A recent study conducted by Hamaru Strategy, a Japanese company in the IP business, surveyed 35,866 people on what they think about “random goods.” This refers to products like collectible anime charms and other merch where you don’t know what character or design you’ll get until after you’ve bought and unsealed it (in other words, merch sold in the blind bag format). Although the sales method is widespread in Japan, it doesn’t come as a shocker that a majority of people don’t appreciate it.
As reported by Kai-You, out of the 35 thousand survey respondents, 89.9% said they disliked or strongly disliked random goods. On the other hand, nearly all respondents admitted to buying them. Unsurprisingly, the main reasons people cited for their dislike of random merch were “the possibility of not getting the product you want” (98.5%) and “it costs more than regular merch” (91.6%). While random merch isn’t inherently more expensive, the latter reason cited likely refers to the need to make several purchases until you get lucky. Not to mention that many people (63.3%, to be exact) resort to buying the item they want from resellers, which comes at an above-retail price.
While random merch is a convenient strategy for companies to increase sales volume and prevent less popular designs from becoming dead stock, it seems its use can even negatively affect the image of the content associated with it. According to the survey, 85.2% of respondents said their impression of an IP worsened due to random merch sales. Additionally, 89.7% said they would even be willing to pay a higher price if they could choose the product they wanted.
Interestingly, this survey comes in response to a similar study published by Bandai Namco’s toy and hobby business (Bandai Spirits) back in March. Although it focused on practically the same topic, Bandai Spirits’s report was met with immense backlash on social media, as Japanese users found it to be excessively biased towards random merch in a favorable light. Since the survey report mostly focused on positive sentiments (like the thrill of trying your luck and drawing your desired item) and emphasizing how often people purchase random merch, many found it to be skewed representation of actual consumer sentiment.
