Quick review of the two sessions

◎ he Xinghui

As soon as you buy it, you can’t stop. Now, the new playing method of blind box has captured the hearts of countless consumers. However, a series of problems brought by it can not be ignored. During the two sessions this year, Yang Xuemei, deputy to the National People’s Congress and President of the Yellow River Institute of science and technology, suggested that the supervision of the blind box market should be strengthened.

The uncertainty and surprise brought by removing the blind box is undoubtedly a relatively novel consumption experience and has become a new selling point of many businesses. Some consumers, especially minors, are easily trapped in the situation of crazy purchase in order to get their favorite products or styles. As a result, the blind box model began to ferment in all walks of life, and a “blind box wind” was blowing in many fields, such as dolls, catering, beauty makeup, books, stationery and so on. According to the prediction of relevant research institutions, the market scale of China’s trendy play economy represented by blind box will reach 47.8 billion yuan in 2022. Such a large market volume, if there is a “blind spot” in supervision, the impact is undoubtedly huge.

In fact, all this has long been a clue. According to the “complaints received by the National Consumer Association in 2021” released by the China Consumer Association, in 2021, the National Consumer Association accepted 1044861 consumer complaints [complaints about entering the black cat], a year-on-year increase of 6.37%. Among them, the blind box has become a new hot spot of complaints because of the main problems such as merchants using the blind box to induce consumption and fraud in the sale of the blind box. What is more worrying is that the addiction and gambling psychology brought by the “blind box fever” are not only easy to breed abnormal consumption, but also may have a serious impact on the mental health of teenagers.

Therefore, it is urgent to strengthen the supervision of the blind box market. For illegal acts such as black box operation, improper inducement and sky high price speculation, fight if you should; For young children, special goods and special fields, a red line should be drawn to prohibit blind box marketing. In short, it is time to formulate the rules of the game for the blind box market. There can be no “blind area” for blind box supervision.