Why can Xiaohongshu buyers have low followers and high GMV?

Xiaohongshu buyers will become a new force in the entire live e-commerce market, relying on high-quality content to close deals. Follow this article to find out why Xiaohongshu buyers can have low fans and high GMV. Recommended for those who want to be Xiaohongshu buyers.

Buyers help e-commerce regain diversity.

After the shift from low-price driven single standard product consumption to more difficult homogeneous competition, live streaming e-commerce is entering a new content-driven stage from low-price group purchases .

The emergence of some new live broadcast phenomena is a manifestation of the new stage.

For example, on new e-commerce platforms such as Xiaohongshu, some low-follower buyers have emerged whose transaction volume has jumped to tens of millions in a short period of time .

Some of them are amateur buyers with no basic knowledge, coming from all walks of life, including Chinese teachers, full-time mothers, and college students. Another type is professional buyers who have been deeply involved in vertical fields for many years, including fashion bloggers who switched from Taobao women's clothing shop owners to kitchenware bloggers who have worked in the chef industry for many years.

Most of them have between 100,000 and 200,000 fans, but they can generate GMV of millions or even tens of millions in a short period of time.

Xiaohongshu e-commerce is a typical representative of the new stage of content-driven live e-commerce. One of its characteristics is that the content is stronger in the process of early note planting and live broadcast room conversion. The relationship between the anchor, that is, the buyer, and the consumer is closer (most of them have established a relatively private trust relationship through notes) and more multi-dimensional (the relationship between consumers and buyers is not only a buying and selling relationship, but also includes an identification of aesthetics, lifestyle, and life philosophy) .

Therefore, on such a platform, more differentiated product supplies and more diverse buyer groups will emerge. Even new brands and low-volume buyers will gain accurate consumers and more efficient transaction conversion. For example, for brands, buyers can not only bring sales, but also better convey brand concepts to accurate users. Some new brands, niche brands, new categories of mature brands, and categories on the verge of elimination have gained market attention through buyers.

Of course, this is also related to the community’s own operating characteristics, such as Xiaohongshu’s decentralized traffic distribution logic.

More and more buyers are entering Xiaohongshu, and more and more buyers from different industries and backgrounds have achieved significant breakthroughs in transaction volume in a short period of time. This also indirectly proves that Xiaohongshu's entire buyer ecosystem and even the entire live e-commerce ecosystem are still in a rapid growth and expansion dividend stage, and the buyers' cold start and growth paths are becoming clearer .

This is undoubtedly a driving force for the entire live e-commerce industry to shift from low-price large group purchases to content-driven. Entering the content and community-driven stage, live e-commerce will have the opportunity to give full play to its content attributes and trust attributes, thereby influencing diversified consumer decisions, connecting differentiated supplies, and amplifying brand value. The community-driven e-commerce ecosystem will also usher in its own development opportunities.

1. Buyers with 10,000 fans, selling millions of GMV

During the 618 event this year, the number of buyers who brought in over one million in a single event on Xiaohongshu was three times that of the same period last year, and the number of buyers whose GMV increased by more than 100% reached 2.8 times.

They have different professional backgrounds and life experiences. They do not have a fan base of millions, but only hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, or even thousands of fans. However, their monthly sales can exceed one million or even ten million.

@四娃组合生活 is a mother and baby buyer account created by Xiaopang Jingjing and a mother who lives in the same building. In the process of raising children, the two mothers have accumulated rich purchasing experience in children's shoes, clothing, toys, learning software and other products. So, they began to share some daily life with children and unboxing videos of good things on Xiaohongshu.

In May 2023, when they had accumulated 1,000 fans, they observed that Xiaohongshu was promoting live e-commerce. "At that time, I felt that I couldn't wait any longer and had to bite the bullet." The two tried to start live streaming as buyers. When they first started live streaming, they had no experience. Xiaopang Jingjing used the analogy of "wild live streaming" to say that they didn't even mark the price of the live streaming correctly, didn't know how to contact brands, and didn't know how to use live streaming tools.

In a small house of less than 20 square meters, the two learned quickly by trial and error, and slowly figured out a way to transform from selling toys to selling mainly shoes and clothing, with a steady increase in conversions. Now, with a fan base of more than 60,000, the monthly GMV of @四娃组合生活 has climbed to 5 million yuan.

Fashion buyer @合合噠 is a primary school Chinese teacher who likes to study dressing. In the early days, she shared vlogs about daily dressing and teacher life of a 176cm tall girl on Xiaohongshu. When she became pregnant and had a child, she took on the role of a mother, and her notes also included some interesting daily life of raising a child.

In September 2023, when the number of fans on Xiaohongshu reached 100,000, Hehe launched his first live broadcast, which resulted in a "completely unexpected" result of 2.2 million yuan in sales. 26 days later, the second live broadcast sold 4.3 million yuan. By June of this year, Hehe had done a total of 6 live broadcasts, and the sales of live broadcasts increased to 13.4 million yuan per broadcast.

@HeHeLive Room

@香蕉吹铁 is a college graduate this year and a food buyer with more than a year of experience. He believes that sharing food is a very good traffic starting point for amateurs. Although his Xiaohongshu account has only 106,000 followers, its monthly sales have exceeded 1 million.

@菠萝吹铁 usually broadcasts live in the dormitory, without advanced lighting equipment or gorgeous scenery. The background is an undecorated but very real men's dormitory scene, and occasionally classmates pass by to chat. The dormitory scene has become a feature in many live broadcast rooms, and it also makes @菠萝吹铁's identity as a college student more obvious. He started to sell goods in April 2023. After returning to school in March this year and starting live broadcasts in the dormitory, the traffic in the live broadcast room has rapidly increased by leaps and bounds. Being a buyer has also become his first job after graduation.

The threshold to become a buyer is not high - only 1,000 followers are needed, but there is still a threshold to become a good buyer.

@合合噠 concluded that the work of a buyer is very complicated. In the early stage, it is necessary to be as meticulous as possible in product selection, and to weigh the price, product fabrics, and upper body matching repeatedly. Hehe噠 will give priority to brands that have been bought before and have guaranteed quality. Then it is necessary to produce live broadcast preview content to attract users to make reservations for live broadcasts. This link tests the ability to create content. On the day of the live broadcast, the expressiveness of the whole person's live broadcast and the consumption of physical energy are even more critical. After-sales service after each live broadcast cannot be ignored. It requires strong emotional management ability and active response to various questions from fans.

There are many similar buyers, with different styles, starting from scratch, and attracting users with real personalities, good aesthetics, and professional ability or experience in specific fields. Such buyers are atypical cases in the traditional live e-commerce ecosystem, but they are typical on Xiaohongshu.

2. What value do buyers with strong connections with users bring to brands?

Xiaohongshu buyers can achieve high GMV with low fans, which is inseparable from the strong sticky relationship between them and users.

The logic of Xiaohongshu e-commerce buyers is to close deals with high-quality content. Users often see the blogger's content first, become interested in the blogger, and then enter the live broadcast room to become consumers. Xiaopang Jingjing believes that this is the "subtlety" between buyers and users. "Users first like you and have some connection with you before they come to buy things."

@Four Kids Group Life Live Room

@合合噠 never regarded her fans as just users or customers. In her opinion, her friends in the live broadcast room are more like a group of "new colleagues". The live broadcast scene is like she shared a beautiful shawl with her "new colleagues", and after the "colleagues" placed an order, they would come back to tell her "the shawl you shared is so comfortable to wear".

Buyers can attract more similar and compatible user groups, and therefore have a deeper insight into user needs, which can help brands focus on very precise user circles, even specific to users who like a certain style or lifestyle.

@合合噠 has the professional label of a teacher, so it attracts many female fans who are also teachers or work in the system. @合合噠 understands their clothing needs very well. Due to their professional attributes, they want to dress "traditionally, decently, and fashionablely", and to achieve a balance between these elements requires dressing skills. This is exactly the differentiated feature of Hehe噠 in sharing outfits. "On the basis of being conservative, we draw on the current dressing inspiration elements to give many working girls some decent, commuting-friendly, and office-friendly outfits."

Xiaohongshu buyers connect users and brand merchants, making both users and brands win-win. For users, buyers deeply understand their needs and recommend products that users really need and like. For brands, buyers can not only help products find the target audience, but also convey the brand's product positioning and product value, and play a more long-term effect.

"I am confident that if I like this style very much, my fans will also like it very much." Fashion buyer @绒耳儿 said. She clearly knows the preferences of fans and can explain the advantages of clothes to fans. "I can definitely explain why it is good, the fabric is good, or it is not easy to have the same style, or it makes girls look elegant, graceful, and show their body proportions after wearing it."

@绒耳儿 was once a big V store owner on Taobao and a Weibo blogger with millions of followers. She has attracted much attention for her colorful fashion outfits. Now she is a top buyer on Xiaohongshu. During the 618 shopping festival, her single live broadcast transaction volume was 24 million, and she sold more than 10,000 dresses in a single broadcast.

Rong Erduo is good at discovering some niche brands and conveying the brand's differences and advantages to users. When it comes to the brand Revestuios, Rong Erduo is familiar with it. "They are very good at using modern tailoring and special fabrics to create some romantic styles. There are many fabrics that are not available on the market, and the colors are very soft."

Rong Erduo connected the brand concept with the user's scenario needs. She said that the pace of life of young people in cities is very fast now, and everyone has no time to travel for a long time, especially in summer, when everyone is eager to go out and play. Therefore, Rong Erduo conveyed the theme of the reve brand to fans, hoping that everyone can enjoy wearing romantic clothes and feel like they are on vacation in the city even if they are in the city.

Buyers who are good at discovering product selling points have enabled users to become aware of many unknown designer brands, original brands, and handmade brands. In addition to niche brands, buyers have also saved some categories from being eliminated through their professional sales capabilities.

Hehe once popularized the "Sugar Triangle" bag that the brand Fooooobag once wanted to abandon. In Hehe's live broadcast room, users saw the practicality and diverse matching of the sugar triangle bag, and the feedback was very good. Driven by Hehe, more buyers also paid attention to this bag, and a product that was almost eliminated was "resurrected".

Many new regional brands also entered the live broadcast room for the first time through the bridge built by buyers.

As a fashion blogger born and raised in Yunnan, He He also shares the lifestyle of eating, wearing and using in Yunnan. Many local Yunnan food brands have gone from the region to the whole country through her live broadcast room.

Pineapple Blowtie went to school in Xinjiang. After tasting the delicious candied fruits, he took the initiative to find the merchants and promoted Xinjiang's local specialties, dried apricots and seedless prunes, allowing more consumers to taste the local delicacies of Xinjiang.

Buyers also have a strong role in promoting new products of emerging and mature brands . Last year, Rong Erduo cooperated with AHHH, a brand that had just been established for less than a year, and sold more than a thousand pieces of a sweater in a single event, successfully helping the brand open the minds of consumers.

Some brands have explored a deeper cooperation model, which uses the feedback collected by buyers from the consumer end to reversely promote new product development and buyer customization.

Hua Zhixiao, a Chinese cosmetics brand, is developing a new concealer for summer, co-creating it with @阿里北杯, a buyer on Xiaohongshu. @阿里北杯 used to be a blogger in the beauty field, and provided the brand with many pain points from frontline users, such as "must be bright, not dry." In order to meet the needs of different skin colors, the two parties spent 3 months and debugged dozens of models before launching the new product. @阿里北杯 sorted out 10 concealer and brightening combination formulas for this purpose.

During the 618 event, Huazhixiao's new concealer was exclusively sold in the live broadcast room of @Alibei Cup. In just 4 hours after the live broadcast, the brand's sales exceeded 3.43 million. This jointly developed new product sold 40,000 units immediately after its debut.

In addition, buyers can become the guides for brands to enter Xiaohongshu for long-term operation. The first shot of a brand entering Xiaohongshu is usually to influence the user's mind with the help of Dabo and pave the way for store broadcast. Many brands quickly connected to store broadcast after cooperating with buyers.

3. Diversified mid-level buyers welcome industry opportunities

Being able to achieve high transactions even with low-fan buyers may be a future trend in the development of live streaming e-commerce.

When the GMV of a single event is no longer the only goal for brands to engage in live e-commerce, low return rate, high repurchase rate and strong interactivity have become more important factors for sustainable operation. The live broadcast room represented by Xiaohongshu buyers has stronger content and cares more about user experience and feedback. It may become a new demand for more merchants in the next period of time.

"Everyone who loves life can become a Xiaohongshu buyer." This was one of the definitions of "buyer" given by Xiaohongshu COO Conan in August last year.

Buyers on Xiaohongshu have multiple identities. They are creators with productive content, bloggers with the ability to sell products, and buyers who know how to screen good products.

Buyers not only play the role of sales experts, but also convey their aesthetics, professional knowledge, and understanding of lifestyle to users through a live broadcast, so that users can not only buy their favorite products, but also obtain more content and long-term emotional value.

As the sales performance of live broadcasts has improved, @合合噠 has higher expectations for the role of live broadcasts. She hopes to provide users with "value beyond aesthetics" through live broadcasts . She believes that not every show can only bring daily outfits that are completely suitable for commuting, and occasionally it is necessary to bring people some richer value.

When sharing a pair of wool slippers, @合合噠 will not only share how to match them, but also tell users that this is the fashion trend of this year. Many big brands only start making wool slippers in autumn and winter, but this brand has been doing it for a long time. @合合噠 wants to convey more in-depth content to users, such as the perception of fashion and the influence of brands on the fashion industry.

When recommending a designer brand that is not well known to the public, @合合噠 does not have utilitarian purposes, "it's not that I must sell a few pieces today, or see how good the sales are", but because the brand has a relatively unique style among contemporary designers, and Hehe噠 wants fans to see what top-notch products are like and what makes them good.

This is a process in which buyers and users learn and grow together, "a feeling of taking everyone to see the world together."

Buyers are not just tools for selling goods. The process of buyers selling goods through live broadcasts is not a pure transaction, but a warmer process.

@菠萝吹铁 believes that he is not simply selling goods. In every live broadcast, he will reserve a part of time to chat with the audience and share recent updates and ideas, such as talking about weight loss progress and when he will graduate, just like chatting with friends.

Before becoming a buyer, He He was actually "very nervous and under a lot of pressure", and his biggest fear was "whether users would accept it". But after six live broadcasts, He He's fans have increased from 100,000 at the first show to 190,000.

Rong Erduoer sees live streaming as a healing process of sharing aesthetics . After becoming a buyer, @Rong Erduoer's account attracted more fans. In her opinion, being a buyer "can magnify oneself." Since becoming a buyer, she has established a deeper and closer relationship with users through consumption, and this relationship is very strong. Every live broadcast can attract new fans who like her style, which is a very positive process.

@绒耳儿小红书主页

Xiaopang Jingjing also doesn't want to be a pure live streaming sales account. She believes that producing good content is an indispensable part of being a Xiaohongshu buyer. "Everyone has feelings and convictions to create content. This is the characteristic of Xiaohongshu buyers."

@合合噠 doesn’t want to limit himself to commercial data. “As long as fans buy good things from me, I think that’s success. I don’t need a data to measure it.”

When live streaming e-commerce enters the stage where the top anchors are demystified and consumers are making more rational decisions, it is the best time for these buyer groups to enter the market.

This is also more beneficial to brand merchants, allowing them to maintain a healthier price system, build a more benign cost structure, and reduce additional operating costs. Although the purchases achieved by selling goods at low prices and shouting can achieve considerable data in the short term, in the long run, it is questionable how much profit more mid-level anchors, brand merchants, and users can actually make.

This means that more mid-level buyers who have basic professional capabilities and personal characteristics in content expression and user relationship maintenance will have new opportunities in the future development of live e-commerce. The situation of achieving low fans and high recommendations in the short term may continue to appear on Xiaohongshu, and will become a new force worthy of attention in the entire live e-commerce market.

Author: Ye Xiaotong

Source: WeChat official account: "Narrowcast (ID: exact-interaction)"