According to China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration, 940 million people visited 6,833 museums nationwide between January and August this year, and 299 million visited during the two months between July and August alone, accounting for 31.8% of the total.
The museum’s popularity was also confirmed in a report by Ctrip, China’s largest travel platform. This summer, the number of visitors to Chinese museums grew by double digits compared to the previous year, and the number of museum ticket reservations once surpassed theme parks to top all categories. One of the key factors driving this popularity is the museum’s “Goods.”
Visitors to the museum do not end up simply viewing the artifacts on display. Among young people, purchasing museum goods has become a must-go course.
During this holiday season, the Sansingdui Museum recorded an average daily sales of 600,000 yuan with goods such as Sansingdui ruins figures and random boxes, and the Gansu Provincial Museum’s “Maratang” doll showed a 343% year-on-year increase in sales during the online pre-sale period. The Taobao Online Store of the Shanghai Museum, which is hosting the ancient Egyptian Civilization Exhibition, was also so popular that the inventory of goods with Egyptian artifacts as motifs was exhausted every day for a month in August.
The popularity of goods is spreading further as they interact with each other online and offline. As the popularity of goods increased online, the number of visitors to the museum to see them in person also increased significantly. Conversely, as consumers who encounter goods offline share them on social media, online demand is also increasing.
As online and offline are circulating together to lead the popularity of goods, interest in the museum itself is also increasing. Now, goods have become an important promotional tool of the museum beyond mere merchandise. According to a report by Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok) last year, museum-related videos topped 51.34 billion times a year, and this year the number of videos has increased by 191 percent year-on-year and accumulated views have increased by 62 percent, playing a major role in promoting the museum. Leading the development of museum goods is the Beijing Palace Museum, China’s first-class national museum.
The museum, which established the Culture Creation Project Department in 2008, will open an online store in Taobao, an online shopping mall in China, in 2010, heralding its advance into the goods market. In 2014, the museum recreated Ongjeongje, formerly known as a solemn historical figure, into a cute and friendly character, and gained great popularity from consumers. The museum started developing goods from that time.
As of 2020, the museum developed 14,000 kinds of goods, including ceramics, clothing, food, beauty, stationery, and holiday souvenirs, while the museum highlighted artistic elements by adding creative designs and modern sensations beyond simply copying artifacts. As a result, the museum is on a path to success, generating more than 1 billion yuan in annual sales from goods alone. Although most Chinese museums are accelerating their development of goods, not all museums are capable of developing goods on their own. Some museums entrust the development of goods to specialized companies or develop them by licensing goods through cooperation with outside companies.
Chinese museums have at least one hit product. They include the Hangzhou Museum’s Little Pink Cup, the Chongqing Museum’s Little Pink Scent, the Handan Museum’s Fat Duck, the Shanghai Museum’s Ancient Egyptian Civilization Goods Series, and the Dunhuang Museum’s Lucky Mugwort. Among museum goods, the most popular is the “Random Box.”
Buyers can feel nervous and excited until the moment they open the box because they don’t know what artifacts will be in it.
The “Random Box for Archaeology” at the Hunan Provincial Museum was inspired by the process of actual archaeologists excavating relics. It was popular among young Chinese people as it allowed them to experience the process of finding relics in the soil indirectly. The Shanxingdui Museum launched a large bronze mask in a random box, while the Henan Museum also introduced a random box in which bronze, silver plaque, jade, commemorative plaque, and pottery were randomly presented. “The popularity of leisure activities has increased in recent years, and the public has come to prefer more and more interesting content,” said Wang Tsuyu, a professor at the Beijing University Academy of Advanced Studies.
SOPHIA KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
