D05 / COMPLETE PRELIMINARY RESEARCH COVERAGE
Source archive
English rendering of every topic in the supplied Preliminary Research document. Business notes, founder answers, research prompts and unvalidated audience hypotheses remain distinct. Editorial naming: Fulu Fortune refers to the source’s Fulu Gungun series.
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S01 / CASE BACKGROUND
The original client request is to take a Chengdu cultural-product and collectible-model company, which sells figures and toys based on Three Star Mound artifacts through cooperation with the museum’s physical gift shop, and develop it into an international digital brand. The scope adds original products, partner IP products and customization services. The source explicitly notes that this is a business request, not yet a UX problem.
S02 / CHANNEL RATIONALE
The central question is how to take an offline museum gift-shop business global. The intention is not merely to tell existing customers where products are sold, but to let new people discover, participate in and promote the brand. The source therefore recommends a website over a mobile app. Intended behavior: discover the brand → discover products → learn something → trust → customize → pay. In the proposed experience, direct purchase is also retained as a branch.
S03 / GOAL & BUSINESS MODELS
Design a global commerce and customization model for Chinese cultural IP: a platform that brings Chinese cultural collectibles to customers worldwide. Three business directions are listed: (1) original IP, led by Mangmang Panda Eats Mangmang and Fulu Fortune; (2) third-party IP; and (3) DIY models.
S04 / POSITIONING NOTE
The draft slogan is “Collect Culture. Create Your Own?” The proposition is to discover and buy cultural collectibles, and to create one’s own collectible object. The source emphasizes generating desire for an optional purchase rather than assuming that users already have an unmet problem. The proposed slogan remains unapproved.
S05 / FIVE CHALLENGES
1. Overseas consumers may not know the IP or Chengdu’s distinctive food.
2. Three business models can make the website confusing.
3. Cultural value often depends on familiar stories, animals or food; the website must communicate that meaning.
4. A 3D DIY workflow is complex and must be approachable.
5. The broader challenge is to turn an offline cultural business into a global digital experience that helps international visitors understand, trust, collect and become willing to create cultural products.
SOURCE SECTION / CLIENT INTERVIEW
Founder Q&A, F1–F7
The source proposes interviewing the founder / designer / sales roles. For this case, the supplied business answers are attributed to founder Zeng Zhou as requested, supported by the founder identity in the brand presentation. Fieldwork date and mode are not invented.
F1 / REVENUE & PORTFOLIO
Where does current revenue come from, and what share comes from Three Star Mound IP?
Current revenue has three main sources: cultural products sold through museum channels; online and offline retail of animation and collectible products; and custom development for competitions or IP projects. The company’s Three Star Mound-derived art toys, including Fuyou Duidui and the Ten Suns Myth series, are a core product line. The business also operates the Chengdu Museum stone-rhinoceros IP, city-themed cultural products and model-competition activities. Three Star Mound-related business represents approximately 30% of total revenue. Other revenue comes from local Chengdu museum IP, model competitions, custom collaborations and the collectible gallery’s online and offline retail.
F2 / INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY
Why expand internationally, and which markets come first?
The main vehicles for international expansion are the Mangmang Panda Eats Mangmang series and the Fulu Fortune intangible-cultural-heritage series. The founder describes the giant panda as a widely recognized, approachable Chinese cultural symbol that can lower the barrier to cross-cultural understanding and reduce misinterpretation. Alongside Sichuan cultural content, the company intends to incorporate local overseas references rather than communicate only in one direction. Mangmang Panda could try American food or Southeast Asian snacks; Fulu Fortune could combine its gourd form with Western decorative art and local aesthetics.
Competition in China’s museum-inspired art-toy sector is intense. The company wants original Chengdu toys to reach collectors globally and to use panda toys for two-way cultural exchange, incorporating local tastes as well as sharing Chinese culture.
The initial target is North America, specifically the United States and Canada, followed by Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. In North America, Mangmang Panda would emphasize playful food-related personalities and collectibility instead of heavy folkloric explanations. Fulu Fortune would foreground the gourd’s form and Western decorative influences, with less emphasis on traditional Chinese prosperity stories. In Southeast Asia, regional food references can be added and more of Fulu Fortune’s auspicious folk meanings retained. A future European expansion would treat the work as a reinterpretation of folk art, focus on gourd aesthetics and the panda’s approachable form, and avoid ambiguous explanations. The panda is intended as a common bridge, with locally adapted content layered around it.
F3 / DOMESTIC CUSTOMERS, PRICING & MOTIVATIONS
Who buys most in China, what do they pay, and why do they buy?
The main domestic audience is aged 18–35: students, collectible-toy enthusiasts and museum visitors, alongside corporate gift buyers. Museum visitors are described as the largest customer category, followed by online collectors.
Domestic price ranges: small ornaments or individual blind boxes, RMB 59–89; complete blind-box sets, RMB 300–500; larger figures and limited collectibles, RMB 299–800.
Two motivations are described. Museum visitors buy in response to the emotional impact of the visit and as a record of that experience, often as a situational impulse purchase. Online buyers may never have visited Three Star Mound: the IP has become widely known in China, social platforms introduce the products, and buyers purchase for Chinese-style collecting or gifting, valuing the design itself. The founder estimates that these two broad motivation groups are roughly equal. These are approximate business descriptions, not audited segmentation data.
F4 / CHANNELS & DISCOVERY
Which online and offline channels are already active?
Offline channels include official cultural-product shops at Three Star Mound Museum and Chengdu Museum, partner museum-product stores and the company’s collectible-model gallery at Tianfu International Animation City. Online channels include a Taobao business shop, RedNote stores and Tiktok e-commerce. In addition to selling through stores, RedNote and Tiktok carry discovery content and are important sources of online traffic.
F5 / FULFILLMENT, PRICING & RIGHTS
How will logistics, inventory, pre-orders, limited editions, North American pricing and overseas IP rights work?
International fulfillment combines domestic consolidation, cross-border e-commerce shipping lines and partner warehouses overseas. Small independent-site orders ship directly; larger volumes move through overseas partner warehouses. The company describes using standard cross-border customs clearance and advance checks of material and cultural requirements for each destination to reduce return-shipment risk.
Most in-stock inventory is held in the company’s Chengdu warehouse. Some popular North American products may be stocked in small quantities at overseas partner warehouses. Most new releases are not intended for large-scale overseas stockpiling.
New-product pre-orders are supported and frequently used at launch to manage production risk. Numbered limited editions are planned, including large art figures and competition collaborations, with individual collector numbers and limited quantities.
Indicative North American pricing is approximately USD 22–32 for blind boxes and USD 75–160 for larger figures, described as including overseas logistics and tariff costs, subject to calculation. This statement must be reconciled with the separate shipping-fee and special-duty wording in F7 before displaying a customer-facing total.
The company owns the original Mangmang Panda and Fulu Fortune IPs, so these are not constrained by museum licensing and can lead initial overseas distribution and awareness. Museum IP has different conditions. Domestic rights for Three Star Mound and Chengdu Museum’s stone rhinoceros are described as compliant and complete, but overseas rights require separate, deeper negotiations and approval. Domestic authorization cannot simply be extended internationally. The founder describes the stone-rhinoceros rights as more flexible than Three Star Mound’s.
For Three Star Mound specifically, existing authorization concerns domestic derivative use of cultural-relic imagery. Commercial overseas use of Three Star Mound-related elements requires a separate overseas approval process. The initial question also asks about museum logos; the response does not establish permission to use a logo overseas.
F6 / THIRD-PARTY CREATORS
How should third-party models sold on the site be identified?
The product title and top of the detail page should clearly state that the item is a third-party designer’s work and is not an original Qingshan Zhiyu / Chaowenwu product. Show the original designer’s name or studio prominently. The founder requests a responsibility statement describing the third party as responsible for product quality and copyright, with the platform providing display and sales. Apply an independent “Third-party creator” tag and visually distinguish these products from the company’s own products to avoid confusion. This is the founder’s requested policy; it is not a verified statement of the platform’s legal obligations.
F7 / CUSTOM PRODUCTION, TRACKING & COST
How are DIY models made, tracked and priced?
Custom toy figures are usually 3D printed, painted and securely packaged. Large-volume orders may instead be produced using molds.
Domestic orders receive a courier tracking number, with logistics events returned automatically. International orders receive a cross-border tracking code; the independent-site backend synchronizes shipment status and sends email updates to customers.
Domestic shipping is charged by weight and volume, with free shipping above a spending threshold. International shipping is calculated by destination country, weight and volume, displayed at checkout, and includes basic customs-clearance costs. Special duties are described as payable by the recipient.
Price drivers include: (1) molding process and material, such as PVC or resin, specifically for high-volume molded products; (2) number of parts and detail complexity; (3) whether the product is pre-painted; (4) whether it has a limited-edition number; (5) production quantity; and (6) additional logistics and tariff costs for cross-border versions.
S06 / MARKETING RESEARCH NOTES
The source names POP MART, “hallo kitty” and “cinema row” as exploratory references and asks how such brands promote themselves, create stories and become popular, including a tentative assumption about the absence of animated content. The intended identity of “cinema row” is unclear and is not silently replaced with another brand. These are research prompts, not established findings. The source also calls for competitive research into the 3D DIY modeling function. The completed case uses official POP MART, Sanrio and Hero Forge pages as explicit references and does not claim that these brands lack animation.
S07 / REVISED USER INTERVIEW GUIDE
Proposed behavioral interview guide / replaces the preliminary six-question opinion survey.
Q1 / Tell me about the last figure or collectible toy you bought from a brand you had not heard of before.
Q2 / Where did you first see it?
Q3 / What led you to buy it?
Q4 / Before buying, what did you look up or check, if anything? Walk me through what you did.
Q5 / What specific information gave you confidence to complete the purchase?
Optional Q4 probe: Did product origins or cultural stories play any part?
The nine examples in D04 are authored scenarios, not research findings.
S08 / INITIAL AUDIENCE HYPOTHESES
1. Culture-curious collector: may not know Chengdu, its pandas or local culture, but likes Asian culture and art objects; a quick collection entry could serve this audience.
2. Culture traveler: has visited China or knows Chengdu’s distinctive culture and wants a souvenir or a gift for a friend.
3. Creator: uses 3D modeling and wants to generate a toy through the website.
No user interview responses, participant counts, fieldwork dates or measured findings accompany these hypotheses.
RESEARCH LIBRARY / QINGSHAN ZHIYU
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