Store broadcast or data broadcast? Xiaohongshu live e-commerce has a new direction

This article introduces the current status of Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce live streaming, and is recommended for friends who are interested in Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce live streaming.

During the 618 promotion period, Xiaohongshu's live e-commerce business has made a "big move". Recently, it was reported that Xiaohongshu's live e-commerce business has been adjusted again, and the buyer operation and merchant operation businesses have been merged to form the e-commerce operation department, which is a secondary department in the e-commerce field. This is also interpreted as a signal that Xiaohongshu is focusing on store broadcasting.

Why does Xiaohongshu want to develop store broadcasting? Is there any contradiction with the buyer e-commerce proposed earlier? What opportunities does it mean for merchants?

01 New Adjustments to Xiaohongshu’s Live Broadcasting Business

On May 28, according to media reports, Xiaohongshu's buyer operation business and merchant operation business have been merged. The newly established e-commerce operation department will unify the management of buyer operation and merchant operation. The department will be headed by Gintoki, the former head of Xiaohongshu's live broadcast, and report to Xiaohongshu COO Conan.

The core reason behind Xiaohongshu’s decision is: “Xiaohongshu’s path to live streaming e-commerce, which has emerged through live streaming by buyers, has been put on the right track. Now we need to gradually enrich the supply of store live streaming, so that live streaming by buyers and self-streaming by merchants can go hand in hand.”

Therefore, this move was interpreted as Xiaohongshu's efforts in store live broadcasting.

In addition to the adjustment of the organizational structure, Xiaohongshu’s series of actions during the 618 shopping festival this year also show the importance it attaches to store live streaming.

The most obvious one is this year's "618" mid-year promotion event, where Xiaohongshu launched a new store broadcast mode, including "Store Broadcast Rank Competition", "Store Broadcast Rising Star Plan", "Super Store Broadcast Day", "Store Broadcast Rebate Coupons", etc., covering top merchants, small and medium-sized merchants and new merchants, and helping merchants to grow in their operations on the platform in all aspects.

Previously, Xiaohongshu found a suitable track for itself in the red ocean of live streaming e-commerce with its unique style of buyer live streaming. But now it has made the decision to focus on store live streaming. Why is it so?

In fact, this move was not sudden. As early as last August's Link e-commerce partner week, Xiaohongshu announced the three steps of e-commerce operation: create an account and post notes; find buyers and do live broadcasts; do store broadcasts and stabilize operations.

It is a natural thing for Xiaohongshu to focus on store live broadcasts at this time.

On the other hand, store broadcasts have also become a new growth engine for Xiaohongshu’s live e-commerce.

On May 21, Xiaohongshu announced the battle report of the first day of this year's "618" event: the number of store broadcasts on the first day increased by 3.8 times year-on-year, the GMV of store broadcasts increased by 4.2 times year-on-year, and the number of purchasing users in the live broadcast room increased by 7.4 times year-on-year.

So, is it time for Xiaohongshu to do a good job in store broadcasting?

02 Is store broadcasting a new direction for live e-commerce?

Judging from the laws of industry development, developing store broadcasts is a must for every live streaming e-commerce platform.

This year, the top anchors have gradually retreated to the background, and it is not uncommon for their halos to be broken. Corresponding to the fading of the craze for top anchors, the proportion of self-broadcasting by merchants has continued to increase. According to data from iResearch Consulting, 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.

During last year’s Double 11, store live streaming saw an explosion on multiple platforms. Due to its rapid growth momentum, 2023 is also known as the first year of the store live streaming explosion.

Data shows that during the Double 11 period in 2023, Taobao Live and Dabo and Diandong saw a double explosion. During the entire period, there were 89 live broadcast rooms with over 100 million viewership, including 25 from Dabo and 64 from Diandong; 834 live broadcast rooms with over 10 million viewership, including 159 from Dabo and 675 from Diandong.

Store live streaming has become an accelerator for brand business explosion, and has also become the key direction that major platforms are betting on.

In addition, for Xiaohongshu, what is proposed is "buyer e-commerce". Buyers are usually individuals with certain influence and professional knowledge, but it may also mean a long period of time to create an account.

When Xiaohongshu's buyer e-commerce was proposed, industry insiders and Xinbochang asked a question: "Where can Xiaohongshu find so many anchors with niche tastes who can bring goods at the tens of millions level?"

Moreover, Xiaohongshu’s current top anchors include Zhang Xiaohui, Dong Jie, Wu Xin, etc. Other buyer anchors not only fail to reach their level of fame and influence, but it is also difficult for them to develop a unique style of selling products like them.

Compared with buyer live streaming, store live streaming can bring relatively stable GMV to the brand. Relying on the brand’s own strong supply chain, it can not only ensure the stability of product quality, but also ensure a good service experience from sales to after-sales, thereby reducing the brand’s cost investment.

Store broadcasting can become an important part of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce ecosystem, complementing buyer live broadcasting. Through store broadcasting, merchants can better accumulate brand value and drive sustainable weeding. At the same time, they can connect front-end brand communication and product sales with back-end member acquisition, customer base maintenance, customer service communication and other links, accumulating highly loyal fans and highly accurate traffic.

"As long as you have the basic conditions such as good product quality, strong brand heritage, and accurate consumer groups, it is better to do it yourself." After seeing the decision made by Xiaohongshu on the development direction of live streaming, many merchants who do live streaming also revealed their ideas to Xinbochang.

Judydoll flagship store is a good example. According to data from Youmi Cloud, Judydoll flagship store has 446,300 fans on Xiaohongshu. In the past month, the store's new sales volume on Xiaohongshu was between 100,000 and 250,000, and the new sales revenue was between 7.5 million and 10 million yuan.

There are also some merchants who have encountered bottlenecks on traditional e-commerce platforms. Seeing Xiaohongshu’s recent support for store broadcasts, they have also decided to join Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce and leverage Xiaohongshu’s differentiated content to find new growth points for their stores.

03 How to do store broadcast on Xiaohongshu?

How should Xiaohongshu’s store broadcast be carried out and in which direction will it develop in the future?

A person who participated in Xiaohongshu’s recent store broadcast research gave his own answer: “The merchant’s live broadcast room should not be a single store, but should patiently explain, provide good service, interact with users and provide a rich variety of goods, so that users can feel like they are shopping in offline stores when watching the store broadcast.”

This can also be seen from the store best-selling list of Xiaohongshu, which shows the uniqueness of Xiaohongshu’s store broadcast.

According to data from Youmiyoushu, in the past month, in addition to brand flagship stores such as Dilanko, Rudai, and Q21, the top ten stores on Xiaohongshu's best-selling list also include stores opened by personal bloggers such as Wang Mumu and LAO BAN ZHOU.

Take LAO BAN ZHOU as an example. The owner of the store is a fashion blogger with 219,000 followers. She posts videos of her outfits to attract customers. Above these videos, there are live broadcast previews to guide users to make reservations for the live broadcasts and eventually lead them to the store to make purchases.

Brands that grow out of the Xiaohongshu ecosystem are the uniqueness of Xiaohongshu store broadcasts.

Such individual merchants with distinctive personalities and high-quality content can also have in-depth interactions with users.

This also happens to fit the community ecology of Xiaohongshu. Xiaohongshu has a large proportion of female users, mostly young women in first- and second-tier cities, who like to pursue fashion trends and personalized consumption, pursue a refined and high-quality life, are willing to invest in the quality of life, and are happy to share their favorite things on the platform.

After watching several live broadcasts of merchants on Xiaohongshu, Xinbochang also found that the pace of Xiaohongshu's live broadcasts is slower than other platforms. Merchants do not quickly change products, but focus on explaining the highlights of the products, pay attention to the barrage of comments, and interact with users in the live broadcast room in a timely manner.

However, some merchants on Xiaohongshu complained that "Xiaohongshu's live broadcast is really difficult to do" and said that there is no traffic. In this way, novice merchants may need to continue to explore the gameplay of Xiaohongshu's live broadcast e-commerce.

How can new merchants quickly break through? There seems to be no clear methodology at present.

With Xiaohongshu entering the store broadcasting market, it is bound to be a good signal for merchants. Especially when the bonus period of other platforms fades, traffic becomes more and more expensive, and competition becomes more and more fierce, merchants need to find new traffic depressions and development opportunities.

Author: Changmei; Source public account: Xinbochang (ID: 1093973)