32-Year-Old Man Makes $281,000 A Month Selling Things You Could Find At A Grocery Store

Sometimes a career change involves risk. Thankfully, that risk paid off for one business-savvy man in China.

After experiencing burnout, a tech employee quit his job to start a fruit e-commerce business. The 32-year-old, surnamed Lin, didn’t strike gold though until he cashed in on a popular wellness trend on social media.

During a livestream, some of Lin’s viewers wanted to buy underipe bananas with the stems still attached. To Lin’s surprise, the first batch he sold as a trial was a success. In the wellness space in China, green bananas have come to be associated with stress relief.

This is because when green bananas are sold with their stems still attached, customers can spend one to two weeks ripening them in vases themselves. This relaxing practice provides relief from the daily grind and is comparable to tending houseplants as a hobby.

Lin uses a play on words–“stop banana green” which sounds like “stop anxiety” in Chinese–to sell his wares. He also sends his customers vases for cultivating their bananas and cards with motivational messages. The demand for green bananas paired with Lin’s marketing strategy has proved fruitful.

We eventually realized we were selling not just bananas but emotional value.

— Hua Dawei, Lin’s business partner

Now, Lin sells approximately 15,000 orders (50,000 kg or 110,231 lbs) of bananas each day, which has resulted in monthly earnings of two million yuan ($281,996 USD)!

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