This article is from WeChat official account:Deep Web Tencent News (ID: qqshenwang), author: Sun Yu, editor: Xiao Hong, Publisher: deep web · Tencent news Xiaoman studio, title figure from: vision China
Luo Yonghao, “the dark lamp of the industry”, has new trends. On October 14, the second-hand trading platform Zhuanzhuan announced that Luo Yonghao has become a brand promotion ambassador through Weibo, and launched the “Luo Yonghao X Zhuan 2020 Autumn Old Phone Conference” by video. 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.
What is more inspiring the imagination of practitioners is that Although Chinese 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 The 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, leisurePurchased goods transactions 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 in the long-term e-commerce market. 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 Aihuishou and Paipai, the general manager of Paipai, Wang Yongliang, once said in the circle of friends that second-hand pai is a career worth doing a lifetime, and it is also about to usher in rapid growth and will eventually become a great career; 58 Group(transfer to parent company)CEO Yao Jinbo told “Shen.com” shortly after the transfer went online that second-hand business is difficult to make a profit. The user platform with a good reputation hopes to make society more environmentally friendly and greener by transferring this product.”
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. , So that more people can develop the habit of second-hand trading.” Chen Lei, former head of the Xianyu business department, once said, (Famous Wenzhong) “Xianyu has 100 billion GMV, which is equivalent to saving 100 billion production for the society.”
Like traditional e-commerce, from serving individual sellers (Taobao) to serving corporate sellers (Tmall, JD) may be a good way out. 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 corporate , Li Lan, a senior seller of idle fish Said to “Deep Web”,”When Xianyu was first established, there were very strict regulations on the quantity and frequency of online products, but in the past year, Xianyu has been very similar to Taobao in the early and mid-to-early stages.” “Net” interpreted it like this, “At least for now, entrepreneurial behavior on Xianyu is recognized and supported.”
one super, many strong
In the reckless era of Chinese e-commerce, second-hand goods once played an important role: the first goods sold on Taobao and Alipay were “second-hand goods.” 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 the second-hand channels of Taobao and the second-hand channels of 58.com and Ganji. In addition, social platforms such as Baidu Tieba and qq group are also frequent 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 make this hidden e-commerce ashes field suddenly explode. Taobao’s second-hand transformation of Xianyu and 58.com’s Ganji.com’s second-hand channel transformation. Before Jingdong restarts second-hand auctions, these two platforms quickly eat Under the domestic market share of more than 90%.
According to the “2018 China Second-hand E-commerce Development Report” released by the E-Commerce Research Center, in the second-hand trading e-commerce platform market, idle fish accounted for 70.7% of the market; secondly, the transfer accounted for 20.38%; The second-hand auction rate is 6.37%; the love recycling rate is 3.18%.
Only two years after Xianyu went online, it has accumulated more than 100 million real-name authenticated users and has traded idle transactionsThe number of products reached 170 million pieces; the peak daily activity reached 1 million in two months after being re-launched. 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 Xianyu to focusing on 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 an entry point to solve problems at the traffic level. Zhuanzhuan is from the industry chain and Start and provide services to users in the professional field.” According to the data of Zhuan Zhuan Group, after the integration of Zhuan Zhuan and LiangJie, the mobile phone C2B business increased by 171.69% compared with the same period last year, and also increased compared with when the merger was announced That’s 61.1%. 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, and the latest name is Aihuihui.
Recently, Aihuihui completed an E+ round of financing of more than 100 million U.S. dollars, which was jointly led by JD Group and Guotai Junan International. Shanghai Guohe Investment, Qingxin Capital, JD Logistics Industry Fund Huihe Capital and Yifeng Capital participated in the co-investment. 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”. A year and a half later, JD.com announced that it will lead a new round of US$500 million in funding for Aihui Recycling, and at the same time, it will merge 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, new users of Xianyu surged in February, and many ordinary people trapped in their homes made money by reselling idle products as a sideline. Regarding Zhuan Zhuan, it was 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 GMV increased by 107.2% month-on-month.
Dai Zhenguo told “Shenzhen.com” that after the epidemic, the second-hand e-commerce industry may usher in a development opportunity.Necessities may flow into the second-hand market in large quantities, and there will be an increase in the supply of goods; in addition, the actual income of consumers during the epidemic will indeed decrease, and the 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 within the Alibaba system. In December 2019, Xianyu released data. In the past year, 140 million Taobao products were sold to Xianyu by “one-click resale”, and nearly 40% of users would resell them for a month. Something bought within.
This inherits the C2C field that Alibaba is most familiar with, but just as Jack Ma once described Taobao: the eldest son of 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 the to B business after Taobao was split into three. , Xianyu also deployed 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 introduced the former Apple company Genius Bar(Apple retail store after-sales team)Quality inspection engineers 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 revenue 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 activity. After 2018, sales have become a more critical figure.
Xianyu founder Chen Weiye(The name has been transferred to Ant Group) once said that resources will be invested in training 100,000 people in the future Xianyu “players” customize fish ponds for them, design player numbers, player fish pond products and promotion plans. “Players” is Xianyu’s name for the introduction of “KOL” that meets the requirements, covering more than 30 vertical fields such as two-dimensional, trendy, handicraft, retro, and fashion. The maximum number of products released 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 top products are always professional sellers, individual sellers or hobbyists. On the contrary, it is easy to be 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 second-hand car transactions, Confucius and Duo Catching fish, focusing on the recycling of second-hand mobile phones, looking for beautiful machines, and focusing on second-hand luxury goods transactions are all 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 industry insiders, the current 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 integrated industry is higher because domestic users do not I have not developed the habit of trading idle items.” The person further stated that, with the exception of some standard products, the trading rate of idle fish turning goods is less than 10%, “that is, for every 10 items released, less than 1 item is sold.”
The more difficult to cure disease is fakes, “There are too many fakes.” Gao Feiyu, a senior buyer of Xianyu, told Deepnet that Xianyu has just launched At that time, she had purchased multiple items in a row, but soon she gave up Xianyu after a few very unpleasant shopping experiences. 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: I 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 a second-hand e-commerce platform. Because the e-commerce platform has related mechanisms, it is very easy to return and exchange goods, but it is not so easy on the second-hand e-commerce platform.
The trailblazers have fallen. IT Juzi produced the feature “Daily Album: A Platform for the Trading of Second-hand Idle Items” in December 2014. Only one year later, 5 of the 11 mentioned platforms have closed their doors. , Which includes exchange bar, rice grains, i exchange, big-name show, and Aiyi.com, with a mortality rate 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.”
But 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 super high or low prices, and carry out part-time, personalized services, and exotic products, 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.
New models such as live broadcast and social networking 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 its live broadcast service this year. Obviously, such a service is not for individual users who occasionally transfer some second-hand clothes and second-hand board games on the platform.
Compared with relatively mature live broadcast industries such as Taobao, Douyin, and Kuaishou, the Xianyu live broadcast platform has not raised too much volume, and other second-hand platforms have not followed up. According to the observation of “Shen Wang”, the current live broadcasts in the field of second-hand e-commerce mainly focus on large commodities such as luxury goods, cars, and houses, and are different from live broadcasts of e-commerce which often focus 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, live broadcast rooms will issue a lot of exclusive coupons and provide spikes. moldIt has advantages in 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 said to “Deep Web” that Zhuanzhuan is doing live broadcast, “Through the new technology of live broadcast on the Internet, the distance between online and offline can be shortened, and consumers will have much stronger conversion motivation. To a certain 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. Guo Cheng, a two-dimensional enthusiast, introduced to “Deep Net”, he would be on Xianyu.Buy some cos clothing, hand-made, “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 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)
This article is from WeChat official account:Deep Web Tencent News (ID: qqshenwang) author: Sun Yu, editor: Xiao Hong, Publisher: deep web · Tencent News Xiaoman studio