On February 4, the Beijing Winter Olympics officially opened, and the mascot Bingdundun became the new top player. In less than a day, both the online and offline official flagship stores were sold out. The magical music of “I just want a Bingdundun, who can give me a Bingdundun” is popular in the WeChat Moments.
The demand is so hot that it also gives “scalpers” an opportunity. The Bingdundun plush toy of 198 yuan was fired to 2,000 yuan, a premium of nearly 10 times; the Bingdundun keychain with the original price of 58 yuan was priced at 500 yuan in the “scalper” WeChat Moments… But these “scalpers” also paid the price: on February 8th, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau reported that three people were punished for reselling Bingdundun at a high price.
What are the official channels for purchasing Bingdundun? How can I be sure to buy genuine products? Can the source of the WeChat Moments channel be purchased? Does Yiwu also produce Bingdundun? The reporter experienced the Bingdundun snap-up battle and conducted a detailed investigation.
Where can I buy “Bingdundun” in stock?
“Who has the Olympic Bingdundun/a series of resources/win-win cooperation! A lot of recycling. Confidential cooperation.” On February 5, Zhang Chuang (pseudonym) wrote in a WeChat Moments. As a senior “scalper”, Zhang Chuang always has resources for various performance tickets, and Bingdundun is his latest business.
For the next few days, Zhang Chuang posted pictures of different styles of Bingdundun products in his WeChat Moments every day. On February 8, in the WeChat Moments he posted, the price of 58 yuan for a keychain was 500 yuan. The premium is nearly 10 times, and people are still buying in an endless stream, because under the hot market, there is basically no way to buy it elsewhere.
The reporter searched for “Bingdundun” on multiple e-commerce platforms. Except for the official flagship store of Tmall Olympic, other e-commerce platforms did not have Bingdundun mascots for sale. In the official flagship store, many Bingdundun products were sold out, and the products that were pre-sold on time were almost gone in seconds.
In the second-hand transaction, the result of searching “Bingdundun” is a blank interface, and it turns to show that “the search results may involve content that does not comply with relevant laws, regulations and policies, and are not displayed.” At 11:00 a.m. on February 10, the reporter searched for the word “蹲” (Dun) on the Xianyu platform will also show Bingdundun related products, but they are immediately blocked, indicating that the products have been removed from the shelves.
There are a lot of Bingdundun acquisition treasures circulating on the Internet, such as through the Unicom APP Points Mall / KFC, Pizza Hut Package / iQIYI APP membership benefits, etc., but it is still difficult to find a “pier”. All of a sudden, the demand for “Bingdundun” is growing, and there are more and more “scalpers” in the WeChat Moments.
On February 6, Yin Yi (pseudonym) began to post related circles of friends, “I buy Bingdundun on behalf of me, come to me, queued up for 6 hours for one of them.” He even changed his WeChat name directly to “Bingdundun”.
According to the reporter’s observation, there are currently two types of “scalpers” in the WeChat Moments. From the perspective of the product price, taking the Olympic official flagship store Bingdundun 60mm keychain as an example, the official price is 58 yuan per piece, and some scalpers sell Bingdundun keychains. It is 500 yuan/piece, which is close to a 10-fold premium; some scalpers have slightly increased the price on the basis of the official price.
According to Zhao Yi (pseudonym), the 60mm keychain is 68 yuan per piece, the 10cm figure is 128 yuan per piece, and the 20cm plush toy is 258 yuan per piece, which is not much different from the official price. Why is Zhao Yi’s price relatively cheap? He said it was because of the direct cooperation with the factory. At first, Zhao Yi was reluctant to disclose the location of the factory. After several questions, Zhao Yi said that the factory was in Yiwu. “Our boss has some gossip, and the factories we happen to know are all regular and have certificates. Selling cheap is to take volume.”
On February 10, it has been a week since Bingdundun became the “top stream”. There are still nearly 200 meters long queues at the Wangfujing Gongmei Building in Beijing. It is still difficult to buy Bingdundun offline. But “scalpers” still said “inquiry with pictures” and “spot”, and it seems that Bingdundun is not in short supply in their hands.
“All genuine, order from offline franchise stores”
Where did the “scalper” goods come from?
According to the WeChat Moments released by Zhang Chuang, Bingdundun with a premium of nearly 10 times may mainly come from high-priced recycling. “Recycle the whole series of Bingdundun from China Unicom/Bank of China/Anta/Yili. You can pay attention to the various official platforms of the Winter Olympics sponsors, and there are various benefits such as lottery draws. You can contact me to recycle them and help you realize it. If you have resources, you can also contact me for cooperation, which is absolutely confidential.”
Yin Yi also said that there are generally several ways for “scalpers” to get genuine products, one is to recycle others’ products at high prices, the other is to queue up offline or buy online, and the third is to order from licensed commodity retailers and retail stores.” Those who can get the third type are more powerful, whether it is from a licensed offline store or a franchisee, if they can get the goods from the dealer, it means that he has a channel (relationship).”
Can you book Bingdundun by relationship? “If you want genuine products, they come from licensed channels.” Yin Yi told the reporter that after traveling among friends, he has the contact information of nearly 80 franchisees or retail stores in his hand, which are all sources of orders.
“Now when the offline store is stocking, I call my friends and ask them to help me get more. The minimum order is about 10, and it’s hard to say if it’s too small.” Contact the store and negotiate the order. Yin Yi has to call every day. Dozens of phone calls, and then go to the offline store to pick up and deliver the goods.
Yin Yi’s statement was also verified by Zhang Ying (pseudonym), Zhang Ying had Bingdundun for friends. “The unit where my friend works has internal benefits, not in stock, I can help to book some, but not for sale.” Zhang Ying told the reporter.
However, the reporter called a number of franchised retail stores to try to make reservations, but it was not as smooth as Yin Yi and Zhang Ying. “We can only accept offline reservations. You can’t do it online. You have to bring your ID card. Come in in-person, book one with an ID card, and pay the full price for the reservation.” The staff of the franchised retail store Beijing Baidaxing said.
“It’s all out of stock now, and a batch of goods will arrive at the end of February, but we can only buy on-site and do not accept reservations.” The staff of the franchised retail store Jilin Songhua Lake Ski Resort said.
However, when calling the franchised retail store Beijing Xidan Shopping Mall, the staff said “it’s not that strict”. If the goods are in stock, the staff only asks to inform the order quantity of the goods, and they can pick up the goods as soon as possible after registering their names and telephone numbers. goods. On February 12, the reporter got 10 Bingdundun products after registering on the phone and paying on the spot that afternoon.
Yin Yi is also always paying attention to the news related to reselling Bingdundun, worrying about whether his behavior is illegal. Following the announcement on February 8 that Beijing was fined for scalping scalpers at high prices, on February 11, Yin Yi paid attention to the news that “WeChat Solitaire Group Purchase was suspended”. According to the “Morning News”, the head of the group buying WeChat group pre-ordered Bingdundun ornaments from a licensed manufacturer and pre-sold them in a group solitaire fashion, which has now been stopped.
Zhou Yazhu, a lawyer from Yingke Shanghai Law Firm, said that since February 5, some of Bingdundun’s best-selling products, such as mascot plush toys and figures, have been subject to purchase restrictions, and the operation of licensed retail stores has been supervised by the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee. and even approval, including how many licensed items are traded. Therefore, since February 5, if a franchised retail store pre-orders some restricted licensed products in bulk without permission, both the franchised retail store and the scalper’s actions have harmed the legitimate rights and interests of other consumers.
Shao Tingting, a lawyer from Beijing Lantai (Hefei) Law Firm, pointed out that Bingdundun is a franchised product, and the sales of franchised products need to be authorized by the franchisor. It can be privately sold to employees as an internal benefit, especially in the current “hard to find” situation, which damages the legitimate rights and interests of other consumers. On the other hand, even if internal employees have obtained genuine Bingdundun products, sales to the outside world without the franchise authorization of the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee constitute infringement, and personal resale is illegal. (For details, please refer to Article 10 of the Regulations on the Protection of Olympic Symbols)
Yin Yi said that most of the franchised retail stores are located in Beijing, which means that it is difficult to buy related products outside Beijing, “but the enthusiasm for buying comes from all over the country, where do people who are not in Beijing buy from? There is only a Taobao official online flagship store, and the number is very limited, it is impossible to grab it.”
The staff of the exchange center of the Shanghai Sports Institute, a licensed retail store, also mentioned that Bingdundun has been out of stock for several days. Yin Yi believes that the current short-term supply shortage is one reason, but another reason for the popularity of “scalpers” is that consumers have too few purchasing channels, “A store can only sell so much from morning to night, even if there is a long queue. Wouldn’t it be better to have more sales points?”
“No one in Yiwu makes Bingdundun”
According to the official website of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympic Organizing Committee, there are three manufacturers of plush and other material toys of Bingdundun nationwide, namely Jinjiang Hengsheng Toys Co., Ltd., Beijing Yuanlong Yatu Culture Communication Co., Ltd. and Nantong. Golden Phoenix Craft Toys Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Among them, there is no Yiwu factory, and the licensed manufacturer of Bingdundun keychains has no company located in Yiwu. So, where did the Yiwu factory mentioned by Zhao Yi come from?
As a world factory, Yiwu has high expectations from consumers. Many netizens shouted on social platforms that “Yiwu should work”, and bought Bingdundun from Yiwu to become a new hope for buyers.
Because he has been doing business in Yiwu all the year round, Liu Ming soon received a large number of private messages and phone calls, “all asking me if I have Bingdundun.” Liu Ming realized that this was a business opportunity. On February 6, he went to Yiwu International Trade City and Beixiazhu successively. In the gathering place of information and traffic, he wanted to know if everyone was moving and whether they could get a share of the pie.
“There aren’t many people in either place yet, probably because it’s just the beginning of the year.” According to Yiwu’s practice, if there is an explosion in the market, both the Trade City and Beixiazhu should be lively places. Liu Ming has not figured out what the situation is, the business group in his WeChat has begun to boil. For a while, pictures and videos about reselling Bingdundun were rampant in the group. In the early morning of February 8, Liu Ming posted two Moments in succession, announcing “I have Bingdundun” in the Moments, and he was going to earn some “extra money” from Bingdundun.
On the afternoon of February 8, Liu Ming posted the third Moments of the day. In the video, “Zhejiang Yiwu: Please give Yiwu some time, Yiwu said that it has received the message”, with a picture of Bingdundun/Xue Rongrong. Liu Ming’s text: The latest news, the molds have been released, and they will be shipped after the 15th. The first batch of goods will be delivered on the 18th.
Liu Ming added the WeChat account of a person who claimed to be in stock from the group. “He said that he specializes in the customized supply chain of gift inventory, and has inventory in Tianjin.” Liu Ming showed the reporter his chat record. The Bingdundun keychain is 65 Yuan/piece, starting from 20 pieces.
However, before Liu Ming could transfer and remit money, he heard that someone had been deceived on WeChat. After the transfer, he was blocked and he did not receive the goods. On February 9, the official WeChat account of Yiwu Market Supervision and Administration Bureau issued a message to strictly investigate and punish the infringing production and sales of counterfeit Bingdundun/Xue Rongrong, and many of the relevant parties involved in illegal production and sales of related products were fined.
The reporter noticed that the seven cases announced by the Yiwu Market Supervision Bureau were all investigated and dealt with before the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics. There are 77 pieces of Bingdundun with a size of 30cm, 7 pieces with a size of 50cm, and 1,000 semi-finished products of Xuerong Rong. The products produced by the company are partly sold through the online platform for consignment products, and partly through the company registered on another online platform. The legal representative of the company was detained according to the law on January 1, 2022.” From this point of view, Yiwu “worked” earlier than netizens imagined.
The news of “smuggling fake Bingdundun, the legal representative of a company was detained” quickly spread in Yiwu. On February 9, Liu Ming stopped posting Bingdundun-related Moments. In less than two days, no one asked about Bingdundun in Liu Ming’s Yiwu WeChat group. Bingdundun’s business “turned off” in Yiwu.
A toy dealer in Yiwu told the reporter, “No one makes Bingdundun in Yiwu now… Some friends have made molds but dare not make them…” On February 10, the reporter called more than ten toy factories in Yiwu, and more All the bosses said, “We don’t do it without authorization.”
“I asked, but the toy factories in Yiwu don’t make Bingdundun. The ‘scalpers’ lie to you about the factories in Yiwu… If there is any illegal production, you can report it if you ask him for the address.” said the toy owner.
Shao Tingting told the reporter that the production and sales of licensed products for the Winter Olympics must be approved and approved by the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee. Unless there is an official authorization from the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, the licensed factories are not qualified to authorize the next-level factories to produce independently. In other words, if there is no other information to prove that the factory is authorized to cooperate with the licensed factory, it is illegal to produce.
Having paid attention to the “Bingdundun” related strict investigation news, Zhang Chuang’s “Bingdundun” related WeChat Moments has only two days of content, and the previous related content has been deleted. Yin Yi’s latest Moments show, “Notice: Bingdundun’s reservation is over. If you ordered it, you will get it. If you don’t, forget about it.” Source