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English|Chinese Gen Z No Longer Trust Matchmaking, Here’s Why( 二 )


According to the company’s Q4 report in 2011, offline events and high-end matchmaking service only accounted for 14.3% of the total revenue. The number for matchmaking service then grew to 10.6%, 26.8% and 36.6% in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively.
High-end matchmaking service performed by professional matchmakers then became an important income source for Jiayuan.com before being acquired. Zhenai, which gained traction from its combined model of online matchmaking and professional matchmakers, made such high-end service its main source of income.
Baihe also pays special attention to high-end professional matchmaking service. According to open information on Baihe’s website, the company has around a hundred brick-and-mortar outlets in 76 cities in the country, which mainly provides high-end matchmaking service.
This shows that professional matchmaking service has become the main way for matchmaking platforms to generate revenue.
Compared with matchmaking platforms, dating platforms require users to take on many risks. When browsing on dating apps, users themselves are wary about catfishes and scammers on the platform. But the case would be different for matchmaking platforms. Users of matchmaking platforms expect trustworthy services. In short, people choose to use matchmaking platforms because they want to meet decent people that are marriage materials.
That’s why a series of scandals from matchmaking services that were exposed to the public have drastically decreased people’s trust in such services and platforms.
There have been many scandals from high-end and expensive matchmaking services.
One of the most widely reported matchmaking scandals was the tragic marriage between Su Xiangmao and Huo Xinxin. The story was simple. Huo purposefully tricked Su into marriage and scammed him into spending millions of yuan for her. Su eventually committed suicide because of the toxicity in their marriage. According to the post Su wrote before he took his life, he met Huo through Shijijianyuan’s VIP membership service. Shijijianyuan’s matchmaker set them up. Huo actually had a marriage before which could show a lot of red flags. However, Huo’s profile on Jiayuan.com did not show any information about her first marriage.
Jiayuan.com’s valuation went down by 1.63 billion yuan on September 13, 2017, after the scandal broke out
Such incidents are plenty. There had been many cases in which people found themselves being scammed by matchmaking service, such as being tricked into paying for more premium services. Search any keyword related to matchmaking, one can find a series of complaints since 2017.
Top matchmaking platforms all have their brick-and-mortar outlets in major cities in China. It is not cheap to operate with physical stores. However, one-on-one professional matchmaking is already a mature business model in comparison with the online plus offline business model. According to Zhenai’s unaudited fiscal report, the average fee for one-on-one professional matchmaking service was 15,915 yuan, 15,725 yuan and 16,099 yuan in 2015, 2016 and 2017 (January to May) respectively. It seemed that it was easier to get users to pay for premium personal service than having them pay a membership fee to a platform. After all, Chinese users have already gotten accustomed to free online services.
But of course, such business model might anger some of the consumers as well.
A new mindset about marriageBesides trust issues, young people’s new mindset about marriage also makes them less interested in traditional matchmaking.
If You Are the One, a Chinese matchmaking dating show aired in 2010, showcases everything that young people fear about matchmaking and blind date. At the dating show, male contestants are judged by a panel of 12 female guests who could turn off their light anytime if they find the contestants not worth dating. The male contestants would have to not only tell their background and personal stories to win over the female guest, but would also face harsh questioning by the panel.

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