Second-hand transactions have shifted from niche hobbies and personal behaviors to large-scale and enterprise-oriented transactions.
Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “Deep Web Tencent News” (ID: qqshenwang), author : Sun Yu.
Luo Yonghao, “the dark lamp of the industry”, has new trends. On October 14, the second-hand trading platform was transferred to Weibo announced Luo Yonghao as a brand promotion ambassador, and used the video Way to launch the “Luo Yonghao X transfer to 2020 autumn old machine conference”. Subsequently, the transfer platform launched the “Lao Luo Selected Recommendation” area, the content is mainly branded mobile phones.
The transaction of second-hand idle goods is an ancient and huge market. According to data from CCTV Financial Report, as of the end of 2017, the scale of domestic idle goods transactions has reached 500 billion yuan, and in 2018 this figure jumped to 740 billion. At the same time, almost all forecasts believe that the market size of this industry can reach trillions of yuan in 2020. This figure still does not meet industry expectations. Take the United States as an example: the total retail sales of consumer goods in China and the United States in 2019 are equivalent, and the scale of idle goods transactions in China is still less than half of the United States.
The imagination of practitioners is even more inspiring. Although China’s e-commerce originated from “second-hand goods”, the number of individual e-commerce sellers has decreased significantly after years of development, which means that online second-hand transactions are still a huge blue ocean .
Before the advent of e-commerce, trading second-hand idle items was not cost-effective. Many consumers still have memories of the steel basins for mobile phones, eggs for clothes, home appliances, etc., which were once all over the streets. In this primitive transaction process, the “middleman” has absolute pricing power. Low, even prefer to discard it directly.
With the exponential growth of idle items brought about by consumption upgrades, and the platform model represented by idle fish and transfers has become more mature, second-hand e-commerce has become an important channel for idle item transactions. What is more noteworthy is that in today’s outbreak of the epidemic and greater economic pressure, the second-hand economic model is expected to improve its status in the domestic consumption system. In terms of environmental protection, trading of idle items can also play an important role.
The ideal is full, but the reality is very skinny. Many second-hand trading practitioners told “Shen Wang” that the second-hand industry has always been one of the most difficult areas for e-commerce to make profits. “The inability to standardize goods and services makes it difficult to scale second-hand goods. The interest rate is relatively low.” Ma Honglang, a former employee of Zhuan Zhuan, told Deepnet that there is a fundamental difference between the transfer of idle goods represented by Zhuan Zhuan and Xianyu and the second-hand car and second-hand housing sectors represented by Guazi and Uxin. “Second-hand cars and second-hand houses are standard products. The platform can earn service fees from the middle, and can also provide financial services in the later stage. However, the relative prices of personal idle items on the transfer and idle fish are relatively low, and they are long-term in e-commerce In the tail position, it is difficult for the platform to profit from it.”
At least from this perspective, second-hand e-commerce is still a game for giants. Before the merger of Aishou and Paipai, the general manager of Paipai Wang Yongliang once said in Moments that Used to shoot It is a career worth doing for a lifetime, and it is also about to usher in rapid growth, and will eventually lead to a great career; 58 Group (transferred to the parent company) CEO Yao Jinbo told “Shen Wang” shortly after the transfer to the line, the second-hand business is very Difficult to make a profit, “Hope Zhuanzhuan is a user platform with a good reputation, and hope that this product will make society more environmentally friendly and greener.”
After the integration of finding a good phone and Zhuanzhuan business, Zhuanzhuan founder Huang Wei said to “Shenzhen”, “The feelings support us to go far, and there is no charge for C2C trading on Zhuan. Zhuan is subsidizing. , Let more people develop the habit of second-hand trading.” Chen Lei (Hua Ming Wenzhong), the former head of the Xianyu Division, once said, “Xianyu’s 100 billion GMV is equivalent to saving the society 100 billion in production. “
Like traditional e-commerce, it may be a good way to go from serving individual sellers (Taobao) to serving corporate sellers (Tmall, JD.com). Top players such as Xianyu, Zhuanzhuan, and Aihuihui have all deployed to B market in recent years, and models such as excellent products and strict selection have become important sources of profit.
But the price of this change is the influx of professional “players” successively, and second-hand transactions have gradually shifted from niche hobbies and personal behaviors to large-scale and enterprise-oriented. Li Lan, a senior idle fish seller, told “Deep Net”, “When Xianyu was first established, there were very strict regulations on the quantity and frequency of online products. However, in the past year, Xianyu hasTaobao of the period is very similar. “An employee of Xianyu Dai Zhenguo interpreted “Deep Net” in this way, “At least for now, entrepreneurial behavior on Xianyu is recognized and supported. “
One super, many strong
In the rough era of Chinese e-commerce, second-hand goods once played an important role: Taobao, Alipay first transaction All of the products are “second-hand”. In 2008, when the global financial crisis broke out, China’s economy experienced a transformation, from an investment and export-oriented to a consumption-oriented one. One year later, Double Eleven, which completely changed the state of China’s e-commerce business, went online: consumption changed from meeting rigid needs to meeting individualized needs, e-commerce platforms transformed from providing services for small and medium sellers to serving large businesses, and some large-scale e-commerce platforms even went from matching The merchant becomes a direct stocking merchant.
Behind this change, a large number of idle supplies began to appear, and the second-hand trading market had preliminary soil. In the PC era, information on the sale of second-hand items on various forums and BBS is not uncommon, and online and offline flea markets have appeared on some regional social platforms.
Different from the previous purely offline second-hand recycling whose main purpose is to save, young people expect that second-hand platforms will not only save money, but also enjoy the most primitive “Taobao” fun.
At this stage, the two most important representatives of second-hand e-commerce are Taobao’s second-hand channel and 58.com and Ganji.com ‘s second-hand channel, besides this, Baidu Tieba, qq group and other social platforms are also popular places for second-hand transactions. But regardless of whether it relies on e-commerce or social interaction, second-hand e-commerce has been in a tepid stage.
The watershed appeared in 2015. With companies such as Didi entering the public eye, the sharing economy has entered a stage of rapid development in China. Emerging concepts have caused this hidden behind-the-scenes e-commerce ashes field to suddenly explode. Taobao’s second-hand transformation of Xianyu and 58.com’s Ganji.com’s second-hand channel transformation. Before Jingdong restarted second-hand auctions, these two platforms quickly consumed more than 90% of the domestic market. Share.
According to the “2018 China Second-hand E-commerce Development Report” released by the E-Commerce Research Center, second-hand delivery Easy Power< /a>In the commercial platform market, idle fish accounted for 70.7% of the market; secondly, the share of re-transfer accounted for 20.38%; the second-hand auction accounted for 6.37%; the love recycling accounted for 3.18%.
Only two years after Xianyu went online, it has accumulated more than 100 million real-name authentication users, and has traded 170 million idle items; the peak daily activity reached 1 million two months after it went online. In 2019, Xianyu’s transaction volume exceeded 200 billion, becoming a well-deserved overlord of the second-hand trading market. Chen Lei once said that by doing a good job in the community, Xianyu has a great opportunity to achieve a scale of 1 trillion.
After a few years of development, Zhuanzhuan has changed the main battlefield from facing the Shaking Fish to focusing on the core business. Huang Wei interprets Zhuanzhuan’s business in “Deep Web” in this way, and specializes in the technical industry. “Xianyu is a community model that uses idleness as the entry point to solve problems at the traffic level. Zhuanzhuan starts from the industry chain and services, and is professional According to the data of the Zhuan Zhuan Group, after the integration of Zhuan Zhuan and Liangji’s business, the mobile C2B business increased by 171.6 compared with the same period last year.9%, an increase of 61.1% compared to when the merger was announced. Among them, the daily receipt volume of the mobile phone C2B business exceeded 9,600 orders on August 3.
More competitors are running on the track of Xianyu, the latest name is Aihuihui.
Recently, Ai Recycling completed over 100 million U.S. dollars in E+ round financing, which was funded by JD Group and Guotai Junan International United Leading investment, Shanghai Guohe Investment, Fresh Capital, JD Logistics Industrial Fund Huihe Capital and Yifeng Capital participate Follow the vote. At the same time, the group’s brand has been upgraded from Aihuihui to “New Life”.
In 2017, JD.com announced that it plans to provide 1 billion-level resource strategic support in the next three years after the “resurrection” will be made. One and a half years later, JD.com announced that it will lead a new round of US$500 million in financing for Aihui Recycling, and at the same time, it will be merged into Aihui Recycling. Different from Xianyu and Zhuanzhuan which emphasized C2C when they went online, Jingdong-backed Paipai and Aihuihui have a deep layout in the 3C field. At the same time, they have layouts for C2C, C2B, B2C and other business models.
During this epidemic, second-hand e-commerce has once again undergone tremendous changes. According to the data provided by Xianyu, Xianyu’s new users increased sharply in February, and many ordinary people trapped in their homes sold idle products as a subsidiary.Industry makes money. Regarding Zhuan Zhuan, it is stated that the self-operated mobile phone business order volume of Zhuan Zhuan platform after the Spring Festival increased by 75.9% month-on-month, and the month-on-month growth of GMV reached 107.2%.
Dai Zhenguo told “Shen.net” that after the epidemic, the second-hand e-commerce industry may usher in a development opportunity. “The non-essential goods that were previously impulsive consumption may flow into the second-hand market in large quantities, and the supply of goods will gain an increase; in addition, the epidemic During this period, the actual income of consumers will indeed decrease, and users will also get a corresponding increase.”
Smelling fish
For Alibaba, Xianyu once carried the final development value of traffic when it was launched. After the launch of the first Double Eleven, Alibaba launched Double 12 and Taobao Second-hand successively, targeting merchants with overstocking and users who impulsive consumption.
Double Twelve did not assume its original role. As China’s first inventory peak gradually passed, Double Twelve, which helped merchants to further clear goods, gradually put the main battlefield offline. However, Xianyu is still operating smoothly in the Alibaba system. In December 2019, Xianyu published data. In the past year, 140 million items were found.Treasure Merchant is “one-click”Resale” to Xianyu, nearly 40% of users will resell what they bought within a month.
This inherits the C2C field that Alibaba is most familiar with, but just as Jack Ma once described Taobao: the eldest son in the family, he worked so hard to make money to let a few younger brothers go to school. Xianyu, adhering to C2C, soon showed its biggest disadvantage like Taobao. Individual sellers have mixed good and bad, and platform operators have difficulty making profits.
The story is repeating itself. Just as Taobao Mall (the predecessor of Tmall) for to B business is soaring after Taobao is split into three, Xianyu also deploys to B business. At the beginning of 2019, Xianyu launched the “Xianyu Youpin” channel, which provides brand-owned and authorized official idle, quality second-hand, and sample old products.
A more regulated and larger market, no second-hand e-commerce company is willing to let it go. Zhuanzhuan was deployed earlier than Xianyu. Zhuanyoupin has been online since 2015. It is engaged in iPhone recycling and consignment services, and has introduced a former Apple Genius Bar (Apple retail store after-sales team) quality inspection engineer to join the team.
Ma Honglang introduced to “Deep Web” that in the field of second-hand e-commerce, whether to B actually means whether to carry out commercialization attempts. “The standard second-hand goods generally have independent companies, such as second-hand houses, second-hand cars, Second-hand mobile phones, second-hand luxury goods, Zhuanzhuan and Xianyu are basically long-tail products, and it is difficult to charge individual sellers or provide related services.”
Ma Honglang has been engaged in the second-hand commodity trading industry for more than ten years, and he is also one of the first employees to transfer. In Ma Honglang’s opinion, Zhuanzhuan and Xianyu were initially dominated by the circulation of personal idle items, but when the influx of well-trained professional sellers, the platform was unable to stop them.
The figures released by Xianyu show that its sales in 2018 exceeded 100 billion yuan, and the average annual sales income of users who successfully completed transactions in Xianyu reached 4296 yuan; more than 1 million users posted more than 2 million pieces on Xianyu every day Personal idle items. “Such a figure is difficult to achieve with the power of individual sellers alone.” Ma Honglang said.
For comparison, at the beginning of Xianyu’s launch, the data published tended to be based on the number of users and monthly activities, but after 2018, sales have become more critical numbers.
The founder of Xianyu Chen Weiye (the name of the flower has been transferred to Ant Group) once said that in the future, resources will be invested in cultivating 100,000 Xianyu “players”, customizing fish ponds for them, designing player numbers and player fish ponds Products and promotion plans. “Player” is Xianyu’s name for the introduction of “KOL” that meets the requirements, covering the second dimension, Tide play, handicrafts, retro, fashion and more than 30 vertical fields , The maximum number of published products can reach 500.
Li Lan, who bought and sold second-hand goods on various platforms for a long time, said to “Deep Web”, “Now the platform is leaning towards professional sellers, and the products of professional sellers are always in the front. It is easy for individual sellers or fans Was demoted or removed.”
This fish has changed its flavor.
In July this year, Xianyu even reported that Xianyu Pro accounts will be sold. It is understood that Xianyu Pro account is a paid account, 199 yuan for half a year and 299 yuan for a year. The biggest difference from ordinary accounts is the addition of inventory functions. “What’s the difference between this and Taobao?” Li Lan is not cold about the Xianyu Pro account. “I still miss the second-hand idle goods industry when it first appeared. Now Xianyu is not fun.”
Profit is a problem, fakes are hard to cure
In the field of Chinese e-commerce, vertical e-commerce has always been considered difficult to survive independently, but this logic is just the opposite in the field of second-hand e-commerce: Guazi and Uxin who focus on used car transactions, Confucius who focuses on the second-hand book industry, < a class="project-link" data-id="502752" data-name="More catch fish" data-logo="https://img.36krcdn.com/20200729/v2_233f911728c345c08b793bd57aa684e1_img_000" data-refer-type=" 2" href="https://36kr.com/projectDetails/502752" target="_blank">Catch more fish, focus on the recycling of second-hand mobile phones, find beautiful machines, and focus on the red cloth of second-hand luxury goods transactions Lin Jun is developing well.
Ma Honglang told “Shen Wang” that this is because vertical second-hand e-commerce companies often adopt a semi-self-operating model. “First purchase, then carry out related maintenance, evaluate guarantees, and then sell. Vertical second-hand e-commerce companies can obtain intermediate Service benefits.” According to insiders in the industry, the cost of new models in the second-hand industry is different. “The cost of new models in the mobile phone category can almost exceed 200 yuan, but the cost of new models in the comprehensive industry is higher because domestic users are not Hand in idle items that have not been developed easy Xi used to. The person further stated that, with the exception of some standard products, the transaction rate of Xianyuzhuan goods is less than 10%, “that is, for every 10 items released, less than 1 item is sold. “
The more difficult to cure chronic disease is fakes. “There are too many fakes.” Gao Feiyu, a senior buyer of Xianyu, told “Deep Net” that when Xianyu first went online, she had bought consecutively. There were many items, but the very unpleasant shopping experience soon made her give up Xianyu. According to Gao Feiyu, in second-hand e-commerce, sneakers, mobile phones, bags, etc. are the hardest hit areas for selling fakes.
The senior buyer described an experience of being deceived: He saw a pair of Nike sneakers on Xianyu, the original price was close to 2,000 yuan. The seller said that because the size was not suitable, he only tried to wear it once and sold it for 1,200 yuan first. However, after receiving the goods, they were found to be inconsistent with the genuine ones. After identification, they were found to be fake shoes, but the seller in turn claimed that the buyer maliciously refunded them.
This is a typical case of fake goods on second-hand e-commerce platforms. Because e-commerce platforms have related mechanisms, it is very easy to return and exchange goods, but it is not so easy on second-hand e-commerce platforms.
The opener has fallen a batch, it orange produced the topic “Daily Album: A Platform for the Trading of Second-hand Idle Items” Just one year later, 5 of the 11 mentioned platforms have closed their doors, including exchange it together, rice, i exchange, Big-name show, Aiyi.com, the mortality rate is close to 50%.
Attracting more professional sellers may be able to effectively help second-hand e-commerce platforms scale up and introduce more supervision. Dai Zhenguo told “Shen Wang” that Alibaba has been establishing an entrepreneurial system, “Now idle fish is an important part of this entrepreneurial system, and the circulation of idle goods is not as important as before.”
For entrepreneurs, Xianyu is the last stage. Its huge online traffic and low barriers to entry make it a traffic depression where countless professional sellers try to get a share of the pie. What buyers dislike is that these skilled counterfeiters on platforms such as Zhuanzhuan and Xianyu are often unscrupulous merchants. These counterfeit merchants sell counterfeit products on second-hand platforms in a “disintegrated into parts” method. They are well versed in the rules of second-hand transactions, register a large number of accounts to pretend to be individual sellers, quickly remove each item sold, and reuse multiple accounts. .
Some “high imitation” businesses are also resurgence on second-hand e-commerce platforms. Xu Liren, a northeast seller selling high imitation packages, told “Shen Wang” that he clearly marked the goods sold as high imitation products in the circle of friends, but consumption The person does not resist. According to his introduction, the price of high imitation bags is generally about one-tenth of that of genuine bags, and some are even more expensive than genuine ones.
In addition to fakes and fakes, there are more strange formats on second-hand e-commerce platforms: some sellers offer ultra-high or ultra-low prices, carry out part-time, personalized services, exotic products and other transactions, such as antiquity Divine beasts, temporary boyfriends, part-time bodyguards, etc. Behind these formats, there are hidden mysteries. According to Gao Feiyu’s introduction, some of the pictures of beauty photos actually have pornographic services behind them.
Live broadcast, social networking and other new models are gradually emerging
Dangxianyu is becoming more and more like Taobao, and Aihuihui is more and more like JD.com. The new models that e-commerce companies are familiar with are gradually being cited by second-hand e-commerce platforms.
Xianyu launched the live broadcast industry this yearObviously, this kind of business is not for individual users who occasionally transfer some second-hand clothes and second-hand board games on the platform.
And Taobao, Douyin, Kaishou and other relatively mature live broadcast industries, Xianyu live broadcast platform does not The volume did not sound too much, and other second-hand platforms did not follow up. According to the observation of “Shenzhen”, the current live broadcast in the field of second-hand e-commerce is mainly concentrated on luxury goods, cars, houses and other large commodities, which is different from that of e-commerce live broadcast which usually focuses on low prices and good quality.
Feng Ping, an employee of Taobao Live Broadcasting, told “Deep Web” that two important reasons consumers watch live broadcasts are cheap prices and real-time feedback. “Generally speaking, live broadcast rooms will issue many exclusive coupons and provide flash The model has advantages in terms of price; when watching the live broadcast, the anchor will also interpret the products and interact with consumers in real time.”
In terms of price, it is difficult for second-hand e-commerce platform live broadcast to be competitive. Feng Ping said, “The consumers of second-hand e-commerce themselves pay much attention to cost performance, and there is no business behind it.” Feng Ping further Said that the main goal of the live broadcast business of second-hand e-commerce is to endorse the industry. “Relatively speaking, second-hand goods require sellers to invest more emotions beyond the price. For example, many people will introduce sources and tell stories on their second-hand goods. The live broadcast platform will be more intuitive.”
Some second-hand e-commerce platforms that develop to B business have their own inventory, so they invest more in live broadcasting. In the second-hand mobile phone industry, Finding Machine is known for its short video shooting and live streaming. It has a number of highly professional shipping anchors. Xu Wei, the founder and CEO of Red Bulin, a second-hand luxury goods trading platform, also said that the content model of “second-hand luxury + live broadcast” is becoming a new growth point for China’s second-hand luxury platform.
Huang Wei told “Deep Web” that Zhuan Zhuan is doing live broadcast, “Through live broadcast of the Internet’s new technology, it can bring onlineDistance, the conversion motivation of consumers will be much stronger, to some extent help online instead of offline. “
In addition to live broadcasting, the community model is also the focus of second-hand e-commerce platforms. According to the data released by Xianyu, Xianyu has more than 125,000 fish ponds nationwide, and the number of interactions among fish pond users is 2.2 times that of ordinary Xianyu users. Chen Weiye once disclosed that the transaction conversion rate of users who have interacted in the Xianyu community was 13.5%, while the transaction conversion rate of users without interaction was only 0.07%.
The so-called fish pond is based on the same interests of users, or the familiarity of objects of the same category, through the algorithm set recommended to users so that they can gather in the same category to form a community, creating a community atmosphere, and at the same time relying on the community atmosphere Strengthen users’ stickiness to idle fish.
However, this model is under stricter management. In August this year, the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee’s Cyberspace Administration held a special meeting to supervise the Xianyu platform to carry out the “Hundred-Day Special Action”, and Xianyu took the initiative to shut down the fish ponds.
Social platforms are still the biggest competitors of second-hand e-commerce platforms. The “Second-hand Bar” in Baidu Tieba has posted more than 20 million posts and more than 1.2 million followers; “Second-hand Bar” has nearly 10,000 followers and “Second-hand Trading Bar” has nearly 20,000 followers.
Another major competitor comes from the professional WeChat and QQ communities. A second-dimensional enthusiast Guo Cheng introduced to “Deep Net” that he would buy some cos clothing and figure from Xianyu. “But now Xianyu are all merchants, it is difficult to find good things, now mainly through some large groups. The large groups are all two-dimensional enthusiasts, transactions are very common and frequent, and it is more convenient.”
(At the request of the interviewee, Ma Honglang, Li Lan, Dai Zhenguo, Gao Feiyu, Xu Liren, Feng Ping, and Guo Cheng are all pseudonyms)