Brand Construction and Promotion Strategy of Second-hand E-commerce Platform: An Example of Xianyu

The growing popularity of concept of the idle economy has given rise to the emergence of second-hand e-commerce platforms, which are now regarded as a new trend. In order to enhance their competitiveness in this turbulent market environment, platforms must identify an appropriate branding method and develop effective promotional strategies to attract users. At present, there has been a substantial theoretical investigation of conventional e-commerce platforms within academic community. However, there remains a theoretical gap in the emerging domain of second-hand e-commerce platforms. This study employs the process tracing method to analyze China's largest second-hand e-commerce platform and explore the effectiveness and replicability of its construction and promotion model. The study revealed that the conglomerate operation model of the Xianyu platform is hard to replicate. Its utilization of conventional social media marketing techniques to sustain community vitality is effective, yet it is somewhat lacking in innovation. However, there is a need for the construction of its community culture and the deployment of focused strategies that are worthy of emulation. This study recommends that second-hand e-commerce platforms facilitate the transformation of the community and the co-creation of a community culture between enterprises and users. The utilization of circle segmentation, the organization of strong participation activities online and offline in small communities, and the enhancement of users' sense of belonging to the communities are advised. Additionally, innovation models should be customized to the platform's positioning and user characteristics and integrated with focused strategies.