EAST BUY has delivered impressive interim results for the 2026 fiscal year, achieving growth in both revenue and profit. During the reporting period, EAST BUY's total revenue reached 2.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.7%, with a net profit of 239 million yuan. Furthermore, its self-operated business has become the core growth engine for the company's development. In the first half of the 2026 fiscal year, the gross merchandise volume (GMV) of self-operated products accounted for approximately 52.8% of the total GMV, and the cumulative number of self-operated products launched reached 801.

In a recent discussion, EAST BUY's Head of Product shared further strategies and insights behind the development of self-operated products and business growth. It was revealed that the company's expansion is underpinned by a unique model driven by community co-creation to foster product innovation.

Currently, EAST BUY's App community-driven product iteration model is a major internal focus. All product managers at EAST BUY are now stationed and take rotating shifts within the community to ensure that every piece of feedback regarding features, categories, or packaging receives a professional response within 24 hours. This has cultivated an internal organizational culture that highly values user input.

**Self-Operated Product Strategy: Community-Driven, User Co-Creation** In the current landscape of high customer acquisition costs and rapidly changing user demands, while traditional e-commerce still relies on broad market data for product selection and marketing-driven launches, EAST BUY has developed a community user co-creation model that is key to the sustained success of its new products.

"Our new product requirements stem from an alignment between broad market data and the specific needs of our community users," stated the EAST BUY Product Head. The development of most self-operated new products now begins with genuine user feedback, rather than simply aiming to create viral hits.

In January of this year, EAST BUY's self-operated Five Red Powder, dried apples, and chocolate emerged as three new bestsellers, all receiving high praise from users upon launch. Notably, sales of the dried apples surpassed 100,000 bags within 20 days of release.

The Product Head elaborated on the co-creation model. "Taking Five Red Powder as an example, its creation originated from frequent suggestions by female users in our community. The team then conducted data validation and market research, initiated small-batch trial production after confirming feasibility, and invited core users to sample the product and provide feedback. Based on this input, the product was iterated before its official market launch."

Reportedly, the initial Five Red Powder followed a traditional formula. However, user feedback highlighted potential improvements in taste and long-term preservation. Subsequent optimizations incorporated user suggestions, such as substituting red rice and transforming the product from a beverage into a meal replacement, thereby enhancing portability to meet the needs of fast-paced wellness routines. The development of the dried apples was driven by user demand for "clean ingredients." The team spent six months on raw material selection, process testing, and small-batch trial production, sharing the entire progress with the community.

According to EAST BUY's observations, user consumption has shown clear new trends in recent years. First, demand for "health" and "traceability" continues to rise. Users are no longer satisfied with basic product functions but are increasingly concerned with full-process transparency from factory to farm, seeking clear ingredient sourcing and origin information—a desire for "visible safety." Second, category demands are expanding, gradually extending from initial agricultural products, snacks, and household chemicals into the nutritional supplements sector. More importantly, users are increasingly willing to pay for high-quality, traceable product experiences, while their desire for participation and expression has also grown, laying the foundation for the user co-creation model.

The Product Head acknowledged that the user's role has shifted from "passive consumption" to "active co-creation." The EAST BUY App community sees tens of thousands of daily active users, with hundreds of high-value users deeply involved in new product development. They not only suggest needs but also participate in formula optimization and product testing, effectively acting as EAST BUY's "informal quality inspectors."

It was revealed that, compared to traditional e-commerce, EAST BUY's user co-creation forms a complete closed loop: user needs proposal, feasibility verification, small-batch trial production, user sampling and feedback, iteration, launch, and continuous optimization. This model not only increases the success rate of new products but also significantly optimizes trial-and-error costs.

**Future Plans: Commitment to Assisting Agriculture, Focus on Quality-Value Ratio** From capitalizing on the live-streaming e-commerce boom to competing on product merits in the retail sector, EAST BUY's transformation reflects the broader industry shift from traffic-driven to product-driven strategies. Simultaneously, as the market emphasizes "cost-effectiveness," many brands are trapped in fierce price competition.

In response, the EAST BUY Product Head stated that the company insists on providing value that exceeds expectations within a controllable price range, achieving "more than worth the price" through product differentiation, rather than competing solely on low price.

"The core of this strategy is to maintain normal, reasonable profit margins through product differentiation, not by cutting costs to preserve profits. We are very willing to grow together with our supplier partners and jointly upgrade production lines to improve quality," the Head said.

Yu Minhong, founder of EAST BUY, has previously emphasized in internal communications that the company fundamentally addresses two key points: first, food safety, which must be absolutely guaranteed—the goal is not to sell the cheapest goods, but the safest. This is a bottom line that must be consistently upheld. To this end, EAST BUY invests over ten million yuan annually in third-party quality inspections. The second point is assisting agriculture: "While continuously expanding our product categories, we remain true to our original intention of supporting farmers. We aim to assist agriculture sustainably through a normal business model, ensuring reasonable profit margins for farmers so that both sides benefit."

Discussing challenges, the EAST BUY Product Head noted that the main difficulty lies in balancing supply chain standardization with scalability. "For non-standardized, naturally additive-free products, increasing production capacity is inherently challenging. For categories like dried apples and Five Red Powder that rely on agricultural raw materials, factors such as seasonal availability and regional differences pose challenges. Ensuring consistent quality across different batches and production areas while scaling up supply, and addressing stock-outs due to insufficient capacity, are key challenges we face."