Why Do Mystery Boxes Outsell the Same Toys on a Shelf?

Shaan Puri says putting the same toys in a mystery box made 7X the revenue of letting shoppers pick what they wanted off a shelf.

A friend in the toy business had been selling at Walmart and Target the ordinary way: a shelf of choices, and people took what they wanted. The same products went into a mystery box and revenue hit 7X. Shoppers got less choice and risked getting something crappy, which sounds like the opposite of what should sell. A major IP holder said customers really like choice. The data across category one, two, three, four, and five showed the mystery box overperformed over and over.

The pull is an old one. Gacha got so popular in Japan that they had to ban it, a toy form of gambling built on mystery balls. Overwatch and FIFA copied it with loot boxes. Collecting adds a money hook the skins lack: the top Pikachu card will sell for $15 million, so the gamble is a chance to make money. Toys run the same mechanic all the time, including the LOL Surprise doll and the squishies.