Bashige Blog
Xianyu Guide: The Best Place to Sell Second-Hand Goods in China
Registration, fees, listing, shipping, and hard-won dispute lessons — from 5,185 yuan of real second-hand sales
5,185 Yuan of Second-Hand Sales
Recently I sold another batch of old belongings through the Xianyu app — an aging television, a radio, books, and some digital gadgets. Over the past few years I have made a total of 5,185 yuan on Xianyu. Although honestly, “made” is the wrong word: selling used goods on Xianyu almost always means taking a loss. Nobody would pay full price for someone else’s old stuff, after all.
Why Xianyu: China’s Largest Second-Hand Marketplace
Xianyu is China’s largest second-hand trading platform, belonging to the Alibaba Group just like Taobao. The runner-up is Zhuanzhuan, an app backed by Tencent — but its user base is far smaller than Xianyu’s. If you plan to sell your idle belongings, Xianyu is simply the place to be.
Registration, Fees, and Listing
Registering a Xianyu account requires a Chinese mobile number and Alipay, plus identity verification. Money from your sales settles into your Alipay account, minus a 0.6% basic technical service fee.
Listing an idle item is very simple: take a few photos, record a short video, and write a short description. Xianyu has since added AI features that automatically recognize your uploaded item and write the description for you — but in my opinion the AI-generated descriptions are of poor quality, and a human writes better copy.
Packing and Shipping
Once a buyer places an order and pays, pack the item well. You can drop it off at a courier station yourself, or arrange for a courier to pick it up at your door. I have a friend who sells on Taobao and enjoys a good relationship with me, so my parcels usually go out through his channel — items under 3 kilograms cost just 5 yuan to ship.
A Painful Lesson: Always Film the Packing
Selling on Xianyu has not always been smooth sailing. Second-hand trading breeds disputes easily. A few years ago I sold a spare tablet PC. The buyer reported that the screen was shattered on arrival — yet I had packed it very thickly. How could it arrive broken? The buyer filed a complaint against me on Xianyu.
My guess is that the screen was smashed by rough sorting during courier transit. Customer service asked whether I had filmed a complete packing video proving the product was intact when shipped. I had not recorded any video and could not prove the tablet was undamaged when it left my hands. The complaint succeeded, the platform sided with the buyer and granted the refund — I earned nothing from that order and ended up with a broken tablet.
Beyond Used Goods: Handmade Items, New Products, and Services
Xianyu is not limited to second-hand clutter. Selling handmade crafts and brand-new items is allowed too. Sellers with annual revenue under 100,000 yuan can trade here as individuals — cross that line and you will need to obtain and upload a business license.
Intangible goods work as well. Selling services and skills is popular: many university students offer tutoring and after-school coaching here, and quite a few programmers take on technical gigs through the platform.
Strict Review Rules
Xianyu enforces a very strict product review system, and sensitive items involving religion, politics, or finance all get flagged. I once listed an old book about Bitcoin — the Chinese authorities strongly dislike cryptocurrency, so the book was pulled into review after publishing. It was, after all, only a book, and it passed review and went live.
Other listings were not so lucky. A small surveillance camera I posted was mistaken for a privacy-invading device and taken down after failing review. Some Japanese manga, such as Death Note, cannot be listed on Xianyu at all. In recent years, as AI has boomed, sellers offering ChatGPT and Claude services — token relay, account registration, and the like — have been cracked down on with removals, throttling, and account bans.
Trying to take buyers off the platform is also a violation: asking for a buyer’s WeChat number or other contact details can earn you a warning.
Follow the Rules of the House
When you trade here, you follow the rules here. All things considered, Xianyu remains a fine sales platform for freelancers — just know the boundaries before you list.
Sell honestly, pack carefully, film everything valuable — and respect the review lines you cannot cross.
How Can Foreigners Buy on Xianyu?
Registering as a Xianyu buyer requires a Chinese mobile number and identity verification, which is very difficult for foreigners who are not in China. Then there is shipping: as a Xianyu seller myself, I know logistics fairly well — China has plenty of international couriers that can ship goods overseas, but most Xianyu sellers only know domestic shipping. Even if you manage to register an account, when you ask whether they can ship your purchase abroad, most sellers simply will not know how.
But do not worry: if there is something you really need to buy from Xianyu, you can find a professional buying agent on Fiverr. They are usually well-versed in international trade, know exactly how to ship goods from China overseas, and can help foreigners outside China buy from Xianyu and other Chinese e-commerce platforms.
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