Labubu buying – The Labubu craze that pushed Pop Mart into frequent online stock-outs peaked in summer 2025, then cooled by the holidays as the plush became easier to find—supported by the brand’s growing U.S. store and vending footprint and a sharp drop in Pop Mart website t
For weeks after summer 2025, it felt like you couldn’t buy a Labubu without hitting “out of stock.” Then September arrived, the restocks followed, and the glow started to fade.
The shift shows up in web traffic: a chart based on Comscore web traffic data collected by Emarketer shows web traffic to the Pop Mart website over the last year. Pop Mart’s official website became the key place to buy Labubus. because the toys’ demand. rarity. and risk of fakes made direct access especially important. After a sharp decline beginning after September—when they restocked and became easier to obtain—traffic dips again. rises for the holidays. and then craters.
This cooling-off matters even beyond collectors. The surge originally took off among fashionable young adults when Rihanna and Blackpink’s Lisa were spotted with Labrabus as bag charms more than a year ago. The frenzy peaked during the summer of 2025, when surging demand left them constantly out of stock online.
By the holidays that fall, the supply story changed. Labubus were plentiful and easy to buy. In person. too: Pop Mart (the Hong Kong-based maker of Labubu) started opening more stores and vending machines in the US. The first Pop Mart store opened in 2023 in the American Dream Mall in New Jersey. and there are now over 65 stores across the US.
That growing presence may help explain why the website’s pull weakened. The opening of several brick-and-mortar stores in the US may have shifted sales away from the Pop Mart website and into physical stores, or other online retailers. Pop Mart did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Not everyone gets to enjoy that improvement, though. The writer who supplied the account says they bought a Labubu “just last month”—but only as a “Lafufu. ” a fake knockoff version for $15 from a sidewalk stall on Canal Street for their daughter’s birthday. The daughter later became convinced the “real Labubu” bought for Christmas was also fake. complicating the family’s ability to prove legitimate provenance. The explanation offered is that real Labubus from Pop Mart feature blind packaging to hide the toy’s color. and the daughter received a beige disappointment; the knockoff in the blue she wanted “has made her much happier.”.
That risk of fakes is part of the reason the Pop Mart website—and its restocks—were such a big deal during the height of demand. The same dynamic also shows why a decline in web traffic can be revealing for Labubus: unlike other toy brands where sales more often happen at other retailers rather than directly through their website. Pop Mart’s official site stood out as the main route for shoppers chasing the plush.
If the demand picture is shifting, it is not disappearing. At Toy Fair—the biggest toy maker convention in the US—every vendor the writer spoke with agreed in February that the Labubu craze had peaked. But they also said the impact was lasting: toys aimed at adult collectors and sold in blind packaging had become major trends still going strong.
Financially, Pop Mart itself has leaned on that argument. In March 2026, Pop Mart reported that 40% of its revenue was coming from Labubu, a figure that made investors “a little nervous.” A hit product can be both a blessing and a curse once the fad fades.
During a March earnings call. Pop Mart CEO Grant Want said: “Looking back. while we acknowledge there are still many issues to address. we have built solid strengths over the past year: a robust IP portfolio. a highly capable management team we take great pride in. and a deep understanding of brand building and market dynamics that we have accumulated.”.
Pop Mart’s challenge now is to keep the collectors’ momentum without relying on a single product’s spike. The writer previously argued in August that the Labubu bubble—on its way to reaching $1 billion in sales—was ready to burst. Judging by the web traffic pattern and the way stock became easier to find after September. the cooling started long before this week’s hindsight. For anyone still chasing the “real thing. ” though. the story has a second consequence: as availability grows. the stakes of verifying authenticity don’t vanish—they just change shape.
Labubu Pop Mart web traffic Comscore Emarketer Instagram hype Rihanna Blackpink Lisa Canal Street fakes blind packaging US stores earnings call Grant Want
I don’t get why people camp for plush toys in the first place lol.
So they were out of stock and then suddenly not? That’s just scalpers getting punished for a sec, right? I feel like the hype always comes back though.
Wait are they saying the Pop Mart website traffic dropped because there are more stores? I thought the whole point was the online exclusives. Also Comscore data sounds like made up numbers half the time.
Rihanna and Blackpink’s Lisa spotted them as bag charms and then everyone lost their minds… now it’s cooling off because they opened like 65 stores? I mean good for people who actually want to buy one, but it also feels like they’re just trying to keep the demand controllable. Out of stock, then restocks, then out of stock again would be my luck anyway.