Compared to the ambiguity between content and e-commerce last year, Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) has taken the earliest step in this year's 618 sales, entering the battlefield of low prices and showcasing its "most e-commerce" side.
At 00:00 on May 19, 2024, Xiaohongshu took the lead in initiating the 618 sales, ahead of other e-commerce platforms. Earlier, on April 29, Xiaohongshu held the "618 Sales Xiaohongshu E-commerce Partner Mobilization Meeting," and opened up merchant registration on May 7.
Xiaohongshu also benchmarked the preparation period for merchants' promotions against Taobao and Tmall — as the main battleground for promotions, Taobao and Tmall's 618 merchant registration started on May 6, reserving 14 days for the official sale — Xiaohongshu left 12 days, gathering methods that have been tested by major e-commerce platforms: "618 Wish Free Order," cross-store discount of 300-50, no need to compare prices during 618, 618 live broadcast season, etc.
As a latecomer to e-commerce, Xiaohongshu's e-commerce infrastructure is not yet perfect, and the product categories are currently limited to six core categories: fashion, food, beauty and skincare, home furniture, maternal and infant education, and sports outdoors. Even the activity page during the 618 period had technical issues due to being launched in a hurry. However, precisely because of the commercial needs of the Xiaohongshu platform and the expansion demand for product supply, there is still a significant increase in space for merchants to enter Xiaohongshu.
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Store broadcast: Another focus in addition to buyer live broadcast
On June 19, Xiaohongshu released 618 data: the number of live broadcast orders increased by 5.4 times compared to last year, the number of live broadcast rooms increased by 4.3 times, the number of purchasing users in the live broadcast room increased by 5.2 times compared to last year, the store broadcast order volume increased by 9.4 times, and the number of buyers breaking one million in a single event increased by 3 times.
Combining the two data briefs released by Xiaohongshu during the 618 period, it can be seen that its focus is on two aspects: one is the order volume, and the other is the store broadcast — to focus on the scale of orders rather than the GMV scale, the former reflects Xiaohongshu's desire to establish e-commerce awareness, and the latter is the specific method to achieve growth, with more supply it is possible to generate more demand.
Last year's 618, Xiaohongshu proposed "buyer + store broadcast" and achieved good results in buyer live broadcasts, such as "star hosts" like Dong Jie and Yi Nengjing, as well as home bloggers "A K," fashion bloggers "Rong Erduo," cost-effective beauty bloggers "Winnie Wen," and other vertical buyers. However, there are several issues:
1. A stable host echelon has not yet been formed. From the Top 20 live broadcast talent list from January to May 2024, it can be seen that Dong Jie and Yi Nengjing can occupy the first and second positions as long as they start broadcasting, and other hosts such as Zhang Li, Shen Mengchen, and Yang Tianzhen can rush to the list with just one live broadcast per month. (Red indicates repeated listings)
2. The overall frequency of buyer broadcasts is relatively low. In May, the average number of live broadcasts per month for top talents was 3.05 times, which is already "Buddha-like" compared to the live broadcast frequency of 10-20 times per month for hosts on Taobao, Douyin, and Kuaishou (the "Make a Friend" Douyin live broadcast room started broadcasting 119 times in May) — this is still during the 618 event period, when Xiaohongshu is vigorously promoting live broadcasts. The broadcast frequency of several top hosts is even lower, with the first "hundred-million host" in Xiaohongshu's live broadcast history, Zhang Xiaohui, only broadcasting twice a year; most TOP hosts, including Dong Jie, broadcast on average once a month. Wuxin, who broadcasts 3-5 times a month, and Zhang Jingchu, who broadcasts 10-15 times a month, are already considered "workaholics."3. Headstream Anchor Migration. As top anchors from other platforms have essentially completed the "transition from Douyin to Taobao" and even the "multi-platform live broadcasting" layout, Zhang Xiaohui also achieved the "transition from red to Taobao" during this year's 618: on the first day of the event on May 19th, she was still conducting a major promotion live broadcast on Xiaohongshu, and on May 26th, she launched a 5-hour Taobao debut broadcast with over 10 million viewers. In her personal public account, she wrote that starting a live broadcast on Taobao means "moving from a secret rose garden to a larger garden."
Compared to the infrequent live broadcasts on Xiaohongshu, Zhang Xiaohui's Taobao live broadcast account broadcasted 8 times from May 25th to June 18th in 25 days — the "Rose is a Rose" editorial team explained the products, she appeared twice, each time broadcasting for 4.5 hours (the two live broadcasts featuring her personally had an average duration of 10 hours), and the rest of the time was broadcasted by the team. This means that the Taobao e-commerce system may not be her personal main field, but it will definitely devote the team's resources and energy.
In addition to the uncertain buyer live broadcasts, store broadcasting is identified by Xiaohongshu as a larger growth point and is the focus of this 618 event.
The store broadcasting activity period on Xiaohongshu is nearly a month long, and it also sets up a store broadcasting ranking competition, distributes traffic coupon rewards, increases live broadcast exposure, and the more stores broadcast, the more incentives they receive.
From the data, these incentive actions are taking effect: official data shows that in April 2024, the number of Xiaohongshu e-commerce live broadcast merchants increased by 5 times compared to April last year, the number of store broadcasting purchasing users increased by 12 times, and the number of merchants with monthly sales over one million increased by 7.4 times; during the 618 period, the cumulative number of live broadcast sessions by merchants increased by 4.5 times compared to the same period last year.
However, a RED label women's clothing brand that actively participated in the 618 store broadcasting found that although the store broadcasted 14 sessions during the 618 period and received platform incentives, the effect was limited. "The platform will push our live broadcast room to the user's homepage, but there is not much increase in traffic, and the number of viewers in the live broadcast room did not increase significantly." The brand told Yicai Business School.
This is related to the store's own positioning — the brand usually has a monthly sales volume of 500,000 to 1 million on Xiaohongshu, but 80% of the sales volume comes from Dabo (live broadcasts by key opinion leaders), and the store broadcast only accounts for less than 20%. Its self-operated account is only used to establish the brand tone, with only 3,000+ followers, which is significantly less than the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of followers of key opinion leaders, limiting the reach of the audience.
For merchants with multi-platform layouts, Xiaohongshu is a source of incremental growth during normal times, but they will not choose to make heavy investments during major promotions.
A fragrance brand that focuses on Tmall flagship stores and Xiaohongshu malls has felt the "suction effect" of shelf platforms during major promotions. The person in charge of the brand said that the brand's growth on traditional shelf e-commerce has been weak, and it opened a Xiaohongshu store as early as 2021, continuously witnessing exponential growth in transaction volume. During normal sales periods, Xiaohongshu's conversion rate can reach more than 5%, but after the major promotion starts, due to consumers' shopping mindset still being on Tmall and JD.com, Xiaohongshu's conversion rate will drop to about 1%. "For the brand, (the major promotion) this stage is left to Tmall and JD.com."
Another Xiaohongshu women's clothing store with a monthly sales volume of 100,000 did not participate in 618. "Although the platform has traffic support, especially for store broadcasting, the similar merchants participating in the event also share the traffic pool, and there will be issues such as price protection refunds for previous orders and a higher return rate during the event period. Moreover, the (618 women's clothing) and Xiaohongshu's 'Spring New Arrivals' event mechanism are the same, our store is small in size, with stable daily traffic, and the overall fluctuation is not significant." The person in charge, SSR, told Yicai Business School.For Xiaohongshu, offering play methods and focusing on store broadcasting all point to the core logic of Xiaohongshu's 618: stimulating supply and demand and expanding the market.
Expanding product categories and offering low prices, Xiaohongshu becomes more "e-commerce" oriented.
As various platforms compete on pricing power, Xiaohongshu has also actively attached the "low-price" label.
In the "618 No Need to Compare Prices" special page under "Brand Goods," brands such as Dongfang Zhixuan, Shu Ke, Miniso, and Hong Wei bring a rich variety of SKUs to occupy the recommended information flow. Dongfang Zhixuan's Ecuadorian frozen white shrimp for 88 yuan, and Hong Wei's five-pack of lanolin soap for 29.9 yuan, are all in line with the lowest prices across the web. With the addition of a 300-50 yuan discount coupon, prices will further decrease.
On the other hand, the "Buy Expensive, 3x Compensation" platform traffic also attracts low-priced, white-label, and distributor sellers to start stores on Xiaohongshu at a low cost.
For example, the snack brand "Foodie Girl Flagship Store." With 2.49 million fans in Tmall stores and 8.07 million sales on Douyin, it has a wide range of casual snack brand supplies and is a low-priced snack distributor with a full-domain layout.
The store's Xiaohongshu shop's Aishang Mimi shrimp chips (20 packs) participated in Xiaohongshu's "Buy Expensive, 3x Compensation" event, priced at only 5.9 yuan, which is 22% lower than the 7.6 yuan per unit in their own Pinduoduo store. There are two similar traffic-driving items, which are the highest-selling SKUs in the store, with sales of 800+ and 500+, respectively, driving the sales of other products in the store.
At the same time, the store account has only posted one note and has over 100 followers. There is neither "straight linkage" nor content planting, and such a very "non-Xiaohongshu" merchant has also started to gain momentum on Xiaohongshu.
This is somewhat inconsistent with Xiaohongshu's view on "low prices." On June 14, Xiaohongshu's live broadcast director, Yin Shi, stated in an interview with Daily Economic News, "On Xiaohongshu, low price is not the core value," and Xiaohongshu's planting + e-commerce closed loop "is not friendly to products that are purely oriented towards low prices." They do not want to establish the mindset of "Xiaohongshu = low price" for users, but they also objectively create an environment for the growth of low-priced merchants, reflecting Xiaohongshu's ambiguous attitude towards low prices.
It can be anticipated that pricing power will not be the core strategy of Xiaohongshu, but rather a necessary means to help Xiaohongshu improve its platform ecosystem and get closer to e-commerce.For consumers, Xiaohongshu starts from its own comfort zone: content + operations.
Xiaohongshu officially created a "Guide to Shopping Bliss on Xiaohongshu .excel", similar to Li Jiaqi's "Shopping Strategy for All Girls" spreadsheet, providing product recommendations for consumers and also offering exposure slots for buyers and brand merchants.
In terms of categories, the categories in this spreadsheet are divided into "Have More Fun", "Dress Better", "Be More Beautiful", "Live Better" - never straying from the advantageous tracks of fashion and beauty. To maintain this tone, Xiaohongshu also proposed the "Simple Live Broadcast" initiative to merchants, distinguishing Xiaohongshu from other e-commerce platforms with "321, link up".
It can be seen that in terms of user operation methods, Xiaohongshu is still striving to maintain the core of the content community, covering emotional value in every link of e-commerce. However, the limited categories also give Xiaohongshu a feeling of "a clever housewife cannot make a meal without rice", and it needs to enhance consumer perception through differentiated and refined operations in the form of a "shopping magazine".
On the other hand, the story of user growth is not so "small and beautiful". Xiaohongshu has gently entered the "slash" mode - copied, but not very successful.
On May 8, Xiaohongshu launched the "618 Wish Free Order" gameplay, with rules similar to Pinduoduo's "slash" headhunting model: users choose a wish gift, and by sharing it with other users and attracting new users to place their first order, they accumulate "Wish Stars", and when the progress bar reaches 100%, they can pay 0.1 yuan to purchase the previously selected wish gift, which is equivalent to free.
Many Xiaohongshu users who have successfully met the requirements told Yicai Business School that to successfully "shear" the wish gift, according to the different prices of the gifts, it is necessary to have 2-4 first-order users to place orders plus 5-10 users to send "Wish Stars" to each other. And there must be first-order users to place orders, otherwise, when the "Wish Stars" are sent to 10 people, the upper limit will be triggered, and there will be no rewards.
The cute painting style and interactive interface are in line with Xiaohongshu's consistent content tone, but the product function hard injury hinders further user fission.
The complaints on Black Cat and the complaints from users in the station are focused on two points: one is the vague rules of the game, and the other is the frequent functional bugs. Yicai Business School also found through observation and testing that the titles and forwarding language of "time-limited tasks" and "inviting friends" are the same, but the forwarding of "time-limited tasks" to WeChat once failed (June 11).
From the launch of the event on May 8 to the middle of June, more than a month, many Xiaohongshu users have always shown "gray test", and this gameplay has not been opened to all users. This is contrary to the needs of Xiaohongshu's user growth, and it also makes Xiaohongshu, who has the courage to embrace "slash", a bit embarrassed.Conclusion
As it arrives at its third 618 Grand Promotion, Xiaohongshu has fully demonstrated its platform intentions:
Firstly, it encourages store broadcasting and buyer live streaming, seeking a balance between the entire site's content traffic and e-commerce traffic;
Secondly, it uses the 618 Grand Promotion as a node to enhance consumers' e-commerce mindset towards the Xiaohongshu platform.
As a latecomer in e-commerce, it must work harder than others to appear effortless – keeping up with e-commerce infrastructure and expanding product categories are current imperatives.
On one hand, it is actively increasing the number of merchants, buyers, and consumers, enriching product supply, and improving platform gameplay; on the other hand, it maintains the expansion speed of e-commerce in a delicate balance. This "wanting both" approach is Xiaohongshu's cautious prudence in embracing e-commerce.
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