Taking over from Zhang Xiaohui, vertical buyers take up the banner of Xiaohongshu e-commerce

This article deeply analyzes the rise of vertical buyers on the Xiaohongshu e-commerce platform, and how they achieve sales miracles through professional product selection and fan interaction. It guides readers to find out more and hopes that it will help you understand the new trends in e-commerce.

On May 26, Zhang Xiaohui launched her first live broadcast on Taobao, with more than 10 million viewers. A year ago, Zhang Xiaohui launched her first live broadcast on Xiaohongshu, with sales exceeding 50 million.

Five months later, on the eve of the first Double 11 after Xiaohongshu announced its positioning as "the buyer era has arrived", Zhang Xiaohui's second live broadcast sales exceeded 100 million yuan, making her the first anchor on Xiaohongshu to exceed 100 million yuan in a single broadcast. She and Dong Jie have become benchmark cases for Xiaohongshu buyers. Just a few days ago, Zhang Xiaohui's 618 live broadcast sales on Xiaohongshu exceeded 100 million yuan again.

During this 618, Li Jiaqi’s high-profile statement that “products are not easy to sell” attracted a wave of attention from public opinion.

However, while the outside world is focusing on the changes in the major supermarkets, a group of professional buyers who are deeply engaged in vertical categories have quietly emerged on Xiaohongshu. They radiate to the subdivided tracks under different vertical categories. Although their growth backgrounds are different, they are all highly professional and have high fan stickiness. Many of them have the ability to bring goods that cannot be underestimated, such as:

Fashion buyer @短头花 focuses on fast fashion and design brands. The GMV of its first live broadcast reached 7 million, and the GMV of a single live broadcast on Double 11 last year exceeded 33 million. Home buyer @杏杏 has created a mental pallet mainly featuring kitchen cookware, which can greatly drive the sales of small home furnishing products.

When the show started in January this year, the GMV of a single show was 2 million, and in May, the GMV of a single live show reached 7 million. In addition, many vertical buyers, including the beauty buyer @crystal方老板, the mother and baby buyer @西红柿罐頭ChloMato, etc., have submitted beautiful report cards on Xiaohongshu.

In addition to the "super head", vertical category benchmark buyers are also on the table. Why can vertical category buyers with Xiaohongshu's characteristics bring goods, and can they support Xiaohongshu's e-commerce ambitions and aspirations? We talked with benchmark buyers from four different vertical categories and tried to find the answer.

1. Benchmark buyers emerge in vertical tracks

Fashion buyer @short-headed flower:

Research users + adhere to aesthetics to bring stylish products to more fans

“Fashion can have many definitions, but the most important thing is to have your own style.” As a fashion blogger transformed from a fashion blogger editor, @短头花 has accumulated many fans on Xiaohongshu with her distinctive dressing content and practical dressing tips.

In order to do a good job as a fashion blogger, she also pays attention to user feedback to see which categories they prefer and what styles of products they like. All of these lay a solid foundation for her future career as a buyer.

@短头花 Screenshot from Xiaohongshu

Last April, @短头花 tried her first live broadcast and gained 7 million GMV, becoming the amateur buyer with the highest sales volume on the site at that time. Afterwards, she stopped broadcasting for two months because she was not satisfied with the performance of the second live broadcast and rethought the direction of her live broadcast. She finally decided to set up new selection standards and reduce the number of products to select better and more worthwhile products for users.

"Before choosing each product, I will ask myself two questions: first, will I spend money to buy this thing? Second, will I still wear this dress after the live broadcast ends? Only when the answer to these two questions is yes, will I carry this product."

Later, the SKU of @短头花 live broadcast room was reduced from 200 to less than 100, and its products were mostly focused on some designer brands with unique styles. After such adjustments, the sales of its live broadcast room increased instead of decreasing. Last year, it successfully entered the camp of tens of millions of buyers on Double Eleven. In a 618 live broadcast that just ended, the GMV of a single broadcast reached 13 million again.

Beauty buyer @crystal Fang boss:

The unique product pallet of the cinema has increased sales by a hundred times

In 2018, Ms. Fang, who was still a flight attendant, began to share her favorite skin care products with everyone on Xiaohongshu, thus accumulating the first wave of fans of the account. In 2020, she saw the potential of Xiaohongshu as a platform and officially switched to become a full-time blogger.

In June last year, the concept of Xiaohongshu buyers emerged. She thought that its core was very consistent with her original idea of ​​becoming a professional blogger, so she also had the idea of ​​becoming a buyer, hoping to use her advantages to dig out more treasures for fans. However, due to lack of relevant experience, Boss Fang's initial data was not ideal.

In order to break this situation, she quickly adjusted her product selection ideas: avoiding mass products with fierce competition, and instead digging deep into niche clinic skin care products that others cannot see, in order to build the uniqueness and differentiation of her own live broadcast room.

"My skin condition was always very bad before, but it was later improved with the help of hospital products. It is precisely because of this personal experience that I want to recommend these products to more sisters in need and bring changes to them as well." Boss Fang said to Kas.

@crystal方老板 Screenshot of Xiaohongshu

Under the publicity and promotion of @crystal Fang, many excellent theater products have gradually been loved by the majority of fans. In addition, this category is not common in ordinary beauty and skincare live broadcast rooms, so Fang's live broadcast room soon has a group of loyal fans. At the same time, with the continuous accumulation of live broadcast experience and the continuous adjustment of live broadcast skills, Fang's performance in the live broadcast room has become more and more handy. With the blessing of several factors, her sales performance has continued to improve: this year's New Year's Goods Festival, her live broadcast room sales exceeded one million for the first time, and during the 618 period, the live broadcast room GMV exceeded 18 million. Among them, the sales of the five core brands all exceeded 1 million, and the sales of the brand Cible Skin exceeded 2.5 million.

Home buyer @ Almond:

Preheating notes leverage traffic explosion, with a single GMV of nearly 10 million for small kitchen appliances

Before joining Xiaohongshu, @杏 had been working in the home furnishing industry for many years. Because he liked the atmosphere of the Xiaohongshu platform very much, he gradually shifted his work focus in 2020. In January this year, under the strong call of fans, @杏 entered the Xiaohongshu live broadcast room for the first time and achieved a good result of a single-game GMV of over 3 million.

When talking about why the live broadcast room became an instant hit, he and Kas shared two experiences.

One is that he has been rooted in the field of home life for many years. He not only has professional accumulation, but also has enough trust in the hearts of fans. Because he does not want the live broadcast to be separated from the daily content, most of the products in the live broadcast room are small kitchen appliances recommended in past notes, such as multi-function pots, health pots, wall breakers, etc., all of which have been personally tested by him. "Live broadcasting is the least deceptive thing. How much effort you put in will determine the results you get." During the interview, @杏爽了.

The second is to publish a large number of notes before the live broadcast to conduct multi-angle warm-up, so as to boost the explosion of traffic on the day of the live broadcast.

It is understood that before the premiere, @杏 posted dozens of warm-up notes: some focused on planting grass, integrating key broadcast products into daily content; some focused on attitude, sharing their own mental journey and product selection ideas with the audience to enhance user trust; some focused on the mechanism itself to facilitate the audience's purchase on the day. He also specifically mentioned that the first official announcement video can not only attract traffic, but also help the team estimate the product effect, which is particularly important. "I remember that the first official announcement video attracted more than 5,000 people to make reservations, and until the live broadcast began, it was still constantly directing traffic to the live broadcast room." @杏 shared.

Although she has been a buyer for less than half a year, @杏 has grown into the top buyer in the home furnishing category on the platform, with the highest number of viewers and the highest number of simultaneous online users. During the 618 period, the GMV of @杏直播室 in a single live broadcast exceeded 7 million, of which the sales of a single brand exceeded 2 million.

@杏小红书 screenshot

Maternal and infant buyer @Canned tomatoes ChloMato:

Small items accumulate, big items "break through", leading the shopping trend of mother and baby groups on Xiaohongshu

The content concept of "scientific parenting + exquisite motherhood" has attracted a large number of new-age mothers who hold the same ideas as @西红柿罐头ChloMato on Xiaohongshu. They not only like to watch the content they share, but also want to use the same products in the video to give their children a better growth experience, so they often ask for recommendations in the comment area.

Chloe, who noticed the needs of her fans, quickly joined the ranks after the rise of buyer e-commerce and began her live broadcast journey. After becoming a buyer, Chloe shared her parenting philosophy in the live broadcast room while bringing the products that users liked in the video to the live broadcast room.

By sharing these small and beautiful products, she gradually won the trust and reliance of fans in shopping, and stabilized the basic traffic and sales of the live broadcast room. Since then, this trust has gradually expanded to large maternal and child products with high customer unit prices. In her live broadcast room, even expensive products will not be "unpopular", but will be loved by more fans because of their excellent quality.

On May 15, @西红柿罐頭ChloMato cooperated with high-end maternity and baby brand UPPAbaby and conducted her first live broadcast on Xiaohongshu. Since the main product was a baby stroller, the price ranged from thousands to tens of thousands, which was a large item among maternity and baby products, and the brand was not sure whether she could sell well. But after the live broadcast, the cumulative GMV exceeded 3 million, the sales of one single product exceeded 1 million, and the sales of two other single products also exceeded 800,000.

@西红柿罐头ChloMato Screenshot from Xiaohongshu

Now, @西红柿罐头ChloMato’s live broadcast room has become the first choice for sophisticated mothers on Xiaohongshu to buy large maternal and child items. Her personal influence has gradually spread to all categories of maternal and child products, leading the shopping trend of the maternal and child population on Xiaohongshu.

2. Exceeding brand expectations, why can vertical buyers become a new benchmark?

From the above four buyer cases, it is not difficult to see that whether it is @西红柿罐头ChloMato @crystal方老板@短头花 which are in the traditional advantage track of the platform, or @冰淇淋 which has entered the popular home furnishing track in the past two years, they have all successfully completed the transformation from blogger to buyer in a relatively short period of time, and achieved sales results that exceeded brand expectations.

In Kas's opinion, the core reason for such results is that they have extremely strong professionalism and verticality in their respective fields. At the same time, when choosing to become a buyer, they will also recommend and share products based on their professional advantages and from the user's perspective with a serious and responsible attitude.

"The reason why I decided to be a buyer is that I hope to recommend really useful things to my fans. No matter what product I recommend, it must be one that I understand, have used, and really feel is useful." @Crystal Boss Fang said in an interview.

@杏杏 also mentioned in the communication with 卡斯, "The biggest responsibility of a buyer is to help users select truly good products, and use our expertise to help them trial and error, compare prices, and select the products with the best 'quality-price ratio'."

Adhering to this concept, this group of vertical buyers have gained enough positive and negative feedback.

@杏小红书 screenshot

On the one hand, it not only brings in more revenue than brand advertising cooperation, but also gains more recognition and love from users.

@短头花 told Kasi that since she became a buyer, she has not only achieved outstanding sales results, but also increased her number of fans by 330,000 in one year, almost catching up with the total number of fans in the past three years. The core reason for the increase in fans is that she brought users satisfactory products through her live broadcast room.

On the other hand, their strong professional capabilities and ability to sell products have also attracted the attention of more brands.

All four buyers gave feedback to Kas that after becoming buyers, more brands extended olive branches to them, especially when they entered the live broadcast room for "personal experience" and reaped unexpected results, their trust in the buyers became higher and higher.

It is worth mentioning that the rapid growth of these vertical buyers is also inseparable from the attention and support of Xiaohongshu.

During the interview, the four buyers all mentioned the "one-on-one" companionship help provided by Xiaohongshu's operations, saying that they would give detailed suggestions on the construction of the live broadcast room, product selection, strategy, etc., and would also provide them with market data to help them better review. For important live broadcasts, Xiaohongshu would also help buyers contact brands and promote the live broadcast room, etc., and they were very attentive.

3. Vertical buyers support Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce ambitions

At the e-commerce conference at the end of August last year, Xiaohongshu COO Conan announced that the "buyer era has arrived." Regarding buyers, the official statement is: Xiaohongshu buyers have professional knowledge and the ability to deeply understand user needs. They can better convey the value of goods, establish trust with users, and continue to provide services to users. They are the connectors between goods and users.

From a macro perspective, Xiaohongshu's buyer e-commerce model is based on the unique community characteristics from "planting grass" to "pulling grass", creating a closed-loop ecology of "born from content, grown in transactions". For content-driven platforms like Xiaohongshu, this model is undoubtedly more in line with the platform attributes and can better promote e-commerce growth. In order to maximize the uniqueness of this model, the importance of buyers is self-evident.

But the current buyers of Xiaohongshu may never become the next "super buyer". No matter which e-commerce platform, in the early stage of "laying the foundation", it needs some "benchmarks" and "spokespersons" to create momentum and volume for the platform, and Xiaohongshu is no exception. The birth of super buyers such as Zhang Xiaohui and Dong Jie not only successfully raised the volume of Xiaohongshu's buyer e-commerce, but also laid the overall tone of its e-commerce model, bringing confidence to more buyers and brands.

But after the "foundation-laying" stage, compared with these celebrity buyers who already have their own traffic and influence, Xiaohongshu obviously needs buyers who are rooted in the site, in line with the platform's tone, and can meet the diversified consumption needs of users. It is worth mentioning that in 2023, Xiaohongshu has an average of 3 million purchase comments per day and 40 million purchase users per day. In the massive amount of real sharing from users, diversified shopping needs have emerged. The influence and control of vertical buyers who meet diverse needs will obviously continue to deepen.

In fact, from the very beginning, Xiaohongshu's original intention of creating a buyer e-commerce was to encourage every individual in the ecosystem to participate in it and find more possibilities. Xiaohongshu COO Conan once said that buyers, managers, small businesses and other individuals are Xiaohongshu's "most dynamic e-commerce forces", and any ordinary creator who loves life may become a buyer of Xiaohongshu. Among them, like the four vertical buyers mentioned above, vertical buyers who have professional advantages, content capabilities, product selection capabilities, and can accurately meet the personalized needs of users can obviously gain recognition from users and brands faster. They are undoubtedly the core force in Xiaohongshu's buyer ecosystem.

The four buyers mentioned above are just a few of the vertical buyers on Xiaohongshu. In addition to them, there are many vertical buyers who have demonstrated strong sales capabilities. These buyers can not only bring more unexpected surprises to brands, but also make Xiaohongshu's e-commerce ecosystem present a new look beyond imagination in the future.