Blind boxes, charms, sound baths: China pays to feel

More young consumers in China are spending on how they want to feel, and a business built around joy, companionship, comfort and self-gratification is taking shape around them. Emotional value is moving into more corners of consumer life. Collectible blind boxes are designed to keep buyers coming back, superstition-driven purchases offer a sense of reassurance and wellness experiences provide a temporary escape from everyday pressures. Brands are following with new products, IP collaborations and immersive experiences, seeking relationships with consumers that go beyond the transaction. Three representative segments of the emotion economy show how brands are turning emotional needs into new occasions for spending — and whether fleeting moments of resonance can translate into more durable commercial value. Blind boxes: Monetizing the thrill of surprise How big a business are collectible toys? Pop Mart’s latest earnings offer an answer. It generated 17.17 billion RMB ($2.56 billion) in revenue in the first half of 2026, up 23.8% year-on-year. The Monsters, the franchise led by Labubu, contributed 4.45 billion RMB ($664 million), down 7.5% from a year earlier, while Twinkle Twinkle brought in 2.65 billion RMB ($395 million), up 580.6%. What look like simple toys are now generating billions of renminbi in sales, a measure of the commercial power of emotional consumption. Consumers are willing to buy the same characters repeatedly, and often spend more in the hope of pulling a rare “hidden” edition. Behind that behavior is the urge to collect, along with a desire for surprise, companionship and self-expression. Blind-box mechanics are now moving beyond the toy business and into fashion and lifestyle, while Pop Mart has taken its characters into jewelry through its Popop brand. In August, British heritage brand Hunter teamed up with Beibei Cat, a character developed by 11Pop, the pop-culture IP brand of Shenzhen toy group MFUN, on the “Rain Boot Universe” collection, turning its signature rain-boot silhouette and the cat character into 30 miniature accessories sold in blind bags. The pieces can be attached to boots, hung from bags or displayed on desks, recasting Hunter’s functional boot as a portable, emotionally expressive collectible. “Collectible toys are built around surprise and joy, but ordinary blind boxes are no longer enough to make consumers stop and take notice,” Jack Yan, a veteran of the designer-toy industry, said in an interview with Jing Daily. “You need the pull of a recognizable brand, plus strong design, to win over younger consumers on both fronts.” Randomness alone is no longer enough to sustain attention now that blind boxes are an established retail format. The challenge for brands is to create fresher emotional hooks through distinctive IP, stronger design and cross-category collaborations. Superstition spending: Wearing good luck Olympic tennis champion Zheng Qinwen (郑钦文) appeared on court at the 2026 China Open in Beijing wearing Qeelin’s gourd-shaped Wulu pendant. In Chinese, the word for gourd, “hulu” (葫芦), sounds like “fulu” (福禄), meaning good fortune and prosperity, and the gourd has long symbolized luck and protection. That association gives Qeelin’s Wulu collection an emotional pull among Chinese consumers. For many, the gourd itself carries hopes for safety and a smooth life. Worn on the body, the jewelry doubles as a portable good-luck charm. Other jewelry brands are turning similar forms of emotional value into product appeal. De Beers Group’s Forevermark launched its “the One” collection at the 2025 Qixi Festival (Chinese Valentine’s Day), pairing gold with diamonds and drawing on the sun, Venus, Mercury and other celestial bodies to give different pieces associations with energy, protection and good fortune. The collection tapped into consumers’ desire for luck and emotional reassurance. Sales suggest the quasi-mystical pitch worked. During Qixi week alone, the collection generated more than 10 million RMB ($1.49 million) on Tmall and more than 20 million RMB ($2.98 million) across all channels, Jing Daily reported at the time. The launch coincided with the appointment of actor and singer Luo Yunxi (罗云熙) as a brand ambassador. Consumers were buying gold-and-diamond jewelry and, with it, the promise of positive energy and a better future. Superstition has become a product language brands can use to connect with emotional needs, as consumers show they are willing to pay for luck and protection. Experiential wellness: Paying for a moment of ease If consumption once meant buying things, more people are now willing to pay for a stretch of time that makes them feel better. A sound-bath session, a meditation class or a wellness retreat may produce nothing tangible, yet these experiences are becoming purchases in their own right. Many younger consumers are paying to step away from work and information overload — and recover a little ease. That shift is making wellness a set of concrete consumer experiences. Fashion, sports and lifestyle brands are weaving meditation, sound therapy, massage and mindful movement into physical spaces, giving shoppers a fuller emotional and bodily experience. Alo, for instance, opened its first physical space in mainland China on October 1, a pop-up at Zhangyuan, a century-old heritage compound in Shanghai, combining retail, movement, wellness and community programming. The second floor houses a wellness area offering one-on-one training, massage, sound therapy and guided meditation, open by invitation only. A similar logic underpins Birkenstock’s “Natural Walking” initiative. The brand has extended its long-standing focus on foot health beyond footwear and into everyday life, taking the program to Anji in Zhejiang province, Shenzhen, Xi’an, Chengdu and other cities. Working with local communities, it has introduced activities including foot yoga, mindful walking, urban walks and Baduanjin, a traditional qigong routine of eight movements, encouraging participants to pay closer attention to physical sensation and everyday comfort. But with “healing” (疗愈) now a common part of brand language in China, another question is emerging: How do brands keep it from becoming a copy-and-paste marketing formula? Artist and art therapist Wang Zhongsheng said in an interview with Jing Daily that while more brands are moving into the wellness space, layering on fashionable elements such as sound bowls, meditation or fragrance is not where the value lies. It comes from starting with the brand’s own values, then building a coherent experience across space, bodily perception, interaction and emotion. Citing an art-therapy workshop he created with Xi Zhe Wuxi, Curio Collection by Hilton, a hotel that opened on September 16, Wang said the team began with the property’s story of “bridging past and present,” then used visuals, sound, materials and sensory cues to help participants reconnect with the space, the city and themselves. “A good brand collaboration allows participants to genuinely experience some kind of shift,” Wang said. “Even if it lasts only an hour, if they leave with a new awareness of their body, emotions or relationship with others, the experience stays with them. For a brand, that has more long-term value than a moment of exposure.” As more brands reach for the same tools, the distinction lies in who can turn them into an experience that feels native to the brand itself. Emotion may draw consumers in, but only when that feeling is tied to the product, the space and the brand’s values can it be remembered — and potentially deepen into longer-term affinity.

Blind boxes, charms, sound baths: China pays to feel

How 2026 welcomed ‘Too Cool’ back

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Blind boxes, charms, sound baths: China pays to feel

How 2026 welcomed ‘Too Cool’ back