What is Xianyu (Goofish)?
Xianyu (闲鱼, pinyin xiányú) is the Alibaba group's second-hand buy-and-sell app in China. Outside China it also goes by Goofish. Think of it as a huge classifieds site: most listings are people selling things they no longer use, priced in yuan.
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The name
闲鱼 means roughly “idle fish”: 闲 (xián) is “idle, unused” and 鱼 (yú) is “fish”. The name is often read as a pun on 余 (yú, “surplus”): giving a second life to what sits unused at home.
How Xianyu works
- Sellers: mostly individuals, plus small shops and resellers.
- What's there: electronics, PC parts, cameras and lenses, phones, games, sneakers, clothes, collectibles.
- Prices: in yuan (CNY, ¥). Many sellers negotiate in chat.
- “Want” (想要): how many people marked interest. H3X Search shows this number on each listing.
- Shipping: sellers ship inside China only.
Xianyu vs Taobao
Both belong to Alibaba. Taobao is a mall of shops selling mostly new goods. Xianyu is about person-to-person resale: lots of used, nearly-new and discontinued items, often cheaper.
Why it's hard to use from abroad
- everything is in Chinese;
- the app normally requires a Chinese account;
- the web search stopped returning results for visitors from Brazil;
- sellers ship only inside China and take Chinese payment methods.
H3X Search handles the search part. Buying and shipping go through a purchasing agent, Hubbuy. See the step-by-step guide.
Before you buy
- It's second-hand. Read the description and look at every photo.
- Listing terms: 全新 means new, 二手 used, 瑕疵 a flaw. Full table in Search tips.
- Listings vanish. A used item is one of a kind; once sold, it's gone.
- Branded goods: counterfeits can be seized by customs.