With the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games drawing to a close on Sunday, the phenomenon panda mascot Bing Dwen Dwen still remains in high demand in China, pushing factories to boost production to placate a long waiting list of buyers.
On Sunday, which marks the closing ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the Olympic flagship store on popular Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall.com launched presales for up to one million items of Bing Dwen Dwen, including plush toys, key rings, commemorative coins and pins.
Presales will last from 10 am to 9 pm on Sunday which will unveil different types of the merchandise presales every hour. The hot demand among young people led to network congestion according to some netizens on Chinese social media Weibo.
Take the sales of the special “Spring Festival” version of mascot Bing Dwen Dwen as an example. Based on observation by a Global Times reporter, at least 100,000 special-edition mascot toys were sold out during Sunday’s presales in just 37 minutes.
Beijing 2022 Olympics launched the special “Spring Festival” version of Bing Dwen Dwen as the Games coincided with the traditional Spring Festival.
The special edition mascot toys would generate at least 18 million yuan ($2.85 million) in about 30 minutes during the Sunday presales.
Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall.com launches presales for up to one million items of Bing Dwen Dwen on February 20, 2022. Photo: Courtesy of Tmall
Tmall told the Global Times on Sunday it was “the largest restocking ever” after statistics showed more than 100 million users were waiting to buy panda-mascot merchandise on the platform in recent days.
“I have been trying to buy a Bing Dwen Dwen key ring for so many days… but once I clicked to buy, it said there was none left,” a Weibo user commented online.
Bing Dwen Dwen, the cuddly mascot for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, shot to fame on Chinese social media during the 16-day Games.
An ice-suit clad panda, which looks like an astronaut representing China’s strides in technology and science, has won wide acclaim among Chinese and international athletes during the Games.
Bing dwen dwen
