Chinese Q&A Site Debuts Men's Shopping App, Avoiding Contest With Alibaba-Backed Red
Liao Shumin
DATE:  Feb 13 2019
/ SOURCE:  yicai
Chinese Q&A Site Debuts Men's Shopping App, Avoiding Contest With Alibaba-Backed Red Chinese Q&A Site Debuts Men's Shopping App, Avoiding Contest With Alibaba-Backed Red

(Yicai Global) Feb. 13 -- Zhihu, a Chinese question-and-answer website, has quietly launched a review application for consumer goods, targeting male users, while offering a rival to popular Alibaba-backed Xiaohongshu, which caters to mostly females' wishes of sharing pictures and videos of fashionable purchases. 

Zhihu brought Chao on the App Store, while the platform is still at the testing stage, Chinese tech media 36Kr reported. Potential users can find the product by searching with the keywords of 'male-focused recommendation community' (男生种草社区) or following the instructions in targeted advertisements on Zhihu. 

So far most of the traffic comes from Zhihu, a user of the Beijing-based Q&A platform told 36Kr, adding that Chao has succeeded in avoiding conflict with Xiaohongshu as the target groups are divided between different genders. Xiaohongshu had 150 million registered users as of last October and its valuation reached USD3 billion in May.

There are few apps for males to review purchases, apart from Smzdm.Com, the user added. Founded in 2010, Smzdm.Com started out by offering information on discounts, particularly regarding consumer electronics. In 2017, the platform had 24 million monthly active users. 

Chao's developer is Shishuoxinyu Technology, the largest shareholder of which is Zhou Yuan, who is also the chief executive of Zhihu, business information platform Tianyancha shows. 

Chao boasts different channels including lifestyle, food, entertainment, and technology. For the Chinese Spring Festival, it put out a special channel called the Happiness of the New Year, which involved pictures of Converse-branded shoes, sunglasses, and other fashionable items that users had bought during the holidays. 

Editor: Emmi Laine 

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Keywords:   Zhihu