Post-90s who quit their jobs without a backup plan are flocking to Yiwu.

Recently, the country has proposed to make better use of the "Yiwu Development Experience". This successful model of county - level economy has once again attracted public attention.

Yiwu is known as the world's small commodity center. With its strong entrepreneurial atmosphere, low threshold, and rich variety of commodities, it has attracted many young people. By the end of 2025, the e - commerce turnover in Yiwu increased by 14.6% year - on - year, and the number of e - commerce business entities was about 800,000.

Many people who quit their high - paying jobs in large companies are flocking to Yiwu to start businesses. They apply the e - commerce, operation, and planning experience they accumulated in large companies to selling daily necessities.

Left: Xueli, who used to earn a million a year, achieved a revenue of 20 million in her first year in Yiwu; Right: A Tian, with a postgraduate degree, is recently live - streaming to sell Chinese New Year goods in Yiwu

Yitiao once interviewed three post - 90s who quit their jobs in large companies and went to Yiwu to start businesses. Some accumulated experience through study tours and earned their first pot of gold by setting up stalls. They opened stores in new first - tier cities and plan to sell their goods to the Middle East and Europe. Some put aside the burden of high education and live - stream to sell Chinese New Year goods every day. They plan to use AI for live - streaming in the future. Some used to earn a million a year, boldly quit their jobs to start a business, and achieved a revenue of 20 million in Yiwu. However, 80% of the entrepreneurs she met failed and left.

01

Start a business one year after graduation,

Yiwu is more friendly than expected

Lala

Lala, born in 1998, started her business in Yiwu in 2023

I think Yiwu is quite friendly to young people like us who graduated not long ago.

Firstly, the cost here is relatively low. For example, you can rent a nice one - bedroom apartment for less than a thousand yuan per month, and you can even pay monthly. In a coffee shop with good taste and elegant decoration, you can choose any drink for only 7.9 yuan. Secondly, in Yiwu, people are willing to help beginners. As long as you are sweet - tongued and eager to learn, others are very willing to provide connections and introductions.

I graduated from a university in Hong Kong. Thanks to the high reputation of the school and my good grades, I easily entered the e - commerce department of a large company after graduation. My main job was to develop customers.

I was full of confidence when I first joined the company. But after I got in, I found that I was quite late in entering the industry. Most of the customers were in the hands of experienced seniors, and there were very few customers I could explore. I thought I could earn a million a year after a few years in the company, but after working for a year, my average monthly salary was only a little over ten thousand yuan.

The popular study tour group for entrepreneurship in Yiwu on social media (Image source: Sister Xiaoyang from the large company who only tells the truth)

Probably in early 2023, I often saw posts on social media about making big money by starting a business in Yiwu. I also found that there were people on the Internet who specifically led those who wanted to start a business on study tours to Yiwu at a reasonable price. I was very tempted and signed up for a study tour group during the long holiday to conduct an investigation.

In Yiwu, I was first shocked by its huge scale.

According to statistics, there are more than 70,000 stores in the Commodity City. Even if you spend only 3 minutes in each store and shop for 8 hours a day, it will take more than a year to visit all of them. The categories of the stores are also very detailed. For example, I knew there were stores selling dolls before, but I didn't know that there were even stores selling the eyes, hair, and limbs of dolls separately.

Dolls and doll eye accessories in Yiwu Commodity City

The most important thing I learned in the study tour group is to "know the business". For example, you need to have an idea of the approximate cost of a product so that you know how much you can bargain. Don't place an order for the goods you like immediately. Ask for more business cards because other stores may have the same products with better quality.

Another interesting thing is the way of speaking when getting goods. For example, instead of asking the boss, "How much is this?", you should ask, "What's the wholesale discount for this?" Because many products have a marked price, and the wholesale price is usually 20% - 30% of the marked price.

After a few days of investigation, I decided to focus on the "pet supplies" category. In recent years, there are more and more single young people, and many of them keep pets for companionship. The market is very large.

Pet supplies are concentrated in the fifth district of the Commodity City. Whether it's for common pets like cats, dogs, rabbits, and birds, or for lizards and spiders, there are all kinds of food, supplies, and clothes. I first bought a few hundred yuan worth of cat and dog clothes and set up a stall. Unexpectedly, they were sold out in a few days. The selling price was four or five times the purchase price, and I made more than three thousand yuan. I still didn't have the confidence to invest a large amount of money, so I just used the three thousand yuan I earned to buy more goods and made a small profit again.

Lala went to pet stores and pet cafes for research

The place where I set up my stall is called Binwang Night Market, which is the largest night market in Yiwu. The stall fee is 60 yuan a day. I chose Binwang because it gathers foreigners from all over Yiwu, and the traffic is extremely high. When starting a business in other cities, you rarely have the opportunity to face so many foreign customers in person.

I love chatting with foreign customers and gradually figured out their needs. For example, Middle Eastern people love cats very much in their culture. They regard cats as pure creatures, while dogs are generally used for guarding. So they are very willing to spend money on cats but don't buy many dog supplies. Europeans like to keep large - sized dogs, so I can stock more large - sized dog clothes.

Binwang Night Market gathers foreigners from all over Yiwu, and most of the stall owners can speak English

In this way, I gradually accumulated funds. Now I have opened a pet supplies store in my hometown, Suzhou, which is mainly managed by my mother. I also opened an online store, and I manage it directly in Yiwu. Since I know more about the needs of foreigners from setting up the stall, I will also consider doing cross - border e - commerce in the future.

I think the biggest reason I'm still "alive" in business is that I'm not afraid of failure and not afraid of losing face.

In large companies, people are prone to develop a sense of superiority and are reluctant to help each other. Many people who have worked in large companies for a long time may not believe that someone will help them without asking for anything in return because they are used to that environment.

At that time, I had no resources, no connections, and knew almost nothing. On a whim, I adopted the simplest and most straightforward method: visiting factories one by one. I set a goal for myself: to visit at least two factories every day.

In Yiwu, there are few people in the factories during the day, and they usually get busy at night. Because "warehouse live - streaming" is very popular now, which means live - streaming directly in the factory warehouse so that people can directly see the process of selection, packing, and shipping. The live - streaming time is usually at night.

The pet area in Yiwu Commodity City has all kinds of food, supplies, and clothes for cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, lizards, spiders, etc.

In order to get the goods with the lowest price and the best quality, I visited dozens of factories. Every boss, even if they were very tired after the live - streaming at midnight, would sit down with me to have tea and chat. No matter how much goods I wanted to buy or how much experience I had, they would patiently listen to my needs and give me suggestions.

Now I'm quite familiar with almost all the factory owners who make pet supplies in Yiwu. They will share any new products or industry information with me as soon as possible.

I think many young people like me who graduated from prestigious universities have a burden when looking for a job. They won't take a job that is not decent or doesn't pay well, thinking it's a waste of their education. When they encounter problems at work, they are used to solving them by themselves and are too embarrassed to ask for help.

But in Yiwu this year, I didn't think about my education at all. The people around me have lower educational backgrounds than me, but so what? Everyone here only focuses on solving problems and selling goods. I've gained much more in this year than in the large company. I highly recommend that young people who have just graduated come to Yiwu and have a look.

02

With a postgraduate degree,

I started live - streaming to sell goods

A Tian

A Tian, born in 1991, started her business in Yiwu in 2023

The Chinese New Year is approaching, but I was still selling Chinese New Year goods in Yiwu a few days ago, mainly through live - streaming. I usually live - stream for four hours a day, and sometimes up to seven hours.

Some people ask me, isn't it a waste of your education to live - stream and sell Chinese New Year goods as a postgraduate? Do you regret it?

Before coming to Yiwu, my husband and I worked in the same company in Shenzhen. I was a course lecturer with a monthly salary of more than ten thousand yuan. My husband was a programmer for more than five years and had reached the management level, with a monthly salary of more than twenty thousand yuan.

At first, we felt quite accomplished. But as time went by, we felt like just a small cog in the machine. Although the salary was good, we often had to work overtime until eleven or twelve o'clock at night, and we had to wait in line for more than an hour to take a taxi after work. It was very exhausting.

During her time working in a large company, A Tian often finished live - streaming at midnight. Outside the window, the lights were on everywhere, and there were all the workers working overtime

In the economic downturn, we were always afraid of being laid off at any time without any negotiation. Then we would enter another company and repeat the same cycle. So I thought, should I do something to take the initiative in my own hands? So although we didn't know what to do next, we resolutely quit our jobs.

Suddenly, our income of thirty or forty thousand yuan disappeared, and we were very panicked. We first tried some side jobs for half a year, including voice acting, Chinese teaching, and micro - course recording. But we found that the effort we put in was not proportional to the income, so we gave up.

We wavered in the middle and thought about going back to work. But we really didn't want to jump from one pit to another, so we often dissuaded each other.