Xiaohongshu replaces "Zhang Xiaohui" with store broadcast

Can the store broadcast strategy help to gain a head start in the e-commerce competition? This article analyzes how Xiaohongshu strengthens brand cooperation through store broadcasts, and recommends e-commerce industry practitioners and brand merchants to pay attention.

When it comes to live streaming e-commerce, every platform has to make the transition from promoting anchors to promoting store owners. The latecomer Xiaohongshu is no exception. In terms of the layout of store owners’ self-broadcasting, Xiaohongshu has directly accelerated the process, making it the strategic center of this year’s 618.

On the one hand, Xiaohongshu's anchor stories still failed to continuously output target characters to the outside world. In addition, the "No. 1" anchors Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui were distracted one after another. Zhang Xiaohui even directly became the VIP anchor of Taobao Live's 618 this year .

At the same time, the top anchors in the market are also losing momentum. According to FeiGua data, the GMV of the Guangdong couple's first broadcast on 618 was 61.14 million, a year-on-year decrease of 86.4%. Even for the highly anticipated outbreak on May 26, the GMV of the Guangdong couple's live broadcast was 144 million, a decrease of 68% from last year's peak.

In addition, the performance of top anchors such as Qi'er and Pan Yurun has also shrunk compared to last year, which has made the market gradually doubt how strong the driving force of the top anchors' engines can be. The platform naturally needs to re-evaluate... After all, the store broadcast performance has long been the core highlight of the battle report data of various platforms since Double 11 two years ago. Xiaohongshu, which has been struggling to expand the growth of e-commerce merchants, naturally needs to quickly provide merchants with the same equal services as other platforms after shouting out the e-commerce slogan relatively late.

Xiaohongshu’s 618 opening report shows that the number of merchants broadcasting live is 3.8 times that of the same period last year, and the GMV of store broadcasts is 4.2 times that of the same period last year. The official emphasized that "store broadcasts have become the strongest growth engine for merchants."

Last August, Xiaohongshu proposed the concept of "buyer e-commerce" at its first e-commerce partner conference, giving itself a differentiated label. This year, during the 618 shopping festival, Xiaohongshu once again called for store live streaming. How does its core match up with its "buyer" attribute that it has finally called out? When other platforms have already spent nearly two years launching "store live streaming", how can Xiaohongshu catch up and win the trust of various brands to include Xiaohongshu's live streaming in the first camp of live streaming strategies?

How can Xiaohongshu strike back and win the trust of various brands to attract businesses to include Xiaohongshu’s live broadcasting at the top of their live streaming strategy?

1. Holding high the banner of store broadcasting, Xiaohongshu calls for "white label"

There have been signs that Xiaohongshu is working on store live streaming. According to 36Kr, recently, Xiaohongshu's e-commerce buyer operation business has been merged with the merchant operation business to form the e-commerce operation department, which is a secondary e-commerce department. Previously, the buyer operation business and the merchant operation business were scattered in two independent departments. The merger of the two means that Xiaohongshu will form a state of parallel development of buyer live streaming and store live streaming.

Xiaohongshu officially launched a new store broadcast mode during the 618 period, including "Store Broadcast Rank Competition", "Store Broadcast Rising Star Plan", "Super Store Broadcast Day", "Store Broadcast Rebate Coupon", etc., covering top merchants, small and medium-sized merchants and new merchants, and ranking them according to factors such as the transaction amount, number of transactions, and audience stay time in the live broadcast room, and released Xiaohongshu's 618 brand list and store list.

How to play Xiaohongshu's 618 store broadcast

Yiyu Observation found that at 5 pm on June 1, the top of the brand list and store list were "FanBeauty" founded by Fan Bingbing and "Jimo Xingzhinuo Sweatshirt Factory", with popularity values ​​of 310 million and 630 million respectively. The former mainly produces skin care products, while the latter mainly produces outdoor sports and leisure clothing.

In the overall brand list, the top ten brands are mostly concentrated in skin care and beauty products, beauty equipment, etc., while the top ten merchants in the overall store list are mainly white-label products such as shoes and clothing, jewelry, and handmade crafts. The number of people online in the live broadcast room is usually around 10,000. In fact, store broadcasting is not a new thing in the e-commerce field. As early as around 2020, many brands have tried it on a large scale on platforms such as Taobao and Douyin.

Store live broadcasts have also undergone various forms of adjustments, from the initial "customer service live broadcast room", where the host role was similar to that of a salesperson, to gradually evolving into an upgraded form between expert live broadcasts and traditional shelf-style stores . Ultimately, successful store live broadcasts have both the content attributes of expert live broadcasts and the attributes of shelves, customer service, and brands.

At present, the store broadcasting format of mature brands on Xiaohongshu tends to be salesmen and saleswomen introducing products, answering the doubts of the audience in the live broadcast room and promoting products, which has stronger shelf attributes. The store broadcasting of small and medium-sized brands on Xiaohongshu is mostly the live broadcast of the managers, who introduce the products and strengthen the binding connection of personal IP. Compared with the gradually stable brand structure of other e-commerce platforms, the competition pressure for new white-label products to break through the siege is more intense . Therefore, store broadcasting has become one of the fastest ways for small and medium-sized white-label merchants to reach users on Xiaohongshu.

Tech Planet once reported that a false eyelash brand released its first new product note for glue-free eyelashes in September 2023, and started a live broadcast on Xiaohongshu in November of the same year. As of now, it has accumulated 150,000 fans and its monthly sales on Xiaohongshu exceeded one million.

However, some brands have chosen to stay put on Xiaohongshu’s store broadcast. A niche original clothing merchant revealed that she received an invitation to broadcast on the Xiaohongshu platform on the eve of 618, but due to limited energy and lack of manpower, she did not participate in this attempt. She also mentioned that although Xiaohongshu and Taobao both adopted the strategy of 300-50 for 618, Taobao is still the operating focus of clothing merchants, and they may choose to cooperate with buyers and anchors on Xiaohongshu.

2. With Gigi Leung’s departure, how should buyer e-commerce be strengthened?

In addition to the brand list and merchant list, Xiaohongshu also launched the buyer list and the manager list during the 618 period. In the buyer list, Dong Jie ranked first, followed by home blogger "Yike KK" and Zhang Xiaohui.

It is worth mentioning that Zhang Xiaohui launched her first Taobao live broadcast on May 26, but the background was no longer as quiet as Xiaohongshu, but the "Rose 618 Special" with a live broadcast promotion slogan. During the live broadcast, Zhang Xiaohui continued the slow live broadcast style, telling the story of her relationship with the brand. The whole live broadcast lasted 10 and a half hours. The opening and closing hours were introduced by the assistants, and Zhang Xiaohui only broadcast in the middle.

According to media statistics, there were a total of 337 links in Zhang Xiaohui's live broadcast room that night, covering multiple categories such as cosmetics, skin care, hair care, personal care, small household appliances, internal care, 3C digital products, etc. The sales volume of the main products promoted in the live broadcast room was mostly between 1,000 and 2,000 pieces.

These products include the popular La Roche-Posay masks, as well as the high-end Lancôme Absolu Cream and La Mer Essential Water, which are already well-known to a large number of consumers. Veronica Yip's unique taste in niche product selection has not been reflected. At the same time, the promotional prices of these popular products are not uncommon during the 618 shopping festival, and consumers are not only able to place orders through Veronica Yip's live broadcast channel.

After the first live broadcast, Zhang Xiaohui launched her second Taobao live broadcast on May 31, but the number of viewers dropped from over 10 million in the first broadcast to 5.49 million. As of now, Zhang Xiaohui has only 210,000 Taobao fans. Although Zhang Xiaohui's Taobao debut was far less amazing than the original Xiaohongshu, the departure of the top star anchor has undoubtedly sounded the alarm for Xiaohongshu.

However, Xiaohongshu is also obviously developing bloggers on the site to build its own moat. Among the top ten buyers on Xiaohongshu during the 618 shopping festival, four are celebrity buyers, and the rest are Xiaohongshu bloggers, mainly focusing on skin care, home design, and clothing.

Xiaohongshu 618 Buyers Ranking

Due to Xiaohongshu's decentralized content ecosystem, most bloggers focus on a single vertical category. Although there may not necessarily be popular anchors like Li Jiaqi, it also helps Xiaohongshu achieve the effect of checks and balances among multiple parties to a certain extent.

In addition, Xiaohongshu has also launched a 618 buyer competition to support bloggers on the site. The top 15 buyers in each track in the weekly ranking will be divided into different levels according to GMV. Buyers with GMV exceeding 10 million will receive a maximum of 800,000 live broadcast room traffic rewards, 1.5 million preheating note traffic rewards, and 100,000 subsidy coupons. Xiaohongshu's strong content attributes make it easier for blogger buyers to establish a closer sense of trust with fans through personality stories.

For example, during the 618 period, the home blogger "Yi Ke KK" whose performance on Xiaohongshu was second only to Dong Jie, was recognized for sharing her home decoration and became a home buyer. Through live broadcasts and notes, she gradually established a professional and shopping image. In addition to relatively focused professional content, "Yi Ke KK" also shares life experience content such as travel, life fragments, and entrepreneurial experience, creating an image of a 35+ female entrepreneur who gave up her job in the system and pursued self-realization, highlighting the "real sense".

Xiaohongshu home blogger "a KK"

Although the slogan of buyer e-commerce has allowed Xiaohongshu to further find the glue to transform in-site influencers into e-commerce anchors, the anchor wave is receding after all, and after spending so much energy, what is finally found are a group of anchors who can only generate mid-to-low-level GMV. At this time, it is better to invest construction capital in merchants who are more willing to spend money and traffic. Since Xiaohongshu is unable to strengthen buyer e-commerce, quickly improving the position of store broadcasts is a natural solution.

3. Can Xiaohongshu do a good job of store broadcasting?

As the craze for top anchors fades, the development of store broadcasts has almost become an inevitable rule for e-commerce platforms. According to iResearch data, in 2023, the proportion of store broadcasts by brand merchants will be 51.8%, exceeding the proportion of live broadcasts by experts for the first time. Just last year, there were more than 27,000 live broadcast rooms of stores with a turnover of over one million on Taobao Live, and nearly 4,000 with a turnover of over ten million. If we use the market data of Taobao store broadcasts to substitute into the industry perspective, it is not difficult to see the recovery trend of store broadcasts on the brand side.

Image source: iResearch

According to the three elements of live broadcasting, namely people, goods and venue, the “people” needed for Xiaohongshu store live broadcasting can be “salesmen” with a more service-oriented nature, or the managers of small and medium-sized brands can appear directly on the stage;

"Goods" tests the basic capabilities of brand stores. The goal is to fit in with the content ecology of Xiaohongshu. Products with taste and innovation have more room to break through.

The last part is “place”, which focuses on delivering the brand concept and creating a place for interaction between the brand and consumers, rather than a simple selling place.

With these characteristics, Xiaohongshu store broadcasts can keep pace with buyers' live broadcasts and meet brand needs in many aspects. There are many white-label brands in the Xiaohongshu store broadcasts list, which on the one hand provides a breeding ground for the birth of "red brands", and on the other hand reflects the wait-and-see attitude of more mainstream brands.

At present, Xiaohongshu's brand merchant resources are still in the early stage of accumulation. Although there are some niche brands that have unexpectedly become popular, such as the French high-end skincare brand Isenberg, which was popularized by Zhang Xiaohui's live broadcast, at the level of public awareness, the entry and broadcast rate of mainstream brands is still limited. The entry of these brands is the real flex of the platform. Just like in September 2022, Uniqlo began to sell goods on Douyin live broadcasts, which was generally regarded by the industry as Douyin's e-commerce ambition to show in the Tmall clothing field.

However, as competition among e-commerce platforms becomes increasingly fierce and traffic dividends gradually decline, brands also need a new platform like Xiaohongshu to activate the market and bring in more and fresher consumer groups. On the road of store broadcasting, although the mature store broadcasting model of platforms such as Tmall and Douyin can be copied, the operation and service capabilities of the platform are a long-term accumulation process . For Xiaohongshu, which has spent a long time to establish an e-commerce mechanism, it still takes a lot of time to pave the way for store broadcasting.

Author: Houma; Source public account: Yiyuguancha (ID: 1089385)