Chinese art toy giant Pop Mart is using Tencent Cloud’s security tech to stop scalpers from snapping up its products.

The company’s popular Labubu collectible figures have sparked a frenzy, with new releases selling out instantly online and drawing massive queues at physical stores worldwide.

This high demand has attracted organized scalpers who use specialized software and bots to buy the toys, leaving genuine fans empty-handed. The attacks are particularly prevalent on the company’s WeChat mini program.

To fight back, Pop Mart has implemented Tencent Cloud’s security solution, which creates a multi-layered defense system.

The system works by identifying non-human behavior at the client level, using device fingerprinting to detect emulators and malicious scripts. It also uses an AI-powered engine to filter malicious traffic and manage sudden sales surges.

Since adopting the solution, Pop Mart says suspected scalper activity has plummeted to 0.2%. This has significantly increased the success rate for real fans looking to buy the collectibles.

The move is part of a deeper collaboration between the two firms. In April, Pop Mart migrated its core consumer business to Tencent Cloud, boosting its system capacity to handle 400,000 queries per second.

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🔗 Source: Xinhua

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ The rising economic stakes in the bot vs. brand battle

The scope of bot attacks on limited-edition products has escalated dramatically, forcing brands to invest heavily in sophisticated countermeasures.

A single Japanese gaming company blocked 225,000 bots during just one product launch, while a U.S. ticketing company faced 3.2 million bot attempts during a major sales event 1.

For high-demand collectibles like POP MART’s figurines, the economic implications extend beyond lost sales. Scalpers create artificial scarcity by hoarding inventory, then reselling at inflated prices that damage brand reputation and consumer trust.

This growing problem has prompted regulatory attention, with the White House issuing an Executive Order targeting ticket scalping and enforcing the BOTS Act 2.

The technical arms race between scalpers and retailers continues to intensify, with bot operators now using sophisticated tools including emulators, virtual machines, and IP spoofing to bypass traditional defenses.

2️⃣ Consumer trust has become a critical business metric in e-commerce

Research across 602 consumers in advanced and emerging markets found that perceived security directly impacts purchase intentions, with website reliability during high-traffic events emerging as a key trust factor 3.

For collectible brands like POP MART, managing the customer experience during product drops isn’t just about sales. It’s about maintaining trust in the fairness of their distribution system.

Studies show that companies failing to protect legitimate customers from scalping bots face significant reputation damage, as frustrated fans associate negative purchasing experiences with the brand itself rather than third-party scalpers 2.

Data from 780 e-commerce users demonstrates that information integrity and transaction security significantly influence trusting beliefs, which directly mediate consumers’ intention to continue using online platforms 4.

For collectors who view purchasing limited-edition items as part of their brand relationship, the perception of an unfair advantage given to bots can permanently damage loyalty. This explains why POP MART’s anti-bot investment represents a strategic customer retention initiative.

3️⃣ The evolution of bot management beyond the CAPTCHA era

The toy industry’s shift toward sophisticated bot protection reflects a broader technology evolution, moving from simple CAPTCHAs to multi-layered defense systems incorporating machine learning and behavioral analysis 5.

Modern solutions like those deployed by POP MART use client-side protection that analyzes device fingerprinting and user behavior patterns in real-time, enabling more accurate distinction between legitimate customers and automated bots.

Companies offering advanced bot management now protect over a billion transactions daily, demonstrating how critical this infrastructure has become to e-commerce operations 6.

Research indicates that companies implementing these next-generation bot defenses see an average 31% reduction in bot mitigation costs while significantly improving legitimate customer success rates during high-demand sales 1.

The technology’s advancement parallels the evolution of the threats themselves. As bots become more sophisticated in mimicking human behavior, protection systems increasingly rely on AI that can detect subtle behavioral anomalies rather than obvious bot signatures.

Recent POP MART developments

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