Save money or make money? Young people want everything in their "second-hand life"

As consumption concepts become increasingly diversified, young people are gradually shifting from pursuing "refined poverty" to "rational saving". They not only seek bargains in second-hand transactions of traditional beauty products, clothing, and home appliances, but also expand the scope of transactions to virtual products such as shopping mall parking tickets, video website memberships, and online course resources. This change not only demonstrates the new wisdom of young people in saving money, but also gives rise to the booming "second-hand rights and interests" trading market.

From refined poverty to rational thriftiness, from "buy new instead of old" to actively embracing substitutes, as young people increasingly rack their brains and exercise their subjective initiative between spending money and saving money, the second-hand trading market has become a major tool for young people to save money.

Compared with the traditional second-hand idle transactions of beauty products, clothing, and home appliances, the scope of second-hand commodity transactions has expanded to include shopping mall parking tickets, video website memberships, online course resources, and even virtual products such as hotels and air tickets. These "commodities" are often exchanged for various points and membership rights.

Therefore, young people who can earn, save and have fun, on the one hand, pick up bargains on second-hand platforms, and on the other hand, are happy to switch freely between the roles of "buyer" and "seller", making good use of the "letting go" strategy to recover their losses, and have even developed new secrets to save money.

1. For this generation of young people, saving is earning

Under the dual influence of living costs and consumer desire, the daily expenses of contemporary young people are increasing. According to the "2023 Young People's Savings Report" released by Houlang Research Institute, more than half of young people in first-tier cities have monthly living expenses of more than 5,000 yuan, and 26.6% of young people said that their monthly expenses can even reach 10,000 yuan.

Faced with the ever-increasing cost of living in cities, more and more young people have realized the importance of saving money. They used to believe in "buy early and enjoy early" but have long since become experts in showing off their savings by "buy late and enjoy discounts". They share strategies for saving a lot of money on various social platforms, form a "second-hand research" group on Douban, and share low-price bargains on Xiaohongshu... Following the "money-making youth", the "money-saving youth" that emerged are beginning to care more about "how to consume" before reducing their "consumption" needs.

“My principle of spending money is to only buy the right things and not the expensive ones. If I can buy the same things with less money, it feels like I have earned money.” Mei, a girl born after 1995 who lives in Shenzhen, used herself as an example to express the consumption concept of contemporary young people: they do not overly suppress the desire to consume, but instead use smarter ways to gain the pleasure of consumption.

Mei just bought a new car in August last year. Although she didn't even blink when she swiped her card to buy the car, she has been crazy about parking coupons since she got the car. "I have been living in Guangdong for a long time and I have this idea. Eating in a restaurant can be expensive, but I insist on bringing my own tissues that cost money to open, and parking fees must also be reduced."

According to Mei, at first she registered as a member of many shopping malls where she would go shopping on a daily basis. Sometimes she enjoyed the parking coupons given by the members, and sometimes she used the shopping mall consumption points to deduct the parking fees, but the parking discounts she enjoyed in these two ways were really limited. Later, Mei accidentally learned how to buy parking coupons on a second-hand trading platform. From then on, Mei would buy coupons to pay every time she drove to the mall. "If I don't use the coupons, it would basically cost 20-25 yuan for 2 hours, but I only need 5-10 yuan to buy coupons."

Photo provided by the interviewee

Based on the clues provided by Mei, Jingzhe Research Institute learned that the so-called "parking tickets" are mostly a specific way for individual sellers to cash in their membership rights through second-hand channels. Buyers need to find sellers who provide relevant products on the second-hand trading platform, compare prices, validity periods, usage restrictions and other information, and communicate with sellers online to complete transaction payment and rights transfer.

Although this type of transaction is not as "automated" as ordinary online shopping, Mei said that the whole process is very simple. "If the seller is online, it can be done in one or two minutes. First, you need to tell the seller the license plate number, then place an order, and he will help you enter the license plate number online to pay the fee. After the vehicle leaves the store, you can confirm receipt. The whole process does not exceed 5 minutes."

However, Mei also said that not all shopping malls support this kind of operation: "Some shopping malls do not have these parking tickets for sale. You can only rely on registering as a mall member and using the consumption points to deduct the parking fee, which is quite a scam. Some buildings can only pay the original price."

Similar "second-hand rights" transactions include the secondary resale of paid materials. Xiao Deng, a post-95s girl working in Shanghai, recently wanted to buy a set of study materials with an original price of about 200 yuan to prepare for the junior accountant exam. But she was worried that she would not read the study materials after buying them, resulting in a waste of money, so she thought of buying course materials resold by others on the second-hand trading platform.

"I searched on Xianyu and found a seller who had passed the exam and was selling exam preparation materials, so I went to buy one. It only cost me 5 yuan in total, and I got the "2024 Junior Accountant Official Textbook", "The Complete Collection of Economic Law Provisions to Remember", "550 Must-Practice Questions on China", and various exercise books and mock papers." Xiao Deng said that when he was choosing, he deliberately bought a seller who could "update in real time", and that the seller would create a shared file on Baidu Netdisk, which would be updated every day.

Photo provided by the interviewee

However, facing the busy life, Xiao Deng said that he has little time to study. "I haven't opened it much since I bought it, so I don't know if new materials are uploaded every day. Although I feel that these few dollars are wasted, I don't feel bad about it."

In addition to shopping mall parking tickets and online course materials, second-hand transactions such as video website memberships and points redemption for travel services allow users who do not use them frequently but occasionally need to access specific content to avoid high expenses. As the functions of second-hand trading platforms are improved and user acceptance increases, more and more users are aware of the market value of such rights and interests, and actively use them as a new type of sideline and profit channel.

2. The truth about “painless” side jobs

In the current fierce competition in the job market, many young people may experience the frustration of sending hundreds of resumes but getting little results. In this case, job hunting has gradually been simplified to "making money". When facing life pressure and economic needs, the primary expectation of work has turned to a stable source of income, while another part of the young people who are more active in thinking have chosen to develop side businesses.

However, some side jobs may require long-term skill learning or financial risks. In this context, choosing a second-hand trading platform as one’s “workplace”, through buying and selling unused items and providing related services, can not only relieve economic pressure, but also complete social training to a certain extent.

Xianyu's official announcement confirmed that in the past year, more than 100 million people posted their idle items on the Xianyu platform, with an average of 4 million new items added every day. Among them, the transaction volume of cards and coupons increased by 79% year-on-year. Currently, there are more than 100 card and coupon subcategories on Xianyu, and travel and catering card and coupon transactions are the most active. The transaction volume of Xianyu catering card and coupons increased by 160%, and hotel reservations, parking fees, scenic spot tickets, and personal car rentals all increased by more than double year-on-year.

Realizing idle equity is a way to obtain cash flow without investing additional costs, especially for those who hold a large number of transferable equity, this has become a simple way to recover. Many people have purchased long-term memberships, have internal employee welfare products, or have accumulated a large number of credit card points, but have no matching consumption needs. They will sell these idle equity through second-hand trading platforms, convert them into cash income, and optimize the allocation of personal assets.

Xiaomu, who works in an advertising company, told the Jingzhe Research Institute that her company often distributes holiday benefits, and she can also redeem points with her monthly attendance bonus, and can also use employee discounts below market prices to purchase beauty and skin care, electronic digital products, daily necessities and other products, as well as equity cards and coupons. Over time, the various idle items generated by employee benefits have increased.

Photo provided by the interviewee

"The company has previously issued employees with the right to use Spring Airlines tickets, which individuals basically cannot use up, so the company will give a portion of it to travel agencies, and our employees will occasionally post some ticket purchasing posts on Xianyu." Xiaomu said that shopping cards from supermarkets and shopping malls, and crab, moon cake, and rice dumpling redemption coupons during festivals can all be used to "make money."

"The income is usually fixed, who doesn't want an easy and labor-saving way to make money? As a user, I cannot consume all the rights I hold. Selling them to others can avoid waste, and most importantly, I can earn more."

Nowadays, there are many sellers like Xiaomu on second-hand platforms who seize the opportunity of internal purchases by corporate employees, buy goods at low prices and then resell them. However, Xiaomu said that the monetization of "idle rights" can indeed bring additional income to himself, but for those special card and voucher products, there are also risks in the transaction between the two parties. For example, the transaction process of air tickets requires the other party to provide the name and ID number, and there is also a risk of personal information leakage for the buyer. If the airline system rules change, the seller’s rights may not be delivered.

The transfer of similar rights may violate the terms of service of the rights provider (such as merchants, platforms, etc.), resulting in invalid transactions or account penalties. Sellers may face the revocation of rights, account restrictions, or even legal liability. For virtual items, some require clarification of details such as file transfer methods. Such behavior is very likely to infringe on the intellectual property rights of others.

"In essence, there are still many legal loopholes in second-hand transactions of cards and coupons. If a dispute arises between the two parties and the amount involved is not large, the buyer will most likely not spend too much energy on choosing to defend his rights and will just give up," Xiaomu said.

3. Risks of “low price”

Although second-hand trading platforms usually have customer service teams and dispute mediation mechanisms (such as the "little judge" role on Xianyu) to handle disputes between buyers and sellers, in actual operations, since idle goods are lower than the market price, there are significant differences in the legal provisions and industry practices between transactions and physical and online sales in terms of returns, exchanges, repairs and after-sales. Since platforms for individuals to transfer idle items do not have a business nature, they are sometimes unable to force sellers to provide after-sales and 7-day no-reason return and exchange services. Therefore, it may be difficult for buyers and sellers to effectively resolve disputes when they encounter disputes.

"Second-hand rights" transactions provide buyers with a new way to save money and create opportunities for sellers to realize idle resources, but they are also accompanied by differences in ease of use, risk of income, and legal compliance issues. Especially for transactions related to video memberships and card and voucher rights transfers, although second-hand platforms provide a series of credit guarantees to reduce transaction risks, it is still difficult for many novice buyers to completely avoid them. On Xiaohongshu, you can often see posts from pitfall buyers complaining about being cheated when buying air tickets at low prices, being banned when competing with others for Switch membership, and the merchant running away a few months after buying a NetEase Cloud annual card but not receiving the money all at once.

Xiao Fan told the Jingzhe Research Institute that he had previously bought a ticket from AirAsia at a 25% discount, but was told that the ticket had been refunded just a few days before departure. "At the time, the booking service told me that the ticket had been issued, and I could indeed check the itinerary on the official website, but a week before departure, the seller contacted me and said there was a problem with the ticket. Fortunately, he refunded me, but later I learned about related cases and many netizens said that some ticket booking services may involve legal risks of stealing other people's credit cards."

Photo provided by the interviewee

Another person who also fell into the trap of air ticket trading, Xiao Si, also detailed his "experience of falling into the trap" to Jingzhe Research Institute. Xiao Si said that before placing the order, he specially looked at the transaction records and reviews, and thought the reviews were good. After that, he provided the buyer's ID card and Chinese name and paid.

"So far, everything was normal. After the ticket was issued, the other party asked for an itinerary. After adding WeChat friends, the other party sent the information. I opened it and found that it was all in English, especially the name was written backwards (for example, 'Zhang San' should be written as San Zhang, but the itinerary showed Zhang San). In addition, the itinerary showed that the ticket was officially issued by Air France, and the flight I bought was Shanghai Airlines, but the actual carrier was China Eastern Airlines. It also showed that it was a mileage redemption. I could not find the ticket purchase record on domestic platforms (China Eastern Airlines, Shanghai Airlines, Air Travel, and even Air France, etc.), and I could not check in online."

When Xiao Si arrived at the China Eastern Airlines counter, he was unable to issue a ticket because his name could not be verified. After the counter staff tried to operate, they found that the ticket status was locked. "I contacted the seller at that time, but the seller suddenly disappeared and did not respond to voice and messages. I called the official number of Air France again. The official number waited for 15 minutes before it was connected. The customer service told me that the order showed that the ticket was refunded and the name could not be changed."

In order not to delay her trip, Xiao Si had no choice but to buy a subsequent flight at a high price. At the same time, she applied for a refund on the platform and left a message to the seller, saying that she had kept the evidence and had hired a lawyer to sue. Only then did the seller contact her to discuss a refund. Although Xiao Fan and Xiao Si finally received a refund, the unpleasant experience made them stay away from "second-hand air ticket booking". "Try not to buy air tickets on second-hand platforms. Sometimes you will suffer a big loss if you try to save money."

Photo provided by the interviewee

Regarding the possible legal risks in "second-hand rights" transactions, Gao Fei, a partner at Shanghai Baigu Law Firm, told the Jingzhe Research Institute that individuals have the right to share their rights for a fee through second-hand channels, and shopping malls, video websites and other platform parties can also use technical means or indicate in the relevant descriptions of member rights that "member rights can only be used by the individual."

"If an individual transfers or shares rights when the platform has clearly restricted the effective scope of rights, there may be a breach of contract. In addition, if the rights of various members are split and sold on a large scale for the purpose of profit, there will also be legal risks of unfair competition. " said lawyer Gao Fei.

In fact, with the prosperity of the consumer market, the rapid development of second-hand trading platforms in recent years has been obvious to all. The content of second-hand transactions has long surpassed the traditional exchange of physical goods and expanded to non-physical fields such as virtual item transactions and service transactions.

As the most representative category of non-physical transactions, "second-hand rights and interests" not only meet the needs of buyers and sellers to "exchange what they have and what they don't have", but are also becoming a difficult problem that second-hand trading platforms need to solve urgently. At present, "second-hand rights and interests" are born out of consumption and have huge market potential just like simple second-hand physical transactions.

From the secondary use of items to the transfer of idle rights, young people are giving full play to their creativity and building a unique pop culture in second-hand transactions. The balance between "saving money" and "making money" also accurately reflects the changes in today's consumption trends, which also provides a new direction for the future development of second-hand trading platforms.

Mei, Xiaodeng, Xiaomu, Xiaofan and Xiaosi in this article are all pseudonyms.

Author: Cheng Yu

WeChat public account: Jingzhe Research Institute