Dangling from handbags and backpacks and flooding your social media feeds, those wide-eyed, snaggle-toothed Labubu have taken Malaysia by storm. Before you queue up to drop hundreds of ringgit chasing a rare “secret” box, you need to understand only a very few lucky souls are going to get rich from Labubu trading.

The Labubu Phenomenon

Labubu, the mischievous forest elf created by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung, wasn’t supposed to be a financial instrument. The character emerged from a graphic novel series called The Monsters back in 2015, designed to be quirky and slightly unsettling rather than mainstream cute. Yet after Chinese collectibles giant Pop Mart picked up the line in 2019, Labubu exploded into a global craze worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

How Much Are Malaysians Actually Spending on Labubu?

In Malaysia, a standard Labubu blind box retails for around RM60 through official Pop Mart stores. Sounds reasonable for a collectible toy. The catch is that you don’t know which variant you’re getting until you open the box. This lottery-style purchasing creates an immediate secondary market where people trade, buy, and sell specific designs.

Rare Labubu routinely sell for several hundred ringgit. Limited editions can fetch thousands. One Singapore collector recently listed 26 Labubu toys for RM38,800—the price of a brand new Perodua Myvi. In June 2024, a four-foot-tall mint-green Labubu sold at Beijing’s Yongle Auction for over RM750,000.

When the latest mini Labubu series launched in August 2025, Pop Mart’s website crashed from demand. The toys sold out within minutes across major markets. In China, resellers were immediately listing 14-box cases for more than double the retail price. Some Malaysian retailers have been spotted selling standard boxes for three times the official price, banking on artificial scarcity and FOMO.

Pop Mart reported that The Monsters series, which includes Labubu, generated roughly RM2.8 billion in revenue during the first half of 2025 alone, more than the entire annual revenue of many established Malaysian companies.

Why Labubu Spending Hurts More Than You Think

Here’s the concern with collectibles like Labubu. The 2025 RinggitPlus Malaysian Financial Literacy Survey found that 57% of Malaysians are spending less on leisure activities, and 59% report eating out less frequently. People are tightening their belts. But a RM60 blind box doesn’t feel like a major expense in the moment, especially when stacked against a RM150 dinner or a RM200 entertainment outing. The problem is that multiple RM60 purchases add up quickly, and they’re competing for the same limited discretionary budget that’s already under pressure.

Why Calling Labubu An Investment Doesn’t Add Up

Collecting is a perfectly reasonable hobby. Some people collect stamps, others hunt down vintage vinyl. The appeal comes from the thing itself, not from spreadsheets tracking potential resale values.

Walk into any Pop Mart store and you’ll spot people buying multiple blind boxes because they’re hunting for rare pieces to flip online. Facebook groups dedicated to Labubu trading are full of posts about “investment-grade” toys still in their original packaging. Some collectors are spending thousands of ringgit on toys they have no intention of ever opening or displaying.

Labubu collectors need to ask themselves some uncomfortable questions. Are you buying these toys because they bring you genuine happiness, or because you’ve been swept up in artificial scarcity and the promise of quick profits? Are you purchasing more than you can comfortably afford because you’re afraid of missing out?

The Beanie Baby Lesson Malaysian Collectors Should Remember

Malaysians old enough to remember the 1990s will recall Beanie Babies, small under-stuffed and huggable animals that briefly convinced thousands of people they were sitting on goldmines. At the peak of that craze, collectors were paying thousands of dollars for specific variants, treating children’s toys as serious investments, and even including Beanie Babies in divorce settlements as marital assets.

Today, most Beanie Babies are worth exactly what they should be worth as mass-produced stuffed toys: almost nothing. The Princess Diana memorial bear that sold for thousands in 1997? You can buy one online now for under RM100. Collectibles driven by artificial scarcity and hype rather than genuine scarcity and cultural significance tend to crash hard when the hype cycle moves on.

The same pattern played out with Pokémon cards in the late 1990s, with certain comic books in the 1990s, and more recently with NFTs and cryptocurrency-based collectibles. When something’s primary value comes from “everyone else wants it too,” you’re speculating on continued hype, not investing.

Understand Your Labubu Motivations

If you genuinely love Labubu, enjoy the thrill of blind box openings, appreciate the quirky designs, and can comfortably afford your purchases without financial stress, then collect away. Hobbies don’t need to be investments. The joy you get from displaying your collection or sharing it with friends has real value, even if it never translates to ringgit.

Buying Labubu because you think prices will keep climbing is gambling, not investing. Spending money you can’t afford to lose on toys makes no financial sense, regardless of what current resale prices suggest.

Set Sensible Labubu Boundaries

Already collecting? Set a monthly budget that won’t eat into your bills, emergency savings, or actual investments like EPF or unit trusts. Treat it like any other entertainment expense. And putting collectibles on a credit card you can’t pay off immediately defeats the whole point of a hobby.

Most importantly, separate collecting from investing in your mind. If you want to invest money, open a trading account, buy index funds, or explore proper investment vehicles with actual underlying value and regulatory protection. Don’t confuse spending money on toys with building wealth.

Labubu are a fun, quirky hobby. They bring genuine joy to collectors who appreciate the designs and community. But they’re not an asset class, despite what resale prices and excited social media posts might suggest. They’re mass-produced toys and like every collectible craze that has come before, they will eventually go out of fashion.

Don’t hold ‘em.

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• TAGS:
• Labubu
• Pop Mart