EDITOR’S note:

Internet Plus, a concept high­lighted in the government work report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang at the annual session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing in March, is push­ing the boundaries of China’s traditional industries. Nowadays, enterprises across the coun­try are embracing changes by incorporating advancements in the Internet and related technolo­gies into their business models. In a series by Shanghai Daily, we explore how this concept is reshaping our world.

ONE man’s trash is rarely regarded as another man’s treasure in China, a country where consumers have tended to prize what is new, new, new.

But as the cost of living rises, some shoppers — especially the younger generation — are beginning to accept the fact that secondhand items are often as good as new and come at a cheaper price. In that trend, the Internet is leading the way.

Trading of used-goods in China could reach 400 billion yuan (US$60.1 billion) this year, according to CBNData, a joint venture between Shanghai-based China Business News and the Alibaba Group.

Online “flea markets” are particularly attractive to shoppers looking for bargains and for consumers who grow tired of new gadgets just weeks after buying them.

Unwanted gifts, such as cosmetics and personal care products, may sell for up to 30 percent off on popular secondhand listing sites, alongside digital gadgetry and smartphone accessories.

Shanghai resident Shi Jun said she started to use Alibaba’s Xianyu site to sell some unwanted items when she moved into a new home about 18 months ago. She has sold dozens of things, with a combined value of nearly 10,000 yuan, she said.

“I don’t want to throw away good things or have them piling up in my new home, so I thought someone else might find them useful,” she said. “I have sold some electronic devices that are nearly brand new and each worth several hundred yuan, but I still feel a bit nervous about selling more expensive items to complete strangers online.”

Xianyu offers users the option to set up a face-to-face meeting with buyers in town, and it can also help contacting inexpensive courier companies if buyers are out-of-town or in neighboring provinces.

Alibaba Group said more than 170 million items have been traded through the mobile app Xianyu, which literally means “idle fish,” since its launch about two years ago. Traffic in secondhand goods averages about 200,000 transactions an average day.

This year, the e-commerce giant is planning to invest 100 million yuan to introduce offline flea markets into 100 urban areas, hoping to convince people to give secondhand goods their consideration in buying decisions.

Xianyu is a simplified version of Alibaba’s Taobao platform, a site where most vendors are professional. Xianyu encourages individual consumers to take a few photos of their used merchandise with their smartphones and upload the photos along with product information, price and location. They can also refer potential buyers to information about the same models and products marketed new on Taobao.

Interested buyers can exchange private messages through the Xianyu application, and can pay for goods through Alibaba’s online payment system.

Transactions are backed by Alibaba financial affiliate Alipay, a third-party online payment platform that serves as a guarantee of sorts for buyers. Sellers receive their money only after the goods delivered prove to be functional.

Both parties in a transaction may also use Taobao’s customer service center in case of conflict or complaints.

There are already more than 200,000 online communities where buyers and sellers of different interests gather to exchange products or ideas about new models or the latest trends.

Last month, New York-listed 58.com, a domestic online classified ads site, said it upgraded Zhuanzhuan, its secondhand listing application, to enable secure transactions between individuals.

Users are required to link their WeChat accounts to their registration information on Zhuanzhuan, and the transactions are directly connected to the WeChat wallets of users.

The app is backed by a separate team of several hundred employees who inspect the quality of secondhand smartphones sold on its site. After reclaiming used smartphones from Zhuanzhuan users, the team assesses the devices and set a fair resale price.

Zhuanzhuan said it is also aiming to work with electronic appliance manufacturers, such as Haier, to provide home-appliance quality inspections, deliveries and after-sale services. This involves bulkier merchandise not suitable for delivery through standard courier services or postal bureaus.

Chief Executive Huang Wei said the site will focus on services for both buyers and sellers, ensuring that all goods offered for sale function as advertised.

He said the numbers of daily active users and orders completed on Zhuanzhuan have been growing by about 30 percent a month.

In a sense, online flea markets are an extension of the “sharing economy,” which is valued at nearly 2 trillion yuan in China and growing by about 40 percent a year. The sharing economy is a people-to-people process that bypasses brokers and institutions. It includes private taxi services, apartment rentals and car sharing. By 2020, this realm of direct services will account for more than 10 percent of China’s GDP, according to the China Internet Society.

The market is so promising that many smaller players are using it to develop businesses.

For example, there is the application called Kong Kong Hu, which is dedicated to young women seeking to resell clothes, accessories and fashion items. It has a built-in picture feature, where users can browse the timeline of “like” and “comment” on fashion items. Last year it raised US$15 million in private investment funding.

The development of courier services and customer rating systems helps smooth public acceptance of secondhand purchases, though some concerns about fake products being sold still persist. There have been calls for the creation of third party intermediary platforms to verify the authenticity of products before they are resold.