It’s time for Xiaohongshu to focus on store broadcasting

This article deeply analyzes Xiaohongshu's new trends in the field of e-commerce live streaming, especially its strategic layout and development potential in store broadcasting. The article explores the complementarity between store broadcasting and data broadcasting, and how Xiaohongshu can use the advantages of its content community to create a unique e-commerce live streaming ecosystem. After reading this article, you will understand how Xiaohongshu is developing store broadcasting to provide new growth opportunities for merchants and brands. I hope it will be inspiring for your e-commerce operations.

During this year’s 618 mid-year e-commerce promotion, two hot topics emerged in the field of live streaming: the disappearance of the magic of super anchors and heavy investment in store live streaming.

Someone counted the movements of super anchors on multiple platforms during the 618 shopping event this year and found that many super anchors, such as Crazy Little Yang, were either absent or failed to attract much attention. Li Jiaqi recently said, "Is this year's 618 shopping event difficult? I think it is difficult." The topic of super anchors is not new. From the perspective of the development of the entire live e-commerce industry, the efforts of store broadcasts on major platforms are actually more worthy of attention.

According to 36Kr, Xiaohongshu's e-commerce buyer operation business has recently been merged with its merchant operation business to form an e-commerce operation department, whose core is to "enrich the supply of store live broadcasts and form a state of parallel development of buyer live broadcasts and store live broadcasts."

Data released by Taobao Live showed that in the first four hours of 618, 67 store live broadcast rooms had transactions exceeding 10 million, and Xiaomi's official flagship store became the first store live broadcast room to exceed 100 million.

The 618 opening battle report released by Xiaohongshu 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. "Store broadcasts have become the strongest growth engine for merchants."

At the beginning of live streaming, Dabo and Dianbo already coexisted. As the lively live streaming e-commerce industry has developed to this day, merchants and platforms have realized that the two live streaming methods are compatible and complementary. Only by using them in combination can the maximum value be achieved.

In the past two or three years, major Internet content and e-commerce platforms have increased their support for store broadcasts and guided merchants to participate in them. The proportion of store broadcasts in the live broadcasting market has continued to increase. As early as 2020, Taobao Live announced that the ratio of store broadcasts to live broadcasts had reached 1:1; in 2021, the proportion of store broadcasts further increased to 70%. Douyin store broadcasts are also developing rapidly. Huxiu quoted an insider as saying that in 2022, the proportion of Douyin merchants' store broadcasts was close to 55%. It is not difficult to see that store broadcasts have become a recognized development direction of the live broadcasting industry.

However, there is no standard answer to how store broadcasts should be conducted.

All major platforms are actively exploring and trying to find a development path that suits themselves, providing merchants with store broadcast methodology, so that they can be the first to get a ticket to the second half of live streaming sales.

In this exam that must be taken, Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao, which started earlier, and new forces such as Xiaohongshu and Video Account, are all on the same starting line.

01

The proportion of Dianbo in the live broadcast e-commerce market has surpassed Dabo, indicating that the entire live broadcast industry has entered the second half. The rise of live broadcast with goods was marked by the birth of Taobao Live in 2016, which is also known as the "first year of live broadcast with goods". In the early days of the industry, top anchors such as Li Jiaqi, Wei Ya, and Simba were very popular. A single live broadcast room could achieve hundreds of billions of yuan in sales each year, and the power of bringing goods was staggering. However, while Dabo on various platforms was booming, Dianbo was also developing at a high speed, with the number of merchants broadcasting, the number of orders, and the transaction volume continuing to rise. Especially in the past two or three years, major platforms have increased their support for Dianbo, and the scale of merchants has been further improved, which eventually allowed Dianbo to surpass Dabo, and the pattern of the live broadcast industry has undergone fundamental changes.

Despite having top live streamers such as Li Jiaqi, Taobao has been focusing on store live streaming in recent years, and last year's Double 11 even more so. On Double 11 in 2023, among the live streaming rooms with Taobao Live's GMV exceeding 100 million on the first day, store live streaming accounted for more than 70%.

But this does not mean that major platforms intend to replace Dabo with Dianbo. Dianbo and Dabo are not two sides of the same coin.

The core logic is that the two live broadcast formats, store broadcast and data broadcast, have their own strengths and can meet the different needs of merchants and consumers. In a complete live broadcast e-commerce ecosystem, both are indispensable.

The strength of Dabo is that it helps merchants create hit products and quickly achieve sales explosion by leveraging the huge traffic of influencers. The live broadcast rooms of top anchors such as Li Jiaqi are often sold out in seconds, and one live broadcast can even equal a merchant's monthly sales.

In addition, being able to appear in the live broadcast room of the top anchors can quickly increase the popularity of participating brands. Words such as "Recommended by Li Jiaqi" and "Recommended by Dong Yuhui" are undoubtedly more attractive and trustworthy. Over the past year or so, in Dong Jie's Xiaohongshu live broadcast room, many niche brands have also broken through the circle. In contrast , store broadcasts are more suitable as a stage for merchants' daily and long-term operations. The intensive exposure brought by Dabo gives merchants sales opportunities; correspondingly, merchants also need to continue to provide more abundant supplies to catch the "overwhelming traffic."

Through store broadcasts, merchants can more proactively engage with potential consumers and introduce more SKUs; they can also guide them into private domains to cultivate the soil for mid- and long-term operations, sales, and repeat purchases.

All of this is happening based on a core change - e-commerce merchants want sales, profits, and brand, and the era when sales were the only priority is gone.

In the past few years, the new traffic dividend has spawned a group of merchants with hot products but no brand. The sales figures seem to be very good, but after deducting the live broadcast room streaming fees and operating costs, they become the losers. In the end, consumers don’t even remember their own brands, let alone repurchase.

This situation also exists for mature brands. The solutions of merchants are gradually becoming consistent - continue to cooperate with anchors to achieve explosive sales and brand expansion; open store broadcasts, and through long-term store broadcasts, more calmly introduce concepts, convey cognition, and promote products to users from the broadcast scene, while promoting more SKU sales, accumulating starch and word of mouth.

Developing store broadcasting and keeping pace with Dabo is becoming a common choice for brand merchants.

During the 618 period, Xiaohongshu not only promoted store broadcasting, but also provided a lot of support and incentives to buyers. The platform launched two major gameplays: buyer competition and sprint competition. Buyers can get rewards after achieving goals such as GMV and cumulative broadcast time.

Judging from the published data, these measures have achieved good results. After the promotion started, the transaction amount of Zhang Xiaohui's single live broadcast exceeded 100 million yuan again.

The simultaneous efforts in store broadcasting and data broadcasting are aimed at making the two forms of live broadcasting walk on two legs, or in other words, dual-wheel drive.

02

Whether it is the huge Taobao, Douyin, Kuaishou, or the new forces such as Xiaohongshu and Video Account, they are all moving towards the direction of "Dabo + Store Broadcast". Among all the platforms, Xiaohongshu is the one that has invested heavily in store broadcast during 618 this year. This is somewhat unexpected, and some people even think that it is too early for Xiaohongshu, an e-commerce company that has just gained popularity through buyers, to develop store broadcast now.

In the view of Alphabet List (ID: wujicaijing), judging from the development rhythm of the live streaming e-commerce business, Xiaohongshu has reached the time point to focus on store broadcasting.

Back to the end of February 2023, Dong Jie, whose single-game sales exceeded 30 million yuan, became the top anchor discussed by the entire network. Xiaohongshu e-commerce also attracted attention. Soon after, Zhang Xiaohui's Xiaohongshu live broadcast room became popular.

Dong and Zhang were widely discussed, not only because of their single-game sales, but more because of the style of Xiaohongshu e-commerce anchors they demonstrated, with their stories told in a fluent and graceful manner, exquisite painting style, and unique product selection.

In August 2023, Xiaohongshu e-commerce made its first overall public statement to the outside world. At the conference, it proposed that "the buyer era has arrived". The concept of buyers began to be widely recognized, and the outside world also saw Xiaohongshu's determination and attitude to be a serious e-commerce company. During the Double Eleven period, the reporter's transformed home buyer "Yike KK" accumulated more than 100 million yuan, and at the same time, many buyers with tens of millions of yuan were born, proving that Xiaohongshu's buyer live broadcast has indeed formed a mindset.

This has created conditions for Xiaohongshu e-commerce to invest heavily in store broadcasting this year. Another opportunity is that a large number of e-commerce merchants are entering Xiaohongshu. At the end of 2023, a judgment was widely circulated among merchants, "The most worthwhile e-commerce platforms to invest in in 2024 are Video Account and Xiaohongshu."

According to 36Kr, in the past year, the number of new merchants in Xiaohongshu's two important e-commerce industries, fashion trends and home furnishings, increased by more than 6 times and 4 times year-on-year in 2023 respectively.

The influx of merchants means that there will be a huge demand for store broadcasting. At the same time, perfecting and mature store broadcasting products and tool methodologies is also the key to attracting more merchants to join.

03

Previously, store broadcasts always tended to imitate Dabo. On the contrary, Xiaohongshu, which started later, has many new ideas for store broadcasts. Zizibang learned that a niche porcelain brand previously opened a matrix account on Xiaohongshu and accumulated more than 30,000 loyal fans by publishing graphic notes, short videos, etc. After entering the live broadcast, the monthly sales exceeded one million, and the target exceeded 5 million. This merchant will add a group chat component to each hot note, guide users to join the group, and share the live broadcast room link in the group chat, driving users to interact with the live broadcast and complete sales conversion.

A certain false eyelash merchant has about 150,000 fans on Xiaohongshu. In the live broadcast room, the host will help the audience step by step to choose the products that are suitable for them. Some users call it "neighbor sister-style live broadcast". The monthly sales now exceed one million yuan.

What will Xiaohongshu's store broadcasts look like? The platform seems to have not yet given a description. However, a recent report by 36Kr quoted a person who participated in the recent Xiaohongshu e-commerce store broadcast research as saying, "The merchant's live broadcast room should not be a single store, but should be patiently explained, provide good service, interact with users, and have a rich variety of goods, so that users can feel like they are shopping in offline stores when watching store broadcasts."

The reason for this is that Xiaohongshu is based on a content community, which is also the foundation of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce. Thanks to the deep integration of e-commerce and community, merchants, whether doing Dabo or store broadcast, have the opportunity to increase sales while accumulating high-quality content and accumulating loyal fans, and through continuous operation of private domains, increase repurchase rates, shape brand awareness and loyalty. Xiaohongshu users prefer high-quality content based on real experience, and do not like simple shouting and selling, which provides soil for the store broadcast version of "Live Broadcasting".

At the same time, Xiaohongshu users have a stronger willingness and ability to pay, and merchants can leverage a larger GMV with a smaller number of fans, so that the focus of store broadcasts is no longer just on traffic and conversion, but on serving core users well and achieving sales and profits over a longer period of time.

This is what Xiaohongshu's store broadcast is worth looking forward to. If Xiaohongshu's store broadcast develops its own characteristics, it will also provide an answer to the industry's difficult question of "how to do store broadcasting".