"Heart-Value" Over Price: Emotional Spending Takes Center Stage This National Day

During the National Day holiday, Wuhan K11 hosted a "Cha Dao Rua Squeeze & Decompress Festival" with 60+ stalls full of squeeze toys, where young people kneaded and squished on-site to relieve stress. Data shows China's emotional-consumption market has reached ¥2.72 trillion, as spending shifts quietly from "cost-performance" to "heart-performance."

A festival built for decompression

Wuhan K11's "Cha Dao Rua Squeeze & Decompress Festival" brought together 60+ stalls brimming with squeeze toys, slime, and stress-relief novelties. Young shoppers no longer buy just to "save money" — they buy to "feel good," kneading and squishing on the spot to work a week's worth of pressure into something soft.

The numbers behind the mood economy

From "cost-performance" to "heart-performance"

The logic of consumption is shifting — people are willing to pay for emotional value, companionship, and a sense of healing. Squeeze and stress-relief toys are the perfect embodiment of this trend: low price, high frequency, strong feedback, easy to share. A few-yuan squishy sells not just tactile feel, but a minute of relaxation and joy.

In the age of "heart-value," a toy sells not just function, but a brief moment of emotional comfort.

What this means for exporters

Emotional consumption is a global commonality. Overseas sensory toys (squishies / fidgets) hold steady spots on Amazon's best-seller lists, and single TikTok squishy videos pull 1–2.5 million views. Rising domestic "heart-value" demand, combined with stable overseas repeat purchasing, means stress-relief toys remain a high-momentum category — but premium quality, IP collaboration, and blind-box formats will decide the next leg of growth.

• Build product narratives around "emotional value": healing, companionship, decompression — not just specs.
• Lean into IP collaborations and blind-box formats to lift repeat purchase and basket size.
• Hold the line on quality and safety compliance (tying back to new standard GB 6675.14-2025) so the "joy" passes the test.

Source: Toutiao / Qiaokou Release — Original article (toutiao.com, Oct 6, 2026). This is an English adaptation of the Chinese source for the PlayGoro News column; figures and findings are attributed to the original report.