Infinite imagination of puzzles
After more than two hundred years of development, today's jigsaw puzzles already have a standard, but on the other hand, it has unlimited imagination.
In terms of subject matter, it focuses on natural scenery, buildings and some scenes. There was a statistic before that said the two most common patterns in puzzles were castles and mountains. However, any pattern can be used to make a puzzle if you want, including your own photos. In terms of subject matter, the puzzles are limitless. This is most evident in the field of commercial publicity. Those rough and low-quality puzzles that are purely used for publicity or giveaways have their patterns determined according to the needs of the producers, and there are countless choices.
In order to facilitate production, after the realization of large-scale industrial production, the jigsaw has gradually formed a relatively fixed specification, such as 300 pieces, 500 pieces, 750 pieces and 1000 pieces of different specifications, and the high even reaches more than 20,000 pieces per set. The size also depends on this. The mainstream set of 1,000 pieces is about 38×27 (cm), with a total of 1026 pieces, and the set of 500 pieces is 27×19 (cm), with a total of 513 pieces. But this size is not fixed. If you want, you can make the puzzle round or irregular. You can also make a set of three or five pieces. In other words, the space for puzzles in terms of specifications and dimensions is also infinite.
In terms of structure, plane puzzles are the mainstream, and even once the only ones, but complex three-dimensional puzzles always have fixed players. Generally speaking, three-dimensional puzzles are made of wood or plastic, and they are extremely difficult to join. Of course, this also makes the puzzle infinite.
This infinite possibility also allows puzzles to have more market segments. For example, the children's puzzle market that we are very familiar with, the high demands on attention of puzzles obviously help children's concentration. Corporate gift puzzles are also very common, but such puzzles should not be complicated. The simpler the better, because almost no one spends a lot of time on a puzzle for corporate advertising. As for adult jigsaw puzzles, in addition to common scene and character puzzles, there are many personalized puzzles, such as personal photo puzzles and wedding photo puzzles.
Judging from the current global market, the annual sales of puzzles were US$650 million in 2016, and only more than US$700 million last year, which seems to be a small number. However, it should be noted that this data does not include a large number of pirated products, non-branded products and even advertising products. At the same time, the unit price of the puzzle is not high, and hundreds of millions of dollars mean an astronomical number of sales.
According to the data, 29% of the global brand puzzles are made in the United States, followed by the European Union and Japan. In fact, China has a large number of puzzle pieces produced, and because the toy industry giants have factories in China, puzzle pieces are also part of the production line. However, the proportion of rough toy gifts and commercial promotion puzzles currently circulating in the market is too high, and the real brand puzzles are quite limited.
In fact, the jigsaw puzzle, those refined products made by established companies in developed countries, have a high premium rate and the most expensive price. This high added value is exactly what Chinese companies should pursue.
It is precisely because there are a large number of low-end products of different brands circulating on the market that many people's understanding of the puzzle is still the kind of rough gift. Even if it's "high-end", it's just the kind of cartoon puzzle that costs ten yuan and hundreds of thousands of pieces in a stationery store. The pictures and materials of this type of puzzle are very rough. Maybe you haven't finished it yet, and half of it is broken. Just dropping the scraps of paper can make your brain hurt.
If you really want to be a puzzle player, this type of puzzle is obviously not enough. Nowadays, on the online shopping platform and Haitao platform, you can see a large number of brand puzzles. Although the price is high, the quality is good, and you can not only play, but also collect. Many players are reluctant to dismantle them after they are finished, so they will be framed and hung on the wall. Of course, if you want to increase the value and sell it, then don't miss the film, don't mount it, just keep it as it is.
