Xianyu has become what it is today, and all the young people here are responsible

Produced by | At the forefront of entrepreneurship

Author | Tingting

Edit | lightning

American Editor | Wu Yizhong

Audit | Ode

Xianyu is on the hot search again.

At the end of 2023, Xianyu joined hands with 36Kr and Houlang Research Institute to jointly release the "2023 Xianyu Annual Hot Words", from social hotspots to trading trends, condensed the consumption trend and collective memory of the year with ten keywords, and simultaneously launched the 2023 Xianyu annual Penfolds financial report.

The annual Penfolds financial report shows that in 2023, young people can earn an average of 2,723.5 yuan a year on Xianyu. And young people who are keen on "making money" have also pushed this news to the hot search.

In a few months, Xianyu will celebrate its 10th birthday. And in the past 2023, Xianyu has been moving non-stop, and hot searches are continuous.

From the substantial revision of the App around young people, ranking among the first-class businesses of Taotian Group, to the frequent out-of-the-circle of young people's terrier culture, Xianyu has repeatedly attracted widespread attention, breaking the "low-key" image that has been online for more than 9 years.

There are all kinds of signs that Xianyu has changed a lot and is being seen by more and more people. In fact, Xianyu, who is almost 10 years old, has upgraded from a "second-hand flea market" to an all-encompassing "young community".

1、2023，闲鱼“翻身”

In the environment where giants such as Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, and Pinduoduo carve up the e-commerce market, second-hand e-commerce is often easily ignored by the public and labeled as a "low-key niche". Over the years, Xianyu's image to the public has also been difficult to escape the label of "second-hand flea market", which is quite out of the mainstream and difficult to get into the elegant hall.

But, the data speaks.

According to the latest data, the number of Xianyu users has exceeded 500 million, of which the proportion of post-95 active users has been nearly 60%, and more than 4 million idle items are released every day, with a release scale of nearly 100 million. According to Quest Mobile data, Xianyu's average monthly active users reached 36.68 million in September 2023, a year-on-year increase of 18.6%. From the perspective of market performance, with a large number of young users in hand and a double-digit growth rate of monthly active users, Xianyu is actually a typical example of low-key accumulation.

In November, Alibaba released its financial report, and at the earnings conference, Ali CEO Wu Yongming announced Alibaba's first batch of strategic innovation businesses - 1688, Xianyu, DingTalk, and Quark.

So far, Xianyu has officially become one of the first-class businesses of Taotian Group, known as one of the four dragons of Alibaba, shouldering the strategic goal of innovation and growth of the group.

So, what is Xianyu? The answer is: the right time, the right place, and the right people.

(Photo / Xianyu official website)

First of all, the popularity of Xianyu at this time is out of the circle, which can be said to conform to the time of day.

In today's e-commerce market, "low price" has long become a clear card. Xianyu "second-hand" and "idle" and other labels have natural advantages in low prices, and can become Ali's most powerful backhand in the encirclement and interception of Pinduoduo and Jingdong.

Secondly, backed by the towering tree of Taotian Group, Xianyu complements each other, which can be said to be advantageous.

Most users who pay attention to second-hand goods are actually potential consumers of first-hand goods. As the increment of the mobile Internet peaks and the market enters the stock fight, Xianyu's longer-tail consumer groups and traffic pools with its own generation attributes become more and more precious - Xianyu can act as Ali's traffic engine and continuously deliver new passenger flow increments to Taotian.

In addition to the favorable time and place, the most noteworthy thing is the people on Xianyu, especially young people. When young people become the main consumer force, it is extremely important to gain insight and attraction to this group. Judging from the recent platform data, Xianyu is undoubtedly at the forefront of the industry at this point.

2. "Young community" is the real label of Xianyu

It is well known that young people are more receptive to the idea of idle trading.

On the one hand, young people who grew up in the era of material abundance are more rational in consumption, attaching importance to affordability, usefulness and effectiveness.

On the other hand, young people pay more attention to the concept of green consumption, eliminate waste and refuse pollution, so they are more receptive to idle transactions.

According to the statistics of Aurora Big Data, the users of the idle trading platform are mainly young people of Generation Z, with users aged 34 and below accounting for 85.3%, of which more than ninety percent of high-frequency consumer users are under the age of 30.

When a large number of young people pour into the same community platform and bring their own hobbies and lifestyles, then this platform will also become a part of the life of young people, and it is only a matter of time before the spontaneous growth of the young cultural atmosphere.

(Photo / Xianyu official WeChat)

As listed in the top ten keywords of Xianyu in 2023: money-saving special forces, crazy copywriting, SWAP, spelling a single match, easy carbon reduction, cyber stalls, blogger idleness, retro digital, landing economy, Xianyu floor price. Young people have brought these labels, which represent the consumer culture and life attitude of Generation Z, to Xianyu.

The consumption trends and interest trends of young people are vividly reflected here. In the past, everyone was accustomed to transferring second-hand idle physical items in Xianyu, and now, from renting a house, engaging in side business, exchanging baby clothes, to paying to tell cold jokes, doing handicrafts on behalf of others, all kinds of life-oriented and personalized needs are also regarded as commodity link circulation.

As early as July 2023, Xianyu released a "Post-00 Summer Play and Earn Guide": While enjoying the holiday, college students unlocked a variety of interesting and novel new ideas for making money, selling sunrise and sunset, building Lego, and walking dogs...... The endless golden ideas have become new business opportunities on Xianyu.

In the context of consumption downgrade, young people are more keen to "make money". The relatively free and low-threshold trading environment attracts a large number of young people to flock here to compete for talents and make money while playing with their brains. Even if the price is only a few or dozens of yuan, it is these transactions and exchanges around young people that give Xianyu infinite vitality.

Obviously, Xianyu is also well versed in this, and constantly carries out various offline activities to create a social atmosphere in the app and encourage users to communicate with each other. For example, during the 618 period this year, Xianyu launched the "Mine Hunting" treasure hunt activity, issued a large number of coupons, and also made up a variety of activities such as the early ferry, the single station, the leakage stall, the non-fishing yard, the squatting paradise and the Yushengyi station - no matter which kind of transaction, it has subverted the public's traditional perception of second-hand trading.

To a certain extent, the reason why Xianyu has broken through people's previous perceptions is that young people inject their unique lifestyles and states into this community, and even have the fun of interacting with each other here. In other words, the community model of "transaction + exchange" is an important factor in pushing Xianyu to its current status.

(Photo / Xianyu APP)

This kind of layout, Xianyu has already begun, but when Xianyu products were upgraded in May last year, such a layout became more specific. Xianyu APP ushered in a major revision, launched a community-based product "Seafood Market", upgraded the "Huiplay" community, and launched a new credit system "Fish Power Value", focusing on the two levels of trading and community, and building a new community of interest trading and communication with users.

Wu Yongming, CEO of Alibaba, said: "Xianyu is the most popular idle trading platform for young Chinese consumers, and we believe that the future of Xianyu is much more than that, it is a lifestyle platform that can carry the hobbies and pleasures of life for the majority of consumers. ”

For Xianyu, the transformation from a second-hand idle trading platform to a super second-hand market where "everything can be resold" is just the beginning. What's more, retaining young people means having a lot of potential.

3. The future of Xianyu: Start from consolidating the trust foundation of the second-hand trading platform

According to the big database of Dianshubao e-commerce, the scale of second-hand e-commerce transactions in 2022 will reach 480.204 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20%. According to the "2021 Carbon Emission Reduction Report on China's Idle Second-hand Transactions" released by the Institute of Energy, Environment and Economics of Tsinghua University and other institutions, the domestic second-hand consumer market has exceeded one trillion yuan in 2020, and it is expected that China's idle goods transactions are expected to exceed 3 trillion yuan by 2025.

The market size is large, and the problem comes. Since the development of the second-hand e-commerce industry, the most essential problem faced by the industry is the trust problem in the transaction.

It is difficult to establish a unified identification standard for the non-standard characteristics of second-hand goods, and the C2C-based transaction model weakens the platform's ability to supervise buyers and sellers.

(Photo / Xianyu official WeChat)

As Zhuan Zhuan and Love Recycling are committed to establishing a complete set of product recycling and inspection processes, in order to implement standardized management, Xianyu sits firmly in the top spot of domestic second-hand e-commerce, and naturally understands this.

Since June last year, Xianyu has officially implemented a fee policy for sellers with high frequency and high transactions. The key to the "commission" for professional sellers is that Xianyu conveys an attitude: if you want to do business in Xianyu for a long time, you need to use more commercial logic.

Three months later, Xianyu officially launched the "help selling" business, and the platform provides quality inspection, warehousing, and transportation of idle commodity matching and trading services, gradually increasing its participation in the idle trading market - personally intervening in direct commodity trading, which can play a role in forcing professional sellers to improve service quality and ensure performance results.

In addition, for more controllable standard products, in the four major fields of luxury goods, mobile phone digital, trendy shoes and toys, and beauty, Xianyu has also launched a worry-free shopping service and a 48-hour worry-free selling service.

It is worth mentioning that Xianyu introduced Sesame Credit from Alipay, coupled with the idle gas value representing the security of the account and the fish power value representing the user's credit score, to build a set of platform trust system for itself.

(Photo / Xianyu official WeChat)

From the perspective of trust, Xianyu's upgraded new community products, "Seafood Market" and "Huiplay" Community, can also enhance the trust relationship of the entire community through interaction and communication.

After the business upgrade, Xianyu has also made a series of personnel adjustments within the organization, among which there is a significant change: after clarifying the operational focus of each business line of Xianyu, the product team establishes an organizational structure integrating production and transportation according to the corresponding relationship with the business line - which means more segmentation and innovation on the product side, and also shows that Xianyu may have more actions in 2024.

Xianyu is bidding farewell to barbaric growth and entering a new stage of more and more standardization.

For the second-hand market, how to enhance the communication between buyers and sellers, make the transaction process more transparent, and provide more timely and comprehensive after-sales service, so as to provide buyers and sellers with a more convenient and reliable trading experience, may be able to learn a thing or two from the combination of Xianyu.

After all, if you want to grasp the future, you have to start by laying a good "foundation of trust" in the present.

4. Conclusion

Due to its community attributes, it does not exclude professional sellers, and it also prevails in the terrier culture of young people, and the traffic advantage of Xianyu naturally exists. When more and more young people devote themselves to the position of circular economy and enjoy the consumption dividends, community atmosphere and interactive experience brought by idle transactions, Xianyu may become the vane of the next social hotspot and trend.

*Note: The title picture in the article is from Xianyu's official WeChat.