China re-commerce faces tug of war between growth and trust

Veronica Zhang uses re-commerce, or secondhand selling, platforms regularly, but she’s always careful about the people she’s dealing with. The one time she let her guard down, she was nearly defrauded.

The mom of a five-year-old uses the platforms both to buy and sell. Although she uses them less frequently than mainstream shopping apps like Taobao and JD.com, she says they are good places to find bargains on certain products like baby strollers and picture books. Children her son’s age tend to outgrow clothes and toys very quickly, she explained to TechNode, and selling lightly used kids stuff is good for both her wallet and her home, so why not?

“Baby exercise mats in very good shape are up to 50% cheaper than the retail price of a brand new one,” Zhang said (our translation). To close a good bargain or make a sale, however, requires lots of research. “I normally spend hours or a few days checking the sales history of the seller or buyers, comments from previous buyers, as well as their credit scores, before finding a potential candidate to proceed for payment,” Zhang added.

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