The toy taking South Africa by storm

However, this high demand has also led to a surge of fake products, with experts warning that even legitimate retailers, like Makro and Takealot, are not selling imitation products.

Labubus are based on a character in The Monsters book series created by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung. Later, the three stories were compiled into a book titled The Monsters Trilogy.

Not long after The Monsters Trilogy came out, Lung released an artistic toy series inspired by the characters. However, the global toy craze didn’t start until he teamed up with Chinese toy company Pop Mart in 2019.

Labubus are small, plush toys with vinyl faces, featuring high, pointed ears, big eyes and mischievous grins with serrated teeth.

These toys are sold in blind boxes, which means that the buyer doesn’t know which variation they will get, creating mystery and excitement around the shopping process and incentivising customers to buy more.

Labubus were a hit, and through the years, celebrities like Rihanna, Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian and Blackpink’s Lisa have been spotted wearing these toys on their bags.

The toy also took off on social media, with users making videos of unboxing blind boxes, showing off their collections, and sharing tips on how to buy Labubus. Videos where someone finds a rare Labubu have been particularly popular.

The toy’s popularity has driven demand through the roof, with restocks sometimes selling out in less than a minute.

On 28 August, a new line of mini Labubus was snapped up within minutes of release in Pop Mart’s key markets, including the United States, Japan, and South Korea, when pre-sale began at around 10:00 Hong Kong time.

In China, all available inventory was gone almost immediately after sales opened online at 22:00 local time, with the traffic surge causing Pop Mart’s WeChat store page to freeze.

“The popularity of the new series has already demonstrated that consumers’ enthusiasm for Labubu remains strong,” Richard Lin, an analyst with SPDB International Holdings, told Bloomberg.

According to Bloomberg, Pop Mart’s stock has rallied 262% in 2025, bringing its total market value to HK$435.7 billion (R992.3 billion) and making its founder one of China’s youngest billionaires.

The toy expects its 2025 revenue to exceed 30 billion yuan, or $4.2 billion (R74.57 billion). According to Pop Mart’s semi-annual report released in August, global revenues skyrocketed 668% in the first half of the year.

Labubu in South Africa

The Labubu trend has made its way to South Africa as well. Daily Investor spoke to Dean Pillay, founder and managing director of Altitude Distribution and Logistics, the only official agent of Pop Mart in South Africa, who explained how quickly the toy has taken off.

Pillay explained that Labubus really went “mainstream” after the Cape Town Comic Con, which took place from 1 to 4 May.

“We had a lot of stock, and did not expect South African demand to skyrocket as much as it did. The week following Comic-Con, all my retailers completely sold out,” he said.

Pillay said that four days after Comic Con, he was getting calls from retailers who all wanted to stock Labubus in their stores. “But at that point, all the stock had been allocated to my existing retailers, and it just flew,” he said.

Currently, Altitude supplies around 10 retailers in South Africa, including Toys R Us, Wonderport Collectibles and Nexus Hub.

The amount of product being moved has been a shock to many retailers. Currently, Altitude brings in about 7,000 units per shipment, of which around 5,000 are cleared within the first month.

One of Altitude’s clients, a small shop in Cape Town, currently has a turnover of about R1 million a month.

Toys R Us, which just went into business with Altitude, currently has an account of about R800,000. “They are desperate for stock because they did not foresee stock selling out as fast as it did,” Pillay explained.

He said that although he doesn’t necessarily see the Labubu trend lasting, he does believe blind boxes will remain popular.

“For the consumer, it’s the whole idea of you don’t know what you’re getting. That endorphin rush that they experience when they purchase it, that is what keeps consumers coming back as opposed to a normal collectable where you can see it,” he said.

The scarcity factor behind Labubus, in particular, has also been amplified by the blind box model. “Scarcity drives demand.”

Because there are limited runs of each product, customers feel like they need to buy more, or they may not be able to get it again, or they will never be able to complete their collection.

Fake Labubus take over South Africa

Pillay said that they are currently finalising discussions with Toy Kingdom, Takealot and Makro. “The only reason I haven’t listed on Makro and Takealot is because of the fakes that are being listed there as well, which is a concern of mine as a representative of Pop Mart.”

Importantly, because Altitude is the only official Pop Mart agent in the country, this means that retailers selling Labubus not purchased from them are not real.

Pillay said fake Labubus, sometimes called Lafufus, are a “massive” problem in South Africa. Because customers trust Makro and Takealot, and because their toys appear first on Google search and are even advertised on their home pages, customers believe they are buying real Labubus.

However, once they get the product and realise it’s fake, Takealot refuses to let the customer return it since the box has already been opened.

Pillay said he has written a letter to Makro expressing concern about their fake Labubus, but the retailer refused to take action because the products were being sold by a third party.

“They sold the fakes, had about 100 complaints, and personally sold the products. People got like three of the same colours in a box of six, which is obviously not correct. And then Makro had a big thing to deal with after that.”

“The resellers keep popping up. If you take one down today, there’ll be another one tomorrow.”

These resellers also increase the prices of Labubus. While normal blind boxes retail fpr R699, resellers can sell them for anywhere from R1,000 to upwards of R2,000 – more than double the retail price.

He added that consumers will also encounter a large number of fakes at big Chinese wholesalers, like Value Co. “It’s very prominent.”

To help consumers avoid fakes, Pillay has set up a website under his group company called BlindBoxZA. Here, users can join a WhatsApp group which will help them learn how to spot authentic collectables and access the authorised retailers.

Daily Investor reached out to Makro and Takealot for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.