The Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has pledged to invest 100 million yuan in its digital flea market app Xianyu, also known as Idle Fish.
Xianyu allows users to run online stores where they upload pictures, descriptions and promotional voice recordings for items they want to sell.
Other users living nearby can then get in touch with them over the app and pay using Alibaba's digital payment system Alipay.
Alibaba hopes that by investing in Xianyu, improving the app and helping it to get more users, it will be more able to tap into the growing so-called sharing economy, whereby people share or sell items with nearby people.Â
