150,000 fans, monthly GMV exceeds 10 million: We found the secret of the manager's high sales

Xiaohongshu e-commerce is positioned as a "lifestyle e-commerce" and uses the manager model to create a personalized and high-quality consumer experience, achieving in-depth interaction and growth between users and merchants.

Have you ever asked for help on Xiaohongshu?

What answer did you get?

If you search on Xiaohongshu for "hiking shoes that don't make you tired for people with collapsed arches" and "strollers that make 8-month-old high-need babies fall asleep in seconds", you will see thousands of notes helping you choose and review models. If you post a question asking "how can a 70-year-old man travel to Beijing so that he can walk less" and "sisters passing by, please help me choose a cover for my Moments", you will also receive many comments, giving you advice based on their experience.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

These problems that cannot be solved by traditional search engines can be easily taken over by Xiaohongshu. As a platform that brings together the most active young consumers, Xiaohongshu has a great tolerance for "small and beautiful". Therefore, all kinds of small doubts, small needs and small pain points can get accurate solutions, which is why the user mentality of "Xiaohongshu is the only choice when in doubt" has emerged. Public information shows that nearly 70% of monthly active users have search behavior on Xiaohongshu, and one-third of monthly active users go straight to search as soon as they open Xiaohongshu.

When countless demands grow and explode in a content community, commercialization will be a natural outcome. After all, behind every demand, there is a pain point that has not yet been solved.

Recently, Xiaohongshu COO Conan and economist Xue Zhaofeng had a conversation and released the official definition of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce - lifestyle e-commerce, which means that what users buy on Xiaohongshu is not only good products, but also a desirable life.

In the "lifestyle" e-commerce ecosystem, managers are a very important component. The managers of Xiaohongshu include industrial belt merchants, online store operators, hand-made artists, original designers, and founders of cutting-edge brands. They incorporate their understanding of lifestyle and insights into users into product research and development and design, and share them through notes and live broadcasts.

Kass observed that more and more managers from different industries are emerging on Xiaohongshu.

For example, @周琪CHOWKI, who was born as a fashion editor, turned her live broadcast room into a fashion show, and achieved a monthly GMV of over 10 million with only 150,000 fans; Meng Qi, a girl from Jingdezhen, brought her ceramic tea set brand "拙手素心" to Xiaohongshu. After half a year of broadcasting, the GMV of a single live broadcast exceeded 1 million; @一诺本诺EEEENO, who makes original cultural beads for women with aesthetic taste and fashion, had a sale on the first note she posted on Xiaohongshu. This year, she tried live broadcasting, and after one month, the GMV of a single broadcast reached 1.08 million, and the average transaction price of live broadcast transactions was as high as 15,000 yuan...

There are thousands of different lifestyles, so there is no standard answer. So, is there a universal formula for lifestyle e-commerce? Through the stories of these managers and brands, Kass tries to answer this question.

1. "I am the manager of Xiaohongshu, with monthly sales exceeding one million"

"Forget it, you must think it's not pretty."

Last September, Zhao Jialiang posted a note on Xiaohongshu. The black-and-white picture showed a pair of stylish Mary Jane shoes with bows in the center. Compared with product display, it looked more like a pictorial from the last century. After the note was posted, it quickly received more than 4,000 likes, and the pair of women's shoes became the star product of his brand Sonder Plan.

Notes on Xiaohongshu by Zhao Jialiang, the owner of Sonder Plan

Zhao Jialiang has his own considerations for choosing Xiaohongshu as the starting point of his business. In 2023, when the brand was first established, Zhao Jialiang soon encountered a problem: how to quickly gain popularity without relying on buyer stores and fashion weeks?

On Xiaohongshu, he found a new possibility to solve the problem: relying on the traffic brought by the popular notes, Zhao Jialiang attracted the first batch of precise buyers and finally facilitated the transaction in the live broadcast room. In this process, he found that there were many people interested in independent design on the platform. Such users have personalized aesthetics and consumption needs, are more tolerant of prices, and are more willing to listen to the host's explanation before making consumption decisions.

This means that merchants do not have to "cut prices" or use "hawking" style live broadcasts. As long as they make good products and designs and explain them patiently, they will naturally attract users to place orders.

Zhao Jialiang's judgment was correct. After only one month of operating Xiaohongshu, Sonder Plan's sales exceeded one million yuan. One of its Mary Jane shoes, priced at 999 yuan, was the most popular item among users. After its popularity increased, many buyers actively approached the brand to seek cooperation.

Coincidentally, not only Zhao Jialiang, but also Nie Ping, the manager of the home design brand Zhiwu, has such feelings.

In March 2023, Zhiwu entered Xiaohongshu, first by using live broadcasts by buyers to increase its popularity, and then by broadcasting itself to attract users who were attracted to the platform. During the 618 shopping festival this year, Zhiwu made its first live broadcast with a sales of one million. In 2023, the brand's omni-channel GMV exceeded 15 million, and this year it is expected that the performance of the Xiaohongshu platform alone will exceed this figure.

Nie Ping said, "Xiaohongshu users make decisions based on the three dimensions of product design and content, which allows us who are willing to polish our works to be seen by more people."

From this point of view, Xiaohongshu seems to have the natural soil for the rapid growth of the business of the business managers. And with the blessing of good content, even niche categories can stand out from the segmented track and find their own precise audience.

The ceramic tea set brand Zhuoshou Suxin, run by Jingdezhen girl Meng Qi, saw its sales jump from a few thousand yuan to hundreds of thousands of yuan in just half a month after it was launched on Xiaohongshu.

Clumsy Hands and Simple Hearts Xiaohongshu Live Broadcast

At the beginning of 2022, Mengqi joined Xiaohongshu. At that time, although tea culture began to become a new favorite among young people, high-priced ceramic tea sets still belonged to a niche segment, and most of the kilns in Jingdezhen relied on OEM to survive and were low-profile.

In order to bring her beloved ceramic culture to more people, Meng Qi began to share some photos of kiln opening and tea drinking utensils on Xiaohongshu. Unexpectedly, "it became a hit all of a sudden", with a large number of users leaving messages in the comment section saying "want to buy" and "ask for price".

On this basis, Mengqi started live streaming on Xiaohongshu. With her detailed explanation of porcelain and excellent product selection ability, she attracted more "tea lovers" with the same frequency, and soon ushered in a double harvest of popularity and sales. The GMV of a kiln live broadcast can reach 1 million yuan. This year, Mengqi's sales on Xiaohongshu are expected to exceed 50 million yuan.

2. What did the managers who got rich first do right?

In the traditional e-commerce model, "people, goods and places" are the three most critical elements. However, in the Xiaohongshu lifestyle e-commerce scenario, the importance of "people" is further enhanced: "people" are not only consumers and users, but also people who truly understand users and can create combinations and select products based on user needs.

So, based on this, what kind of managers are more popular on Xiaohongshu? Kas concluded that it can be analyzed from three aspects: product strength, content strength, and interaction strength.

Product strength means co-creating with users and repeatedly polishing products so that the products can perfectly satisfy people with segmented pain points.

Take the home furnishing brand OKENSHO as an example. In June last year, the owner Lance wanted to design a sofa that was different from the regular cream-colored sofa on the market. When he posted the design on Xiaohongshu, many users immediately asked "how to buy it". During the proofing process, Lance also received a lot of feedback, such as the wrinkles of the actual product were different from the renderings, and cat claws might scratch the fabric... Lance and his team repeatedly optimized the fabric design, and he communicated with users in the live broadcast room during each round of product polishing.

OKENSHO Xiaohongshu account

From the design drawing to the final version, this camellia sofa went through a long construction period of four months. During this period, users kept coming in through New Notes to recommend the product and place orders. Driven by this hot-selling product, OKENSHO saw a double explosion in reputation and sales within one year of entering Xiaohongshu, with sales quickly exceeding 10 million.

In addition to product strength, good content is essential, and in order to create "good content", the host's note operation and live broadcast are indispensable.

In summary, the managers are gaining more and more core users and businesses on Xiaohongshu. The path behind this can be classified as "account and live broadcast integration", that is, the manager's account and live broadcast are unified into one, and both are used well at the same time. Most businesses will not broadcast 24 hours a day. Only by combining live broadcast pictures, texts, videos and notes can the managers make the account three-dimensional and full, and truly integrate into the community.

In the notes, the managers create valuable lifestyle content to attract users to stop by; the live broadcast room should be run with the mentality of running an "offline store", not by offering low prices or rhetoric, but by patiently explaining the products and interacting with users to bring in healthier sales.

Starting her business in Nepal, @一诺本诺EEEENO has been engaged in the cultural relics industry for more than ten years. Yinuo shares knowledge about bracelets in her notes; in the live broadcast room, she stands from the user's perspective, spends a lot of time explaining the materials and details of the products, and uses real descriptions to analyze the "buying points", not only sharing the value of the products themselves, but also involving a lot of industry knowledge and design thinking.

YinuoEEEENO Xiaohongshu account

Purchases generated by such in-depth explanations not only helped Yinuo achieve sales growth, but also gained a healthier average order value and repurchase rate. Yinuo said that on Xiaohongshu, their user repurchase rate reached 70%. On the platform, consumers often show off the cultural hand strings they bought in Yinuo's live broadcast room, saying that they "fell in love with Yinuo" and "believe in Yinuo's aesthetics" to express their trust in her.

Finally, interactivity is the key to retaining users.

In the live broadcast room, Xiaohongshu users tend to regard the host as a friend they trust. In a good interactive atmosphere, the host naturally places the product in a real and definite life scene, not only showing the efficacy and characteristics of the product to users, but also sharing their own life philosophy. Not only are the users of the same frequency moved, but the conversion is also completed naturally.

Leon, head of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce products, said that in the past year, the conversion rate of users who participated in live broadcast interactions was 17 times that of non-interactive users.

"Group chat" is also an interactive space that the manager cannot ignore.

For managers, "group chat" is not only an operation field, but also an important conversion field. According to what Leon shared, in the past year, a large number of users have joined group chats through various scenarios such as note live broadcast and post-purchase. The number of active merchants on Xiaohongshu has increased by more than 4 times, and the proportion of orders contributed by group users has reached 19%. The 30-day same-store repurchase rate of group users has reached 40%.

From a blogger to a manager, @周琪CHOWKI achieved a milestone of 10 million monthly sales in March this year. Looking back on its growth process, in-depth interaction with fans is the key.

Zhou Qi created 25 group chats on Xiaohongshu, and each group was almost full with 500 people. Before each new product was released, Zhou Qi would post notes in advance and update the new information to the group chats. Because her fan base was accurate enough, her first wave of new products was sold out in half an hour or 20 minutes, and old fans made a great contribution.

CHOWKI Xiaohongshu account

In the group chat, fans will also share their feelings about the products and their vacation outfits. The real sharing will further drive transactions from other users, which is a deeper conversion for her.

3. What new opportunities does lifestyle e-commerce bring?

Last July, Xiaohongshu e-commerce held the first link e-commerce conference and proposed that "the buyer era has arrived", triggering a round of changes in live broadcasting on the site. This year, through the merger of buyer and merchant operation businesses, Xiaohongshu e-commerce has further strengthened the live broadcast ecosystem and built a dual-wheel drive model of buyer live broadcasting and store live broadcasting.

On this basis, Xiaohongshu launched the concept of "lifestyle e-commerce" and the business model of "manager". In Kas's view, this means that e-commerce people who want to do a good business on Xiaohongshu cannot just think about how to sell goods, but also need to think about how to use products to meet users' pursuit of "quality life" and "personalized expression".

Data shows that in the past year, the number of merchants with monthly sales of more than 5 million on Xiaohongshu has increased by 3.5 times. In the past interviews with merchants by Kas, many people reported that "Xiaohongshu is a pure business growth platform" and the overlap between platform users and traditional shelf e-commerce users is not high.

Specifically, as the closed loop of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce matures, users who could only buy products on the platform in the past can now directly enter the live broadcast room or product link to buy the products they like as soon as they browse them, reducing the "traffic loss" of jumping between different platforms. Xiaohongshu's "exquisite" and "beautiful" content style also provides a better display form and visual effect for products, thereby impressing users to place orders.

Data released at the Xiaohongshu Link e-commerce partner conference showed that in the past year, the number of users purchasing on the site has increased by 4.3 times, and the proportion of searches with purchasing intent has increased by 25%.

In addition, the platform's unique shopping atmosphere and user mentality allow merchants to focus on product polishing and user insights to attract users with the same frequency. It is also because users' orders are based on their recognition of the product manager rather than "impulsive consumption" that the manager's business can be healthier.

Yin Shi, head of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce, said that the average customer unit price in Xiaohongshu's live broadcast room is currently more than 400 yuan, and the live broadcast return rate is also maintained at a healthy and sustainable level.

Finally, according to Kass’s observation, the fact that Xiaohongshu users are willing to interact and give positive feedback is also a valuable resource for businesses. The “original voice” from consumers can enable businesses to accurately capture user needs during the product development stage, especially some very subtle and professional needs, so as to design more targeted products.

In order to attract more managers with diverse identities, Xiaohongshu launched the "Treasure Manager Plan", which aims to fully support merchants at different levels and development stages to start live broadcasts and make a smooth transition through traffic diversion and cash incentives.

In Kas's opinion, after a year of development, Xiaohongshu's e-commerce users' purchasing mentality and purchasing links have become more and more mature. For merchants who are facing the proposition of counter-trend growth, Kas's advice is to do a good job of full-domain collaboration, and Xiaohongshu e-commerce may be a must-attend stop in your full-domain collaboration.

Author: Kas Data

Source: Kas Data (ID: 736105)