Regarded as a chain brand of children’s indoor amusement parks, YuYuTo has been exposed that some of the parent-child amusement stores have closed, such that the membership cards could not be used or refunded.  Worse still, some stores in Nanjing, Harbin and other cities suddenly withdrew and their principal owners could not be reached, as reported by the latest news, which has caused a ripple effect throughout the industry.  According to an investigation, one YuYuTo store’s business license has been revoked, 50+ stores’ business licenses were canceled and 30+ stores in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing and other cities in China were listed in the unusual operation. 

Since its establishment in May 2010, YuYuTo has provided FEC solutions with shopping malls and other commercial facilities.  Its products and services cover FEC, indoor theme parks, amusement parks, children theme zones, theme exhibitions, parks, and outdoor carnivals.  Up till the end of 2016, there were 300 shops set up in over 100 cities in China.  And, in 2017, YuYuTo opened stores in Singapore and Vietnam, which attracted 10 million visits per year and garnered over 1 million members of their direct-sale stores.  However, though YuYuTo is with such a large scale, it not only has closed its stores and cannot refund the membership card fee to consumers, but also has defaulted on a bank loan and even has some legal troubles.

YuYuTo is an experiential consumption platform targeting families with children.  Most of its stores are set in high-end shopping centers featuring various kinds of children’s amusement equipment.  And the stores also run theme parks, theme streets, theme exhibitions based on the stores’ scale, and integrate other different formats such as infant child retail, early education and handcrafts.  This one-stop experiential format caters to the demands of commercial real estate for children's experiential consumption, which has stimulated YuYuTo to develop rapidly and transform into a franchised brand.

Under this transformation tempest, half of the YuYuTo direct-sale stores are closed, and others have to transform into franchised stores or contract to other operators.  Because of the lawsuits, the brand’s word-of-mouth is getting a nearly bad rap.  In spite of its own reasons, the downturn of the children’s amusement market in 2018 is also the catalyst for this tempest.  After the first profit-making period of births, the thought of making money by no effort except for focusing on channels and distribution points becomes out of date.  The hardware environment and the scene that can meet consumers needs now become the key for children parks to survive from the competition between other peers.
※The article is published in the GTI Magazine Issue No. 166 in July 2018