00:00this high school teacher makes thousands of dollars each month giving the boo-boos a makeover
00:08with real tattoos piercings and grills when I'm like tattooing him I'm like dang he's going through
00:15it like this that's gotta hurt by the time Ellis Stevens finishes customizing this roughly $30
00:20la boo-boo he can resell it for more than 200. I'm sitting back and I'm just hearing orders you
00:27know on my phone go through I would say this is crazier than Jordan's Chinese retailer Popmart
00:33has been selling la boo-boo since 2019 they helped the company more than double its revenue in a year
00:38now Popmart is worth more than Mattel and Hasbro combined when new ones are released they sell
00:45out within seconds and they've gotten such a massive following on social media that even celebs
00:50and athletes have started dangling them from their bags which is why the resale market is so competitive
00:56prices for rare characters can skyrocket to as high as $30,000 I buy these on the street it was really
01:03hard to get them for a minute and I had 70 orders and I'm like I need these like please whatever you
01:08need now people like Ellis are building side hustles around the collectible but they have to be careful
01:15because fakes known as la foo foos are on the rise too and like beanie babies and furbies the hype could
01:21collapse leaving collectors stuck with worthless toys so why are customers willing to pay hundreds
01:27for a custom plush and will this craze last
01:39Ellis Stevens started his side hustle to pay for supplies for his art classroom
01:43in my first year teaching I think I made $43,000 here in the Bay Area it's hardly $20 an hour every
01:50time I wanted to do a project schools never had money I sold bracelets burritos and tacos just so
01:56I can have like $80 by the end of the week to fund like a cool project so my student was like you got to
02:02get on these little booboos because like they're hot and you're always into like reselling and I
02:06started to customize them and that's when the money changed one of his customizations is tattooing another
02:13skill he picked up in 2022 to make extra cash I saw the booboos as a canvas
02:30the biggest thing is not to like dirty the hairline because that's almost impossible to clean
02:35but the technical skill this will be the hardest part the damn hand the hand is hard vinyl and the hard
02:49vinyl like once this little single needle hits that if you're going a little too deep it's just
02:54going to jump and it's going to skip after doing hundreds of these I'm still trying to figure out the
02:58best way to tap a hand so we're going to try this oh god the pressure
03:13look how little that is
03:16one customization can take Ellis up to an hour so he usually only has time to finish half of his 10 daily
03:22orders they've gotten so high that he's had to pause orders for a few days to catch up
03:27i'm just in a vicious cycle of having to create
03:33that's a hell of a custom when i tell people like like go crazy sky's the limit this is what i'm
03:39looking for Ellis tattoos any design customers requests but adapts it to his style this is also
03:45a really cool one this person added a whole bunch of stuff and has a great story tying to their dog
03:51their personal tattoos right now he charges 217 dollars per custom
03:56but he wants to charge 300 eventually it just so happens that the labubu you're in a very exclusive
04:02group now you have your tattoo labubu now you're in a really exclusive and then now like you have a
04:07tattoo labubu from me like now now you're really really exclusive you know and you gotta pay for
04:13exclusivity right that's what it is labubu started out as a storybook character dreamed up by hong kong
04:20artist cussing lung in 2015. a labubu is a weird little monster they have a weird little snaggle
04:28tooths and they kind of look like they're up to no good in 2019 lung teamed up with chinese retailer
04:35pop mart to launch labubu as a collectible the monsters were sold mostly in blind boxes so buyers
04:42had no idea which labubu they'd get you're taking the gamble that like hopefully i'll get the brown
04:48one or i'll get the fuzzy one and i think that really like does something to people's brains
04:53where they get really excited about it i'm going to close my eyes and pull it out okay close that
04:58valley your whole goal is to get that one a rare one and you're willing to like spend thousands to do
05:06it the rarest ones known as secrets can be nearly impossible to find appearing in just one out of
05:12every 72 blind boxes that's why they can fetch over a thousand dollars on ebay we live for like the
05:19uncertainty i'm gonna take this leap of faith it's 40 and hopefully it's the green one and it's like
05:24not you're like oh damn maybe let me do it again the limited supply has created a frenzy with new
05:30drops selling out almost instantly labubus were huge over in china and in singapore months and months
05:37and months ago like almost a year ago and then it migrated over to the u.s you hear about like crazy
05:44lines people camping out overnight huge crowds and reported brawls even prompted pop mart stores in the
05:51uk to temporarily halt sales we also see this fascination online with people doing unboxings
05:59you experience it with them it's definitely become i think a real cultural moment and people want to
06:05participate in cultural moments now labubu is pop mart's most popular blind box toy and it's helped make the
06:16chinese retailer more valuable than mattel and hasbro combined we've seen this level of toy hype before
06:25it's insane they wait four hours outside a department store and they crash in like cattle
06:30they're dolls and they're just adorable but i can't imagine people behaving that way every so often you get
06:36a toy brand that captures the broader imagination we had tickle me elmo we had cabbage patch dolls they
06:43provide a marker at a specific point in a time and a culture so people can say i was there when
06:51and that they can feel connected to other people who love them as well but some of these fads burn
06:56out just as fast as they blow up in the mid 90s collectors swarmed toy stores for a chance to get a
07:02limited edition beanie baby in 1998 its creator tying sold over a billion dollars worth of them
07:09they became so popular a rare plush toy bought for just five dollars could resell for thousands
07:16but by the end of the 90s interest faded and an oversupply caused the value of beanie babies to
07:21crash that left collectors with nearly worthless stockpiles of plushies we've coined a new phrase
07:27as the rise and fall of the beanie gamblers because the speculative craze just bottomed out and crashed
07:35now beanie babies are still made you can still buy them but they haven't become the cultural touch
07:42tone today labubu's hype is also partly driven by scarcity but potmart has made a few decisions to
07:50give it some staying power it's specifically marketed to older audiences they're also at a price point where
07:57it's like maybe a little too much for like a throwaway toy for a little kid but if you're an adult who's like
08:03oh i want to get something silly from my bag like that's a pretty decent price point fans typically
08:08wear them out in public instead of keeping them on shelves i have mine on my work bag and i see tons
08:15of people on my commute now on the new york city subway who are in like suits and fancy dresses and
08:20whatever with the boo-boos clipped onto their bags they can at least be kind of like loved and worn
08:26down in ways that like a collector's item beanie baby can't ellis says pop mart's real advantage
08:32comes from how it leverages social media early 2000s late 90s like we didn't have like the instant
08:38instagram post that can reach millions of people literally in hours pop mart and labubu like they
08:44have that at their fingertips for now the labubu craze hasn't died down which means ellis has to hustle
08:51for new inventory i buy these on the street i'm paying street prices i'm not waiting online and
08:57getting a ton of them i'm like calling resellers up who do that i'm paying what everyone else is
09:02paying sometimes even more today ellis is on his way to meet one of his suppliers to pick up new stock
09:07we meet in a parking lot just so that we can keep everything safe this is the wild wild west out here
09:12in california like you can either be robbed or beat up and your stock taken there's always reports
09:18of people stealing the booze even if you leave them in your car dangling from the uh the rear view
09:22mirror they'll break your your car windows out and steal them
09:29what's up bro how are you man how are you thanks for meeting me um okay uh i'm gonna get 15 sesame seeds
09:37sesame bean sesame seed
09:41anytime i see a box like if i see this yellow
09:45barcode it's normally directly from pop mart never got to worry about it being fake
09:53just 15 of these labubus cost ellis 675 dollars i buy for like 25 30 and i sell them for 65.
10:02jefferson lee has been in the resale hustle since 2016. every month he drops around two thousand dollars
10:08on software that buys labubus the instant they go live and he makes around 24 000
10:14reselling them appreciate you man thank you we'll meet up again soon definitely gonna hit you up
10:20some people say this kind of mass buying and reselling is unfair and think it should be banned
10:27say the early bird is a worm
10:34ellis buys up to 60 labubus a week to keep up with demand
10:38the prices for them can change in an instant some weeks they'll just go crazy because a celebrity
10:43opened one on camera and now everyone wants the pink one right
10:47fake labubus called lafufus are also on the rise so ellis is willing to pay more to buy from sellers
10:53he trusts one time i spent like three grand just to get authentic but that lasts you know 60 orders
11:00then i never have to worry about anybody telling me like hey the one you tattooed and customized
11:04it's fake demand for fakes remains high because they're cheaper and easier to find they want to
11:09buy the lafufu just as much as they want to buy the actual labubus chinese authorities have tried to
11:14crack down seizing tens of thousands of them at airport customs in 2025 alone popmart also added
11:22scannable qr codes in 2024 so people would know they were getting the real deal but dupes are still flooding the
11:28global market british authorities have seized thousands of fakes and warned that poorly made
11:34parts can break off posing a choking hazard many fans are ignoring these concerns and even bracing the
11:39dupes visible flaws because it's so funny tearing open a ziploc bag and holy smokes thing was horrible
11:46you know like that's hilarious so this is my lafufu it is pretty horrifying and then this is
11:55my actual labubu this one like it actually looks more like a guy but i love them both and they are
12:05friends ellis thinks there's room for both too but he refuses to sell dupes i've only met one reseller
12:12who sold me fake stuff i called her out on it and it was like i need my money back and she was okay
12:18you're not scamming me you're going to be scamming my customers and my buyers and i can't have that
12:24i'm not going to cut corners when it comes to creating my art uh even if it takes longer even
12:29if it takes me like digging into my own pockets or losing profit like being able to have a product
12:35and whatever i'm selling be 100 is much more valuable than me saving 10 15 dollars labubu's
12:44long-term success may hinge on how well it adapts to a market that's always changing
12:50a fad is something that happens in a very short amount of time an explosive flash
12:57a long-term toy is something that is evolving over time to change to reflect a changing culture
13:06so that it stays relevant to different children and different populations as they come along
13:12they've probably been compared to beanie babies like every single day every single waking hour of
13:17their production and they're like we're not going to be that it's not going to be another trend and
13:20even if it does become just another trend like i feel like they they'll figure something out
13:30great thing about it is it it runs the line between ugly and cute like a frenchie and we always
13:38wonder why people like frenchies so much because they're just like awkwardly cute like but then also very
13:43ugly you know like
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