
On September 12, Pop Mart’s jewelry brand popop launched its first pure gold product line, which includes pure gold beads, pendants, gold bars, and decorative items. These products feature Baby Molly, one of Pop Mart’s flagship IPs.
popop is one of Pop Mart’s key corporate-level projects in 2025 to expand its business boundaries. Positioned as a "jewelry brand," it opened its first store in Shanghai this June. Pop Mart has invested significant company resources in this project: core IPs such as MOLLY and SKULLPANDA have been integrated into popop’s jewelry lineup, and the brand has also secured high-value store locations and invested heavily in store decor.
However, venturing into pure gold products means popop has now directly crossed paths with brands like Laopu Gold. A jewelry industry analyst told Huxiu that pure gold products—whether valued for collection and IP, or for emotional value and ornamental purposes—essentially carry a "product premium" beyond the intrinsic value of gold. Moreover, their core consumer groups often share traits like high net worth and being female. "The competition for the attention and spending power of this overlapping demographic is evident," the analyst noted. Nevertheless, they believe the two sides are only in a "border skirmish" for now, far from an all-out war. "Laopu Gold positions itself and operates more like a luxury brand, while Pop Mart leans heavily on IP and fan economy."
Despite the launch of popop’s pure gold line, Pop Mart’s stock price failed to get a boost. After hitting an all-time high of HK$339.8 per share on August 26, Pop Mart’s stock began to decline. By September 10, it had dropped by 15.74% overall. On September 12, Pop Mart closed at HK$276.8 per share on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The core cause of Pop Mart’s stock decline likely stems from significant price volatility in Labubu’s plush product line on the "collection and secondhand markets." On Qiandao, a secondhand trading platform, two items from the "Labubu Advanced Series Vinyl Plush Keychains"—titled Luck and Hope—were priced at nearly RMB 600 and RMB 450 each in June, respectively. By September 11, their latest prices had plummeted to RMB 133 and RMB 108 each.
Huxiu learned that the sharp price drop was primarily driven by Pop Mart’s revised supply strategy. During the 618 shopping festival, Pop Mart launched a large-scale pre-order and restock campaign for its plush product line. From July to September, the number of new products entering the market was 2–3 times higher (or even more) than the volume before June.
Behind this shift, Pop Mart also expanded its production capacity: the monthly output of Labubu’s vinyl plush series reached 30 million units, a 10-fold increase compared to the first quarter of 2025. However, the flood of products into the market in a short period undermined the "price stability" of Labubu items on the secondhand market. Scalpers and store owners who had hoarded large quantities of Labubu products began selling off their stock in bulk, triggering the price collapse.
Over the past year or so, capital markets had high expectations for Pop Mart, largely fueled by Labubu’s sales success. When Labubu’s "magic" started to fade, the market entered a phase of reassessing its confidence in the company.
In the author’s view, while this has undoubtedly created pressure and volatility for both Labubu and Pop Mart’s stock price in the short term, it will ultimately benefit Pop Mart’s long-term development. For IP-focused companies, relying too heavily on a single IP for revenue or stock price stability is extremely risky—this is why Disney maintains a rapid pace of new IP launches, like "dumplings boiling in a pot."
According to information obtained by Huxiu, Pop Mart’s core decision-makers do not want the market’s confidence in the company’s stock to depend on the high resale value of a single IP’s products in the secondhand market. Instead, they hope more of the company’s IPs will achieve wider circulation—a key reason why all of Pop Mart’s IPs release 2–4 new product series each year.
During Labubu’s peak popularity over the past year, Pop Mart faced another challenge: "middlemen profiting from price gaps." On the secondhand market, large-scale hoarders and scalpers became bottlenecks in the product circulation chain, sometimes marking up prices by 1.5–3 times or more. This was clearly not a scenario Pop Mart wanted to see.
A brief review of Labubu’s global rise reveals that its success was essentially driven by "circulation" rather than "value preservation." When videos of BLACKPINK members and NBA stars with Labubu items went viral on social media platforms, Labubu gained global influence.
This is likely the original vision Pop Mart’s decision-makers want Labubu to return to: an IP’s survival depends on broader influence and penetration.
Through a series of supply strategy adjustments in 2025, Pop Mart has essentially disrupted the existing secondhand market ecosystem—providing an opportunity to reset the IP’s trajectory. But how can it rebuild the capital market’s confidence in its valuation? Currently, Pop Mart urgently needs more IPs to reach Labubu’s level of success, and for new businesses like popop to grow rapidly.
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