# Unconventional Money-Making Methods on Xianyu

I have a friend who takes gigs on Xianyu and made 150,000 to 160,000 yuan in a year.

**What is Xianyu?**

It's a secondhand trading platform run by Taobao—a national marketplace for used goods.

I've been using it for over a year and have taken on many jobs. I've discovered this platform is truly amazing. If you have nothing to do and want to make money, you can completely list yourself on there and post all kinds of services you can provide. As long as it's something a human can do, you can post it. As long as you're willing to put it out there and can actually deliver the service, someone will definitely use you.

Of course, you can't just post and forget about it—you need to actively maintain your presence.

Let me share my friend's case study.

There's this girl from Wenzhou whose family is wealthy. She's dating a guy who works as a club host at a KTV. They're in a long-distance relationship. The girl wants to know what her boyfriend is doing every day—she's worried he's taking money from her while being intimate with others. So she hired someone to keep tabs on him daily: what time he clocked in, what time he got home, whether he brought anyone back, whether he had any sketchy dealings. She easily pays several hundred yuan per job. The demands are high and there's some risk involved, but she's kept this going for a year. My friend made 150,000 to 160,000 yuan just from this. That's way better than his day job, where he'd max out at 7,000 to 8,000 yuan a month.

See? There are so many money-making opportunities. You can help check on elderly relatives, water plants, feed cats, take photos and videos at set times—jobs ranging from dozens to hundreds of yuan, available daily. As long as you're willing to monetize yourself, there's nothing shameful about it. Even without any special skills, if you can run around and help people with simple tasks, you can make money.

I recently had my own idea. I bought a guzheng (Chinese zither) secondhand on Xianyu. I noticed many families buy instruments for their kids, but the children give up after just a few days. The instruments just sit around taking up space, basically becoming trash. So I buy them back for tens or a couple hundred yuan, refurbish and maintain them, then list them for rent online. I can get 200 to 300 yuan per month in rental income. Parents can rent first to practice, then decide if they want to buy. If the kid keeps at it, they buy; if not, they didn't waste thousands on an instrument gathering dust. If I collect around ten of them, fully refurbish them all, and rent them out at a 60-70% occupancy rate daily, I could make 1,000 to 1,800 yuan monthly. My investment is only 1,000 to 1,800 yuan, so I'd break even in a month. Isn't this business opportunity great?

You can scale this model. Rent out secondhand e-bikes to food delivery riders, or to tourists in travel destinations—you can easily get 200 to 300 yuan monthly, and demand is huge. Some people make several tens of thousands of yuan yearly, even more, just from these small ideas.

The core message is simple: it all comes down to whether you have the ideas, whether you're willing to execute them, and whether you'll actually do it. As long as you're willing to put in the work, someone will be willing to use your service, and you'll make money.

It's that simple.