China’s Museums Ride the Viral Collectibles Wave with Souvenir Mania

Museums are rushing to launch new ranges of themed merchandise as they try to tap into China’s ’emotional consumption’ trend

Chinese consumers’ growing obsession with cute collectible trinkets has generated billions of dollars for companies like Labubu doll maker Pop Mart over the past few years. Now, the country’s museums are trying to jump on the trend.

Cultural venues across China are releasing new ranges of creative merchandise, as they try to plug gaping holes in their budgets by tapping into the nation’s
“emotional consumption” trend
.

And some have already scored big hits, with Beijing’s National Museum of China selling more than 1 million copies of a fridge magnet shaped like an ornate headdress worn by an ancient Chinese empress, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

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Rain Zhao, a former intern at the merchandise department of
Beijing’s Palace Museum
, said there was a genuine hunger among consumers for the museum’s gift shop products.

“Around 30 to 40 per cent of visitors would buy at least one or two items,” said Zhao, who spent two months at the museum last summer.

China’s cultural venues are attracting plenty of visitors as
the domestic tourism sector bounces back
from the Covid-19 pandemic. The country’s 4,500 public museums recorded nearly 1.5 billion visits last year, up from 1.2 billion in 2023, according to government data.

Yet, many public venues are running at a loss, as they are forced to offer free admission or keep ticket prices low while facing high overhead costs.

“Operating costs related to personnel, air conditioning and maintenance are not negligible,” said Xu Tianchen, a senior China economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “The more popular a museum is, the higher its operating costs are.”

China’s museums posted combined financial losses of more than 1.4 billion yuan (US$195 million) in 2023, official data showed. They have failed to break even every year since 2016, except for a marginal surplus in 2020.

That has led venues to focus on raising more revenue through their gift shops. China’s museums generated 864 million yuan from merchandise sales in 2022, up from 341 million in 2020, according to data from China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

The ministry has since stopped disclosing museums’ merchandising revenues, but data from the Palace Museum suggests that its gift shop continues to post strong growth.

According to the museum’s financial results, it earned 84.9 million yuan in 2023 from its business operations, which include retailing merchandise, a 22.2 per cent jump from the previous year.

Xu agreed that merchandise retail could be a workable way for some museums to raise revenue, but cautioned that smaller venues would struggle to find success in this area due to a lack of well-known exhibits and design capabilities.

Joost Schokkenbroek, a museum studies professor at the University of Hong Kong, said the popularity of museum merchandise had sprung from consumers’ desire to forge a connection with their country’s history.

“Creative cultural products enable audiences, particularly in China, to identify themselves with a past that they have never belonged to in a relatively cheap way,” he said.

“The sentiment of being related to collections at famous institutions is an important psychological element that serves as the driving force for people to buy the merchandise.”

In China, when we have a successful creative product, the next day everybody is doing the same thing

Thomas Wong Cheung-chi, business association member

The booming demand for souvenirs is also driving the growth of a slew of related industries, ranging from product design to manufacturing and retail. The National Museum of China’s merchandise business alone has created nearly 20,000 new jobs, according to CCTV.

Peach Xu, a designer living in the eastern Chinese city of Jinan, is one of many young people trying to ride the surge in China’s culture and tourism industries.

After finishing her education degree, she decided to take a left turn and focus on designing souvenirs last year, as the field looked more interesting and promising than teaching.

“After Covid-19, many people were coming out to travel, and the government was also boosting the cultural creative industry,” she said. “With more people travelling, the cultural creative industry is sure to develop better.”

Focusing on designs featuring landmarks from different Chinese cities, Xu’s business has gone from strength to strength. She now runs her own studio employing three other designers and earns up to 20,000 yuan per month.

She attributed her success to a change in spending habits among young Chinese, with many youngsters now willing to buy things on a whim.

“Now a bag of potato chips can cost 10 yuan. Why don’t I save up a few bags of potato chips to buy a beautiful souvenir instead?” she said.

But Thomas Wong Cheung-chi, chairman of a cultural creative business committee at the Chinese Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong, cautioned that although the museum merchandise industry had great growth potential, it needed to do more to avoid “homogenisation risks”.

“In China, when we have a successful creative product, such as an ice cream or fridge magnet, the next day everybody is doing the same products,” Wong said. “People say they have to buy a third fridge just to fit all the magnets.”

To overcome this issue, museums should create personalised and interactive experiences, such as allowing visitors to design their own merchandise and create it using a 3D printer.

“Nowadays, people want to be unique,” he said. “[People want] something that shows ‘who I am’, and that is where museum cultural creative products should position themselves.”

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