The second-hand e-commerce under the time machine started at 58, flourished in shells, and flourished in Pinduoduo.
Text: Internet Jianghu (ID: VIPIT1)
When it comes to second-hand e-commerce, there seems to be no shortage of clear-cut underdogs.
Fake goods, piracy, crisis of trust… However, one of the problems they overlooked is that more and more people are having fun in idling and turning around. There have been too many Critics of “True Fragrance Law” are inevitable, and they have become “addictive” to second-hand trading. Second-hand trading platforms have become a new traffic continent following Douyin and Pinduoduo.
According to data from the MobData Research Institute, the annual transaction volume of second-hand idle was 742 billion in 2018, 964.6 billion in 2019, and 1,254 billion in 2020. Just like so many people who criticized Pinduoduo a few years ago, although second-hand e-commerce companies have been criticized, once you see the underlying logic of Xianyu’s development, you will definitely be full of expectations for its future.
Second-hand e-commerce under the time machine: started at 58, flourished in shells, flourished in Pinduoduo
Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired magazine in the United States, made a speech on the theme of “Business Trends and China’s Opportunities in the Next 20 Years” in Guangzhou, and proposed that “sharing, interaction, flow and cognition” will be Four major trends in future business development; “The future economy is an on-demand economy, not an all economy.”
The buying and selling of second-hand commodities is a kind of sharing economy. This kind of buying and selling of second-hand commodities does not mean negating consumption upgrade. Logically speaking, the hierarchical situation of social consumption is the Taiwan permanent motive. Today, consumption upgrade has become the main theme. , People’s pursuit of quality of life has become more vigorous. However, the consumption upgrade is accompanied by a general trend of over-consumption and the emergence of a large number of idle second-hand goods. The sale of high-quality second-hand goods is also an out-of-circle manifestation of consumption upgrades. The most typical representatives are the second-hand transactions of small household appliances and luxury goods.
Combined with the theory of “time machine”, the second-hand market in Japan has developed quite mature and perfect, and mature offline second-hand trading markets have been established at the earliest.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Japan’s massive overdraft consumption caused a sharp increase in the number of idle items in people’s homes. After the 1990s, the consumption patterns of the Japanese people during the Heisei Great Depression changed, and more people actively participated in the second-hand market. The market has been educated in this process, and the business model has gradually matured and become part of the daily mainstream consumption model.
In a nutshell, it is the accumulation of second-hand goods, the polishing of business models, and the establishment of commercial status, while market education runs through it.
Of course, we can’t copy and make bookish mistakes, but when IWe have seen the huge and complete second-hand economy in developed countries, and we can also speculate on the development trajectory of domestic second-hand e-commerce.
*58-style 1.0 era: From the reverse ratchet effect to bad money driving out good money
The ratchet effect tells us that people’s consumption habits are irreversible after they are formed, that is, it is easy to adjust upwards but difficult to adjust downwards. However, the volume of the domestic second-hand trading market has exploded, which actually reflects an inverse ratchet effect, creating a consumption model that breaks through the norm.
First-hand goods cannot be bought or necessary for various reasons, and second-hand goods are also good to enhance the taste of life.
Build a platform and find someone to sing. In the early stage of the industry’s development, expanding the market is the main goal. The second-hand trading platform is more like an information docking platform like 58. It is a pure information distribution platform that enables demand and supply resources to converge through an online model.
However, the emergence of buying and selling demand does not mean that everything is going well. The drawbacks of the C2C super lemon market of second-hand trading will gradually enlarge. With the development of time, the original sin of the information aggregation platform will appear, and the platform will have a certain degree of inferiority. Coins drive out good coins, and even industrialize bad coins. Similar to the previous 58, 58 was used by some speculators due to the nature of the platform and became a “hunting ground for swindlers” in the eyes of netizens.
We can call this stage of barbaric growth, but from a rational point of view, it might be more appropriate to use the word “trial and error” instead. Without tolerance, the second-hand idle market will never be revitalized.
*Shell-style 2.0 era integration: from information intermediary to transaction manager
The shortcomings of pure information trading platforms have become more and more prominent. Xianyu has adopted Sesame Credit, transferred to third-party real-person authentication using public security network data and face recognition technology, and Paipai’s Xiaobai credit to improve it. However, the social credit system of second-hand e-commerce in developed countries cannot be handled by second-hand trading platforms. The second-hand trading platform represented by Xianyu and Zhuanzhuan cannot completely cure the drawbacks. It can only be evaded and solved through improved schemes. The value of the platform is truly brought into play and not just an intermediary. At present, it is mainly reflected in the following two paths:
Path 1: Strengthen efforts, from pure C2C to multi-mode coexistence
Referring to the form of second-hand e-commerce in developed countries, the C2C model is the most dynamic form of the market, but other forms of assistance are needed when the social credit system is not yet sound. There are currently three main business models for transactions: C2C, C2B2C consignment, and C2B recycling. For those products with a high degree of standardization, such as mobile phones, strengthen their standardization and avoid informationThe problem of asymmetry, but slow speed and low efficiency is the biggest flaw.
Path 2: Strengthen temperature, from information platform to information community
Community has the charm of natural channels, gathering interest and outputting activity. 58 has also taken similar measures. The 58 tribe was launched in April last year with the purpose of promoting communication among the same circle of people, thereby enhancing user stickiness and activity, and also subdividing user groups. With the gathering of people in the same circle, the spontaneous adjustment of the market will produce more trading behaviors, which will promote the exchange of resources. In this way, the community will be strengthened from positioning, drainage and interaction, to transactions and fission, thus forming a virtuous circle.
For Xianyu, “Fish Pond” was launched, inviting all kinds of professionals in all walks of life to serve as pond owners and accumulate content by constantly sharing knowledge of products and industries. In essence, the existence of the community actually serves the information platform.
Whether it is the coexistence of multiple models or multiple communities, second-hand e-commerce itself actually plays the role of the platform, which is different from the original traditional e-commerce model that needs to integrate and manage the supply chain, forming a complex coordination of multiple roles Online collaboration is a new combination of platform and multiple species. It promotes the establishment of a cooperation mechanism between sellers (individual users, second-hand product recycling agencies) and buyers in the form of a platform, helping players on the platform to connect extensively and maximizing the realization of the network Synergy. This model is similar to Shell’s breakthrough in 58 and other traditional real estate information intermediary models.
*Pinduoduo’s 3.0 era: from information trading platform to retail infrastructure
It is reported that data shows that 90% of Taobao users have idle items, but only 8% of Taobao users will actively sell their idle items on Xianyu. One is the issue of concepts, and the other is the issue of trust. The improvement of the social credit system is only a matter of time, and the future is to grow into a retail infrastructure. As for concepts, the current trend is that the number of users of second-hand e-commerce is increasing year by year, and it has become an important consumer choice in many people’s lives, and the growth trend is very obvious.
We have reasons to imagine that second-hand e-commerce can become part of the retail infrastructure. Just like Pinduoduo, it bypasses the mainstream retail development situation and taps into a new retail niche market with low prices and outside the fifth ring. The form of, social and gameplay grows into a towering tree.
Of course, the future upside is still far away. The most important thing for second-hand e-commerce in the 2.0 era is to find ways to provide users with the sense of security they want. This is the key to the platform’s current development.
The fate that cannot be escaped: Second-hand e-commerce and Pinduoduo must have a battle?
Xianyu turns around our current dream, no doubt