Recently, singer Su Xing posted a Weibo, which wrote: "I'm not afraid of being laughed at, I don't like this game very much, because I haven't been caught once since I was born." The accompanying picture is Su Xing's loveless expression at the scene of the crane machine, and he also emphasized in his blog post: "Not once".
@苏醒AllenSu
Many people resonate deeply with this passage of awakening: take out a coin from a small frame, put it into the machine with a "ding" sound, keep moving to observe, trying to get the robot arm to clamp the toy, but often the toy fails to "catch" at the moment before falling into the frame, until the coin is exhausted, still nothing.
If someone hits the first time, it can often attract the attention of those present.
Previously, the crane machine had withdrawn from people's field of vision with the decline of the game hall, and now it is making a comeback, all kinds of crane machine stores have quickly penetrated into shopping malls, supermarkets, cinemas and other consumer places, and the prizes in the crane machine are no longer limited to dolls, but have extended to snacks, daily necessities and other forms, and have also given birth to brands including "Doll Run", "Sakura House Crane Machine", "Xiyu Street" and so on.
What is the cost of the toy of the claw machine that makes people spend a lot of money? What kind of business is behind this?
What is the origin of the doll?
Xiaomei (pseudonym), who lives in Beijing, told reporters that for a while, she was obsessed with catching dolls, basically going to a shopping mall to catch dolls first, and some shopping malls had two or three doll shops, and she had to try them, spending nearly 500 yuan in two months.
Xiaoyu (pseudonym) mentioned that she once used her pocket money to grab toys every day for a teddy bear doll, and finally spent more than 100 yuan to successfully catch it. But she believes that "the joy of catching cannot be bought".
What is the actual economic value of the captured doll?
As a franchise investor, the reporter learned that the price difference between the toys in the crane machine is large, ranging from one yuan to ten yuan, and there are toys that claim to have obtained IP authorization, and the price is as high as 300 yuan.
On the social platform, a netizen based in Beijing posted that she took her children to play in a children's playground and saw a "hidden" place where toys were stacked in the playground, and the purchase price was prominently marked on it, and the medium-sized headshot rookie toy was priced at 7 yuan.
Guangzhou No. 3 store claims to be the pioneer of the business model of "popular Internet celebrity store of crane machine". Zhongxin Jingwei called the company's business cooperation staff and learned that "Guangzhou No. 3 Crane Machine" has cooperated with more than 100 shopping malls across the country in the gift supply chain, and the cost of toys ranges from 4 yuan to 10 yuan.
"Doll Run" is a crane machine brand mainly operating in Fujian and Zhejiang. Li Rui (pseudonym), who is in charge of business franchise, told Zhongxin Jingwei that the cost of toys varies greatly, some are sold by the pound, and some are of better quality. Look at the size of the toy sold by the catty, if the size is small, one is two or three pieces, and the average of good quality is about eight pieces. "If there is a fixed IP, it is even more different, ranging from a few dollars to hundreds or thousands, and the quality varies greatly."
"Fun Grab" is a crane grabbing machine brand under the intelligent platform of Digital Entertainment Technology. In 2017, Qugrab released information that it provided genuine Disney toys, and said that the unit price of limited edition toys in the market was as high as 300 yuan.
Zhongxin Jingwei noticed that the price of a single toy provided by the crane machine manufacturer is generally less than 10 yuan, and if it is traced back to the upstream, the price of the toy can be lower.
"Changyi Plush Toy Factory" is a source factory for making plush toys, according to the staff, they cooperate with many crane machine merchants to provide them with toy wholesale. The staff of the sales office told Zhongxin Jingwei that the unit price of dolls with a size of 22 to 25cm is 4.8 yuan.
The employee of Changyi Plush Toy Factory also said: "Most of the customers of the factory's directly operated online store are crane machine stores, and the wholesale form is a fixed number of styles and 20 pieces per pack. According to the factory quotation, there are currently 101 styles of toys on sale in the factory, including popular IP dolls such as cinnamon dog, strawberry bear, and Pikachu. However, the other party did not respond to whether the above-mentioned IP doll is genuine.
There are a number of doll machine toy wholesalers on the e-commerce platform, and the wholesaler of Zhongxin Jingwei to the doll machine shop learned from a shop that the average of 20cm ordinary toys is 2.3 yuan, the average of 20cm boutique toys is 3.9 yuan, and the size of toys from 28cm to 35cm is larger, and the average price is 8 yuan.
On the "Yiwu Buy" website, a store with a "hot sale" label provides plush toys in the crane machine, the purchase price of ordinary toys under 10 cm is 1 yuan, the purchase price of ordinary toys 10 to 15 cm is 1.88 yuan, and the purchase price of ordinary toys from 18 to 20 cm is 2.75 yuan, but the merchant has marked the poor quality. As for which product sells well, the reporter called the merchant as a buyer, but has not been connected as of press time. However, the store shows that the sales volume has exceeded 100,000.
In addition, there are also merchants who claim to be wholesale purchasers in Yiwu posted on social platforms that they can supply plush toys by catty to crane machine merchants, and the price per catty is 13 yuan, and the merchant has also repeatedly released delivery videos to customers in Guizhou, Henan and other places.
If you fail to catch it twice, will the merchant be able to make money?
Combined with the reply of the merchant, the cost of the doll in the crane machine on the market is quite different, and from the overall operation point of view, the cost of operating the crane machine shop includes not only fixed costs such as rent, personnel, electricity, etc., but also the cost of the crane machine and plush toys.
The customer service of the merchant of Zhuhai Chao Toy Hao Hao Clip (Youtehui Store) told reporters that most of the crane machines in the store are 2 coins a game, and only one or two machines are 3 coins a game, and the basis is 1 yuan a currency.
The official applet of Xidan Joy City Xiyu Street Crane Machine in Beijing shows "1 yuan and 1 currency", in addition, buy more and get more, there are "79 yuan 100 yuan", "149 yuan 200 yuan", "199 yuan 280 yuan" and other preferential packages. Different IP dolls' crane machines are set up in different modes, including "2 coins for one play" and "3 coins for one play".
Photo by Xiyu Street staff intern Xue Tingyang
The reporter calculated that in the case of not superimposing "wool" and buying a large number of discounts, it is generally 1 yuan and one currency, and it takes two or three coins to grab a toy, and the average cost is 2 yuan to 3 yuan, and if all kinds of discounts are superimposed, the cost of grabbing a time is less than 1 yuan.
So, what do crane machine shops rely on to make money? The crane machine grabs toys, by technology or randomly?
"Sakura House Crane Machine" is a crane machine brand mainly active in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. Its commercial director Ali (pseudonym) told reporters: "The operation model of the crane machine has been innovated, which used to use probability machines, but now it is updated to a random drop mode, and players are more likely to be 'addicted'." "Random drops aren't really random, though. Ali said that the "random drop mode" is also inherently probable, and it can be caught seven or eight times on average.
Li Rui also revealed to reporters that the probability of successful grabbing of the crane machine can be controlled: "The probability of successful grabbing of the crane machine should be set according to the cost of the product and how much the gross profit margin should be." For example, the cost of the product may be 8 yuan, and if you want a gross profit margin of 50%, you have to let the player invest 16 yuan to make one, which is generally 2 coins to play, that is, an average of 8 times out of a toy. The higher the cost of the toy, the lower the probability. ”
In addition, Li Rui also revealed: "The machine (i.e. the crane machine) has a lot of parameter settings, such as the power of the claw, the speed of the claw, the power of the grasping, etc., which together constitute the probability of successful grasping." The gripping power will also be adjusted according to the weight of different toys. ”
The staff of Guangzhou Yiba Pony Animation Technology Co., Ltd. also told reporters that if the total number of more than ten crane machines is configured, it is recommended to be equipped with two or three machines that can be thrown inward (the paws will be thrown back inward after grabbing the doll), which can enhance the game experience of technical players. In addition, you can also buy a fixed-point falling machine, which is also the main revenue channel of the crane machine store, and you can set the probability of the doll according to the required gross profit margin, which is generally two to three times the value of the toy.
The reporter calculated that if you do not calculate other costs such as venues, machinery and equipment, toys that cost 4 yuan, as long as the player chooses to continue to play after missing twice (2 coins once, one dollar per dollar), the merchant will be able to make money with a high probability.
The staff of the Sakura Wings Trendy Toy Store told reporters that there will generally be ten or twenty coins to produce a toy, which should be adjusted according to the store and local conditions.
Monthly turnover up to 800,000?
How much money can you make by operating a crane machine?
On social platforms, some netizens shared that his family opened a crane machine shop, and there are sixty or seventy machines in the store, and parents often take their children early in the morning on weekends, charging three or five hundred or even one thousand, so that the children can play here for a morning, or even a day.
In March 2024, Mr. Li opened a self-operated crane machine shop in the Yuelu Mountain Scenic Area Shopping Mall in Changsha, with 32 crane machines, 4 scissor machines and a cash register. According to him, the store's turnover in March was more than 100,000 yuan, and the average monthly turnover in the second quarter was 70,000 yuan, with a gross profit margin of 50%.
The gross profit data given by crane machine manufacturers is even more amazing. Guangzhou No. 3 store business promotion staff said that in a good area of the new shopping mall with considerable flow of people, open a crane machine shop without competitors of the same size, with more than 40 crane machines, the annual rent of the shop is calculated by 500,000 yuan, generally 3 to 6 months can return to the cost, if you meet the summer vacation, the fastest 2 to 3 months can return to the cost.
"During the summer vacation, the high-end exclusive crane machine shop can do 600,000 yuan to 800,000 yuan a month turnover, and the profit ratio is about 65% of the gross profit, and then subtract the fixed capital costs such as labor and rent is the net profit." said the above-mentioned employee.
However, the business of claw machine is not a panacea.
Tianyancha App shows that the crane machine chain store operator Kalaku has carried out three rounds of financing from 2017 to 2018, and has received capital injections from well-known investment institutions including Huagai Capital and IDG Capital, among which, the A round of financing disclosed the investment amount, which is nearly 50 million yuan.
In June 2018, Lance Asia, which provided financial advisory services for the company's Series A financing, tweeted that as of May 2018, Karaku had opened nearly 100 directly-operated stores in 25 cities in 14 provinces across the country, including Beijing, Jiangsu, Chongqing and Sichuan, and laid more than 3,000 crane machines, becoming the No. 1 brand in China.
Founded in 2017, it is a high-tech enterprise focusing on mobile game platform development and mobile game operation services. Qin Tingting, the founder of Kalaku, said in an interview with Business Review magazine in 2018 that a crane machine has a 90% probability of recovering its cost in 2 to 5 months, and from the overall situation of the industry, 5 machines can achieve a profit of 5,000 to 6,000 yuan per month.
However, the scenery did not last. The reporter noticed that in September 2019, Kalaku was sued by Beijing Yumin Xingsheng Property Management Co., Ltd. for arrears of rent and intermediary fees. As the person subject to enforcement, Kalaku failed to fulfill the amount, and the legal representative Qin Tingting was issued a consumption restriction order by the Beijing Daxing District People's Court in November 2020, and Caraku was cancelled in 2021.
(Source: Sino-Singapore Jingwei)