Who buys “good night messages” on Chinese e-commerce sites? The woman who delivers them is cheating

A woman in China has been sending “goodnight messages” to perfect strangers for 12 years – for a small fee.

Thirty-year-old Jiumei sells the service on Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao, operated by Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post.

About 10,000 people bought messages from her at one yuan (14 US cents) a day. In total, she sent over 50,000 messages.

The wording varies from a simple “good night” in Chinese to poetic verses and consolations.

Jiumei told mainland media Personage that her messages are a comfort to “modern people suffering from loneliness” and a window through which she can look into the lives of others.

Many customers have purchased goodnight messages for people they are secretly in love with or exes they miss.

Jiumei refuses to send messages from single people to married people to avoid trouble for the recipients and their families.

A mother asked Jiumei to say goodbye to her 14-year-old daughter, who suffered from anxiety and was addicted to her cell phone.

The girl stopped trusting her parents, who found it difficult to understand her illness. The mother wanted to “comfort her lonely heart and remind her to go to bed early.”

Another person purchased this service for his brother, a late-stage cancer patient who is increasingly estranged from his family. She hoped the messages would keep him company.

Another customer, a man in his 30s running a start-up, bought the messages himself as a form of support.

Jiumei also took it well when people stopped buying her services because she hoped it meant they no longer felt lonely.

The goodnight messaging service was Jiumei’s part-time job for 12 years. During this time, she also became the director of a company in the city of Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province, and then opened a cafe. She is married and has two sons.

She says the business was never profitable, earning a maximum of 3,000 yuan ($400) a year. She considered quitting, but changed her mind when former customers contacted her to thank her.

Jiumei stated that this service also helped her emotionally. She is the ninth daughter of the Chaoshan family from Guangdong Province in southern China. She said that her parents gave her younger brother, their only son, all their love.

She believes that her goodnight messages provide a “sense of ritual” as well as comfort.