漫展难办、谷子闭店 二次元韭菜割不动了？

China's offline two-dimensional (ACG) economy has shifted from its early explosive growth to a cooling consolidation phase. Key takeaways for general consumers are as follows:

1. Current industry status: In the first half of 2025, a wave of store closures hit chain "guzi" (official character goodie) stores: over 30% of Toys Planet outlets closed, and more than 60% of Bomoon stores shut down. Cancellations and last-minute cancellations of comic conventions have become commonplace: the long-established Shanghai CCG EXPO saw attendance drop from over 200,000 in previous years to fewer than 50,000. ACG-themed districts are also experiencing sharp polarization, with a clear Matthew effect in play.

2. Consumer experience takeaways: Offline guzi is generally more expensive than online variants. Many small conventions suffer from high ticket prices, homogeneous content and a lack of original works. For general consumers, prioritizing popular large-scale flagship conventions over small niche events is the best way to avoid bad experiences.

3. Shopping tips: Consumers should prioritize large, well-established flagship ACG districts. These locations offer newer merchandise, prices aligned with online channels, and more activities for a better overall experience.

Offline ACG consumption has undergone significant shifts, with key insights for brands as follows:

1. Changing consumption trends: ACG consumers are becoming increasingly rational, and no longer purchase low-quality overpriced merchandise. Only high-quality, innovative products retain strong market demand. Core ACG audiences are disproportionately students with limited overall purchasing power, and ACG merchandise is a non-essential category, making sustained profitability quite challenging.

2. Channel layout guidance: Offline guzi stores and comic conventions are already saturated, and the Matthew effect is pronounced in ACG districts, with traffic increasingly concentrated in large, mature flagship districts while many small and mid-sized districts have shut down en masse. For brands looking to expand offline, priority should be given to high-footfall, operationally mature flagship commercial districts.

3. Operational optimization directions: Brands should maintain a stable supply rhythm, avoiding sudden large restocks that trigger a collapse in secondary market prices and erode downstream merchants' confidence. They should also develop more original merchandise to meet market demand for original content.

Below is a summary of industry insights, risk alerts and opportunities for offline ACG sellers:

1. Risk alerts: The offline guzi store market is already saturated, with no notable growth in overall customer base, putting enormous competitive pressure on small and mid-sized stores. Small comic conventions consistently struggle with ticket sales and face high cancellation risk. Upstream copyright holders have unstable supply, and IP popularity fluctuates sharply, leaving sellers at high risk of unsold inventory and losses. Most small and mid-sized offline stores face great difficulty turning a profit.

2. Operational adjustment directions: Merchandise selection should closely follow the latest trends in the guzi community, with more inventory allocated to popular, high-demand IPs and less to niche ones. Pricing should be aligned as closely as possible with online levels, and sellers should avoid blindly marking up prices. For store locations, prioritize mature commercial districts with inherent high foot traffic over unproven emerging ACG districts in low-traffic areas.

3. Breakthrough strategies: Sellers can add complementary offerings like food and beverage to drive foot traffic, develop innovative merchandise to attract consumers, or relocate to large, mature flagship ACG districts to cluster with other ACG businesses and leverage the district's existing fan atmosphere to draw more visitors.

Below is a summary of shifting demand and business implications for factories in the offline ACG merchandise industry:

1. Shifting production demand: Consumers now place far greater emphasis on guzi quality, and acceptance of shoddy, low-quality products has dropped sharply. Factories need to upgrade production processes and enforce strict quality control to avoid eroding consumer trust and losing market share due to quality issues.

2. Product design and development directions: Consumer demand for interactive, innovative merchandise is growing steadily, and new formats like assembleable bean-based toys are growing in popularity. Factories can increase R&D investment in these innovative products to capture new consumer demand.

3. New business opportunities: The ongoing industry consolidation has eliminated a large number of inexperienced small and mid-sized merchants, while leading chain brands and high-quality merchants in flagship districts are continuing to expand. Factories should prioritize developing long-term partnerships with these head clients. They should also coordinate with brands to maintain a stable supply rhythm, and avoid concentrated shipments that trigger price collapses and damage long-term cooperative relationships.

Below is a summary of industry trends, client pain points and opportunities for service providers targeting the offline ACG industry:

1. Industry development trends: The offline ACG sector has transitioned from early explosive growth to a存量 consolidation phase, with the Matthew effect intensifying. Small and mid-sized comic conventions, guzi stores and ACG districts are continuously exiting the market, and industry resources are increasingly concentrated in leading players. This has driven growing demand for professional industry-specific services.

2. Core client pain points: Convention organizers face rising venue costs, high guest fees and difficulty breaking even. Guzi store operators struggle with out-of-trend merchandise selection, high inventory pressure and the risk of fluctuating IP popularity. ACG district operators face challenges including homogeneous content, declining foot traffic and high merchant churn.

3. Solution development directions: Service providers can offer cost control services for convention organizers, connecting them with discounted venue and guest resources. For guzi stores, they can provide merchandise selection consulting services and regularly updated trend reports for the guzi community. For commercial districts, they can offer professional ACG district operation services, helping plan collaborative events, attract leading merchants and sustain the district's popularity.

Below is a summary of demand, operational guidance and risk alerts for platform operators in the offline ACG space:

1. Industry risk alerts: The offline ACG sector is already saturated, with large numbers of small and mid-sized merchants closing and small conventions canceling. Blind expansion and merchant recruitment will push up vacancy rates and increase operational risk. Platforms should control their expansion pace and avoid onboarding too many homogeneous merchants, which wastes resources.

2. Recruitment and operational optimization directions: For ACG district platforms, priority should be given to onboarding leading chain guzi stores and well-known IP merchants. Platforms should diversify their offering of formats and host regular events such as IP collaboration pop-ups and collab cafes to sustain district popularity. Rent pricing should be kept reasonable, to avoid forcing merchants to raise prices or exit the market. For convention platforms, operators should control costs, onboard more original content creators, maintain a positive fan experience, and set ticket prices aligned with the purchasing power of core young audiences.

3. Risk mitigation guidance: Platforms should not rush to convert conventional districts to ACG-themed spaces as a trend-chasing move. All ACG district projects should be built on the commercial district's inherent natural foot traffic, and developers should not launch projects without a solid traffic foundation to avoid sustained losses.

The new trends and emerging issues in China's offline ACG industry provide new material for industrial research, summarized as follows:

1. New industry trends: Overall ACG consumption in China still maintains growth momentum, but offline formats have entered a consolidation phase earlier than expected. Comic conventions, guzi stores and ACG districts that grew on early windfall gains are now facing a widespread wave of closures. The Matthew effect has become prominent, with resources increasingly concentrated in leading players, and the industry has shifted from incremental competition to stock competition.

2. Key emerging issues: Early explosive growth led to rapid market saturation, with a flood of inexperienced non-professional entrants and widespread misalignment between product selection and pricing. The industry also has inherent structural flaws in its business model: the majority of guzi store profits are captured by copyright holders, while secondary retailers bear all inventory and price fluctuation risk. The convention sector is trapped in a vicious cycle: rising venue costs force higher ticket prices, which in turn drive down attendance.

3. Research implications: The offline ACG economy relies primarily on emotional value for profitability, and requires stable content output and a solid community fan culture to sustain. Simply chasing industry trends rarely leads to sustained profitability. Differentiated content and cross-format integration are viable paths to break through, and these dynamics provide important reference value for research into the business models of new consumer categories built on emotional value.