Xiaohongshu, how can a buyer’s e-commerce help brands find new growth in China?
In May 2023, Zhang Xiaohui, a renowned Chinese socialite, conducted her inaugural live broadcast on Xiaohongshu. This marked her first live stream subsequent to the launch of her “Rose is Rose” store on WeChat and its expansion onto Xiaohongshu’s platform. The duration of the live broadcast spanned six hours and generated sales amounting to 50 million units. Through this accomplishment, she effectively showcased the purchasing prowess wielded by Xiaohongshu fans towards prominent brands while validating the e-commerce model employed by Xiaohongshu.
The History of “Buyer’s Store”
Speaking of “buyers”, everyone is certainly familiar with it, and among them, “fashion buyers” are probably the most familiar to everyone. After collecting information, we learned that the profession of “Fashion Buyer” has a history of more than 20 years in Europe and the United States. From the initial purchaser to the title of “buyer” after 2000, this profession has become the second most popular profession in Europe and the United States. In the history of more than ten years, it has moved from non-standardization to standardization. In different regions and companies, the job functions performed by buyers are also different, but no matter what kind of job functions, the company’s personal skills of buyers are The requirements are roughly the same. Enterprises hope to use “buyers” with keen sense and forward-looking ability to predict the future to collect the freshest, most cutting-edge and most special products from all over the world to consumers.
Xiaohongshu’s “buyer e-commerce” concept is also extended from this. Xiaohongshu’s buyers obtain users’ mainstream consumption habits and potential needs through in-depth research on fan age, occupation, interest data and comments, private messages and direct feedback from the community. , selecting products that are most likely to be popular with users. They then promote the product to users by writing product notes in a diary-like sharing manner. If a user purchases through the buyer’s link, the buyer will receive a profit. This method combines e-commerce with content marketing, turning every “blogger” into a “buyer’s store.”
The monetization of buyer’s e-commerce
In the past two years, the number of Xiaohongshu live broadcast bloggers has increased by 27 times, the number of mobile sales merchants has increased by 10 times, and the number of purchasing users has increased by 12 times.
Buyers on the Xiaohongshu platform are concentrated among active creators with followers between 20,000 and 500,000, who are mid-range bloggers. Due to the criticism that “all articles in Xiaohongshu are just grassroots articles”, The marketing income of creators is on a downward trend, and these creators are gradually giving up trying to sell goods through live broadcasts. By using one’s own aesthetics and taste, users can select and share more distinctive and tonal products, and deliver the goods through live broadcast.
Different from Taobao or Douyin platforms where “price” is the top priority, in the buyer mode, the goods on Xiaohongshu focus more on the goods themselves rather than the price. Therefore, the live broadcast on Xiaohongshu is more suitable for brands with brand stories and intensive cultivation. cooperate. At present, the leading sales categories on Xiaohongshu are mostly niche designer clothing and household products, skin care cosmetics, etc.
Little Red Book Is Still Exploring
The reason why Xiaohongshu users can accept Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui’s live broadcast style and are willing to try niche and novel products in the “buyer” live broadcast room is because their fans are well aware of their daily requirements for product selection and their expectations for products. attitude towards life and their life experiences. When the anchor uses his or her own experience during the live broadcast, these new things will be more easily accepted and tried.
In this way, in addition to improving the basic “active search and obtaining effective information” function for brands and products, Xiaohongshu also provides emotional value to the brand and stimulates users’ potential consumption needs.
In order to allow more brands to find suitable “buyers”, the Xiaohongshu platform has shared support policies for brands and merchants, proposing that Xiaohongshu will invest 50 billion traffic to support merchants and help major brands better compete in small businesses. Red Book Management. According to the person in charge of the platform at Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce partner week press conference: For cooperative merchants, there will be dedicated personnel to operate and connect them. At the same time, they will also build a Xiaohongshu buyer recommendation platform for merchants, hold offline product selection meetings, and provide more tools and products to help merchants communicate with Xiaohongshu buyers.
Faced with the desire and confusion of merchants to open stores in Xiaohongshu, Xiaohongshu not only brought heavy support strategies, but also announced three core strategies for merchants in Xiaohongshu:
Create an account, write posts, create content and interact with users;
Find buyers, have live broadcasts, and prepare and seeding products before live broadcasts;
Stores to live-stream, standardize operations process, and develop the ability to operate in multiple fields;
In China’s live streaming blue ocean market, low prices alone are no longer enough to attract a steady stream of buyers. Finding the right “buyers” who match the brand’s persona and recommending them to the right audience who believe in the brand is the key.
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