Yunji: why the social-shopping platform is betting on its own brands

A recommendation from someone you know can be more persuasive than another page of search results. Yunji built its shopping platform around that idea, encouraging members to share products with their social contacts. Its next challenge is giving those shoppers more reasons to choose Yunji’s own brands while the business contends with falling sales.

How membership shapes the shopping experience

Yunji describes its model as membership-based social commerce. It selects merchandise, sources products centrally and offers member benefits such as discounted prices. Members also receive incentives to promote the platform and share products, making personal networks part of its distribution system.

That changes the starting point for a purchase: a product can reach a shopper through a recommendation as well as a search. The appeal depends on whether the selection and member benefits make that recommendation worth following. Sharing alone cannot make an unappealing product attractive.

Social connections also helped shape Pinduoduo’s team-purchasing model. Yunji’s membership approach takes a different route through the same broad question: how can an online retailer turn relationships between people into repeat purchases?

From a shopping app to its own brands

Yunji launched its shopping application in China in May 2015. Its Cayman Islands holding company was incorporated in November 2017, and its American depositary shares began trading on Nasdaq in May 2019 under YJ. The app therefore predates both the holding company and the listing.

The business added a third-party marketplace in early 2019 and began using external sales channels in 2020. Its 2025 annual report lists private labels including Suye and QingZiYang, alongside sales channels such as Tmall, WeChat and Douyin. The company’s products are consequently not confined to its own app.

Owning a brand does not mean owning its factories. Yunji’s annual report says it relies on third-party manufacturers for private-label products and warns that it does not have long-term contracts with them. Product consistency and dependable supply remain important dependencies even when the label belongs to Yunji.

A narrower focus on healthy living

In its full-year 2025 results, Yunji described a stronger emphasis on private-label health products and an organic healthy-living positioning. It also discussed product traceability, wellness services and a smaller marketplace business. These are elements of its commercial strategy, rather than evidence that a particular product delivers a medical benefit.

The shift extends to finding customers. Yunji said that, in the second half of 2025, it redirected marketing resources from paid online traffic towards offline activities and channels where it maintains direct relationships with users. That approach fits a membership business: the company wants an ongoing relationship with the buyer, rather than having to win the same person again through advertising.

Lower losses, but a smaller business

Yunji’s unaudited results for the first half of 2026 show the pressure behind the changes. Revenue fell to RMB96.3 million from RMB158.3 million a year earlier. The company attributed the decline to weak consumer spending and changes to its product, supplier and merchant selection.

Management also said it had ended relationships with some third-party merchants whose offerings did not meet its higher product standards. That explanation matters: part of the contraction reflects decisions about what Yunji wants to sell, although it does not establish that the remaining business will return to growth.

Operating expenses fell to RMB109.7 million from RMB179.4 million, while the net loss narrowed to RMB72.4 million from RMB100.7 million. Yunji spent less and lost less, but it remained loss-making as sales declined.

The attraction of Yunji’s strategy is easy to understand: distinctive products could give members a reason to return that a catalogue of widely available goods cannot. Its difficulty is equally clear. Those brands must generate enough repeat demand to support the business, not simply replace the sales it has chosen to leave behind.