Popular store opens larger space in Pacific Mall to huge crowds
One Ontario mall has a new resident that’s causing quite the splash, drawing scores of shoppers ever since it opened just a few months ago.
If 20,000 followers on Instagram in just over four months isn’t enough to solidify the cultural phenomenon that is Pacific Mall store Popcore, then perhaps the lines of avid shoppers that can be found with regularity trailing outside the shop are.
What they’re selling may immediately strike some shoppers as odd, while others will absolutely get it.
Popcore, which was founded in October 2024 with one location in Markham’s Pacific Mall before expanding to a larger unit in early February 2025, sells… well… they’re not quite toys, but they’re not not toys.
In actuality, Popcore specializes in imports from Beijing-based toy company Pop Mart, which creates a series of “blind-box” toys and ships them worldwide.
Blind boxes are a concept that’s had huge popularity across Asia for over a decade and has exploded in popularity across North America — thanks, in no small part, to the almost painfully cute Sonny Angels which, as we write this, can be found adorning various corners of my room, — in the past two years or so.
The concept is a cleverly novel one; create a series of toys (or, “collectibles,” if the term toys makes you defensive,) for both recognizable IP like Hello Kitty and original characters and package them in nondescript boxes, making the specific model a consumer is buying a mystery until they open it.
If you happen to get doubles, too bad; buy another and try again. It’s a sensation.
Clearly, the concept has landed in Toronto to a near-immediate success, with Popcore’s Instagram following swelling to over 20,000 in just a handful of months, and videos showing lineups of Christmas shoppers snaking down the mall hallway.
Popcore isn’t alone in its popularity of late: it’s joined by other blind-box retailers like the recently-opened Sukoshi Mart locations at the Eaton Centre, Fairview Mall and Scarborough Town Centre, as well as pioneers in the space like Koreatown gem Mr. Pen.
I, for one, bought the majority of my Sonny Angels at Blue Banana in Kensington years ago, but we all know how that ended.
Whether you’re a blind box fanatic or are looking to dip your toes into the world for the first time, you can visit Popcore at Pacific Mall unit B52 seven days a week from noon to 8 p.m.