Alibaba's online flea market Xianyu launches bricks-and-mortar store in China in latest innovation

Alibaba Group Holding's online second-hand goods trading platform Xianyu will open its first "all-category" bricks-and-mortar store, as several businesses under the e-commerce giant undertake what CEO Eddie Wu Yongming described as strategic-level innovations.

Xianyu Recycle Shop will launch this coming Sunday in an industrial estate renovated from an abandoned factory in the Gongshu district of Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province and home to Alibaba's headquarters, according to a post on the platform's official WeChat account. Alibaba owns the Post.

Described as Xianyu's first "all-category second-hand store", it adopts a consignment model. Customers can leave their used items for sale at the shop or buy what is on offer there.

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The store accepts a wide range of goods including shoes, apparel, fashion accessories, watches, toys, kitchenware, home decor items, home appliances, musical instruments, books and certain luxury goods. However, the trading of gold and jewellery are banned, as are food, pets and plants, according to Xianyu's post.

In November, Wu named Xianyu one of four "strategic-level innovation businesses" at Alibaba during his first post-earnings conference call with analysts. The other units include online wholesale marketplace 1688, office collaboration and app development tool DingTalk and search and cloud storage product Quark.

These businesses will "in organisational terms, operate as independent subsidiaries and will not be constrained to their previous positioning within the group, enabling them to face the larger market with their own strategies", Wu said, adding that the group expects Xianyu to become a lifestyle platform for Chinese consumers.

Xianyu said its physical store can provide a convenient and hassle-free experience for resellers, who would otherwise have to constantly check and reply to inquiries from interested buyers through the app.

User numbers on Xianyu have been growing in recent quarters, with daily active users rising 20 per cent in the September quarter from a year earlier, according to Alibaba's most recent financial report.

The platform had more than 500 million users, making it one of the largest Alibaba apps by users, said Ji Shan, general manager at Xianyu, at a corporate event in May.

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