MERCHANDISING:

A new stand-alone range of the wildly popular Labubu collectible dolls has been pulled from shelves around Australia just days after its launch.

The Pop Mart toy company said its latest soft doll, the L’il Proud, (main picture) had met with “unprecedented consumer resistance”.

“The L’il Proud was meant to be the first doll of a planned stand-alone Lib-boo-boo range aimed at leveraging interest in our existing doll range that has been selling so well,” a Pop Mart spokesperson said.

“But we have had to stop sales of the L’il Proud and put on hold the plans we had to roll out more of the Lib-boo-boo range.

“We did not factor in the pushback consumers would display towards the L’il Proud.

“In just a few days, the level of buyer resistance has been something we’ve never experienced before. So we’ve made the decision to pull it from shelves around Australia.”

The Pop Mart spokesperson said its design team would “go back to the drawing board” in a bid to reassess and redesign the new range.

“It’s a pity because we had a whole rollout program for the new Lib-boo-boo dolls,” the spokesperson said.

“After the L’il Proud we had planned to release the Brr-Idjit doll which featured very long blonde hair, but little else.

“After that we were to launch the Matt Can doll but we had to sideline that one even before the decision to pull the new range.

“We were concerned that the design of the Matt Can might be misunderstood because its blackened face stood out so much from the otherwise lily white material used to fabricate its body.

“Some in our marketing team suggested we might be accused of employing a racist blackface design.

“But others said we should launch the Matt Can because it was the Right thing to do.

“I guess we erred on the side of caution by holding it back, but that’s a moot point now that the entire range is off the shelves.”

The Pop Mart spokesperson said the decision to withdraw the new range of dolls would also delay the release of a landmark design.

“The new range was also to include a very special doll, the Barny Bee, which would have been the first doll we’ve ever made that’s totally legless,” the spokesperson said.

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