Ten thousand words analysis: How does the fashion industry tap into new traffic on Xiaohongshu?

The fashion industry is increasing its publicity efforts on Xiaohongshu. Let's take a look at how the fashion industry is tapping into new growth on Xiaohongshu~

Growth Black Box tracks and studies trends in the consumer industry every month, attempting to uncover more growth opportunities for brands.

Judging from this year’s Double Eleven, the overall consumer enthusiasm in the market is not that high: the total online sales reached 1,138.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of only 2.1%, of which the year-on-year changes were -1.1% for traditional e-commerce (923.5 billion yuan), +18.6% for live streaming e-commerce (215.1 billion yuan), +8.3% for new retail (23.6 billion yuan), and -8.1% for community group buying[1]. It seems that all brands are having a hard time, and they still have to rely on the channel adjustment of live streaming e-commerce to gain more growth.

However, when we further break down the data, we find that some categories still have bright spots of "counter-trend growth": from the perspective of Tmall, the main e-commerce platform, the long-term performance of trendy fashion-related categories has exceeded the market average, and many brands have achieved ideal results this year. In addition, from the perspective of the top 20 subcategories of Douyin e-commerce, jade jewelry, outdoor clothing, suits and other related categories have also seen relatively obvious growth.

Why is this trend occurring?

In April this year, Lu Xiuqiong, global expert partner of Bain & Company and former CMO of Coca-Cola, shared a latest study in the live broadcast of Growth Black Box: in trendy and fashion-related categories such as women's clothing, jewelry, and cultural and creative products, consumers are more willing to pay a high premium to satisfy their pursuit of lifestyle. This may mean that consumption upgrading is still continuing in the trendy and fashion industry, and consumers' yearning for a better life is more strongly reflected in the purchasing power of trendy and fashion products.

After seeing the growth potential, it is necessary for us to conduct in-depth research on the growth strategies of the trend fashion industry (men's and women's clothing, sportswear, outdoor clothing, footwear, jewelry, etc.), to see how fashion brands can seize consumers' demand for "quality upgrade" and from which dimensions to find new growth.

Based on recent research, Growth Black Box has identified growth opportunities on Xiaohongshu - a community with 260 million MAUs and 120 million people seeking purchase advice every month, it should not be ignored by brands.

1. What is the relationship between the global new volume and Xiaohongshu?

The importance of Double 11 to trendy fashion brands is self-evident. According to the research of Growth Black Box, an average of 13-16% of the annual transaction volume of mainstream fashion categories comes from the Double 11 promotion period, which is higher than the average of 12% of the market. The two promotions of 618 and Double 11 alone can account for 25-30% of the annual GMV of fashion brands. Therefore, trendy fashion brands attach great importance to the exploration of new growth in the whole region during Double 11.

So, where should we expand the new volume?

The answer lies in the decision-making behavior of consumers. Let’s take the main customer groups of the fashion industry: Generation Z (people under 30 years old) and new white-collar workers (25-34 years old, white-collar workers in third-tier cities and above) as examples.

CTR studied the behavioral data of the above two groups during the Double 11 shopping festival this year. The results showed that a relatively high proportion of them would switch to Xiaohongshu before and after using the Taobao app. This shows that in the trendy fashion industry, Xiaohongshu has become a key node for consumer decision-making. Today's consumers not only want to "shop around" on the shelves, but also want to see the real evaluation and feedback brought by "planting grass".

Recently, we also found an interesting data comparison: from the public's point of view, their enthusiasm for Double Eleven has dropped sharply, and users have said that they have "no money" and "no fun". However, from the perspective of young people, consumption willingness has not been greatly affected.

This does not mean that young people are richer than the general public, but that young people generally become strategy experts during Double Eleven, shop rationally, and can calmly choose between "quality upgrade" and "cost-effectiveness". Therefore, everyone is not opposed to Double Eleven, and they can always buy what they really need after making a strategy. According to a survey by Soul app, 43.4% of young people will sort out their needs in advance and make a product strategy - "searching with a clear purpose and placing an order after selecting products" is the main form of consumer participation in Double Eleven in 2023. Since you have to make a strategy, Xiaohongshu naturally becomes a necessary "encyclopedia".

Because of this, more fashion brands choose to invest marketing resources in Xiaohongshu. We also observed that among many channels, Xiaohongshu has become the focus of brand efforts, and various data performances are relatively outstanding. Moreover, brand investment is not limited to this year's Double Eleven period, and has shown an upward trend over the past year.

The final performance also shows that Xiaohongshu has indeed made a breakthrough in commercialization during this year's Double Eleven battle: the "buyer e-commerce" model has begun to show results, with users' shopping interest driven by "real content sharing" rather than price involution; a closed loop of transactions is formed within the site, and brands do not need to worry about losses caused by jumping between apps.

The incentives of tens of billions of traffic exposure, the preferential subsidies of hundreds of millions of platforms, and the resources of thousands of buyers have boosted the motivation of merchants to settle in. In various trading venues such as buyer live broadcasts, store live broadcasts, and product notes, a number of brands and stores have grown more than 10 times. Data shows [1]:

• In terms of buyer resources, the number of buyers broadcasting on the Xiaohongshu platform is 3.3 times that of the same period last year, and the GMV of buyers' live broadcasts is 3.5 times that of last year.
• In the e-commerce closed loop, the number of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce orders was 3.8 times that of the same period last year, the number of participating merchants was 4.1 times that of the same period last year, the GMV of the live broadcast room was 4.2 times that of the same period last year, and the GMV of product notes was 3.6 times that of the same period last year.

2. How do you view the incremental space for brands on Xiaohongshu?

In fact, behind the glamorous numbers, trendy fashion brands should see the underlying value growth of Xiaohongshu: the idea that "everything can be promoted on Xiaohongshu" has become more and more mature.

Xiaohongshu is not limited to being “small and beautiful”, it is also a digital marketing channel with strong penetration among the crowd and brand universality - the upper limit of brands’ ability to break through the circle on Xiaohongshu is getting higher and higher.

The reason is that Xiaohongshu's grass-planting strategy is no longer limited to specific single products, categories and other standard products, nor is it just based on SPU to promote large single products; it may also extend to the planting of a style, a scene or even a material, etc. At the same time, the product life cycle can be used as a basis for product analysis, and suitable marketing points for products in different cycles can be found. The "crowd reverse funnel model" is integrated to form an overall grass-planting solution, gradually realizing the breakthrough from niche to mass.

This also reflects Xiaohongshu's unique atmosphere of planting grass and high-quality content supply. As a community formed based on user interest interaction, Xiaohongshu currently covers fashion, beauty, food, life records, travel, trends, humanities and other fields, involving all aspects of life.

Moreover, 70% of the community users are born after 1990. They love to try, innovate and share. Among the wider social population, these users are more appealing and trend-driven. This also leads to the emergence of new trends in the community. In recent years, popular frisbee, camping, citywalk, early C and late A all originated from the Xiaohongshu community. It can be seen that the amount of content in various life fields has exploded, and the number of fashion bloggers has also increased by 163%.

The research of Growth Black Box shows that the fashion industry has made many outstanding cases on Xiaohongshu during the Double 11 period. For example, more mature categories and single products are popular:

Emerging strategies such as seeding based on scenarios, styles, and trends have also achieved results:

So, what is the path for brands to “break the ceiling” on Xiaohongshu?

We must first look at the commonalities and concerns of the fashion industry. In the past few months, Growth Black Box has conducted business exchanges with a large number of executives in the fashion industry and found that:

From a strategic perspective, the industry generally faces three major pressures: reducing inventory-to-sales ratio, increasing discount rates, and increasing customer lifetime value.

In terms of tactics, brands tend to make more innovations and changes in front-end marketing and operations to meet challenges.

The solution provided by Xiaohongshu just conforms to the trend of brands seeking innovation and change in marketing: based on the unique logic of the "crowd reverse funnel model", it constructs a marketing strategy combination of global value spillover + self-closed loop within the site, thus bringing new performance growth.

This provides trendy fashion brands with new opportunities to resolve the three major business challenges, and Xiaohongshu has thus become a strategic focus for many brands.

3. What are the two major cognitive misunderstandings of the population reverse funnel model?

Since we have mentioned the most unique logic of Xiaohongshu, you must have seen the picture below many times, and you can easily find a lot of interpretations on the Internet. However, we believe that many people have two major misunderstandings about this "unique logic".

Myth 1: The “crowd anti-funnel model” is a linear execution process

The logic is not to invest in a small group of people and then immediately look-alike a larger group of people to invest in. Otherwise, how is this different from the so-called positive funnel?

We believe that it is more like a tree-like decision path. Brands should dynamically optimize at key nodes based on user data feedback to shorten the distance between them and users as much as possible. Only in this way can they have a chance to truly hit the user's pain points and trigger UGC word-of-mouth.

It is the users who push the brand to reach a larger audience, not the other way around.

First, use data to lock in the most relevant core group of people, fully understand their needs and pain points, and conduct small-scale seeding to see if they can buy in the product selling points and communication strategies, and whether the new product is heading in the right direction.

If the buy-in is successful, on the one hand, the product can be verified successfully, and investment can be increased, and a combination of marketing solutions can be used to quickly penetrate this core group, achieving the break-even point while occupying a competitive advantage in the track; on the other hand, these users generate a large amount of UGC, which accumulates word-of-mouth assets for the brand, which is more conducive to breaking the circle in the next step.

If there is no buy-in, the brand can recalibrate its product selling points and communication strategies based on user feedback data and return to the first step to continue verification.

When the first core group is covered, you can go back to the first step and start penetrating the second wider group.

When the second group of people is covered, we can then penetrate the third, even wider group of people...

Our case studies show that this diffusion can reach more than 4 levels, and different SPUs can also penetrate different crowds. For every brand that wants to successfully promote products, the four key words "crowd, scene, trend, and track" should be focused on.

Myth 2: The “crowd reverse funnel model” only applies to new products

Although the name is "crowd reverse funnel model", it cannot be understood only from the perspective of "crowd". Xiaohongshu seeding is not equal to creating a hit product, and its scope of application is not limited to the GTM of new brands and new products.

Xiaohongshu CMO Zhiheng once publicly stated: As long as the product promotion is done well, most brands can achieve global growth in the back-end link of marketing, whether it is online e-commerce or offline channels. The challenge facing brands is that if the "product" is not good enough and encounters negative user feedback, users may be discouraged after searching on Xiaohongshu. Therefore, the product must first be good enough, and the product promotion must also be done well.

Therefore, our research found that there is a "product" logic line above the "crowd": Xiaohongshu divides the product life cycle into four stages, which not only have their own goals and strategies, but also deeply integrate with product iteration and innovation, solving product strength problems while planting grass. In different stages, the "crowd anti-funnel model" should be substituted into it to form a solution that matches the needs of the customer.

Therefore, not every product has to start from scratch, nor does it have to cover all stages. Brands can use this logic to penetrate only one core group and stop, or they can penetrate five groups at once - this is determined by the current product life cycle and business goals.

It is the product life cycle that determines the strategy of planting grass, not the other way around.

But no matter which stage, the starting point is the insight into user needs. Xiaohongshu's "Lingxi" platform has played an important role - it precipitates the competitive landscape of brands in various tracks, user discussions, and preferred keywords, and can also be directly linked to the content of user-generated notes to gain insight into users' real needs.

Conventional product insight methods have four obvious flaws: high cost, limited sample size, long cycle, and narrow information dimension. High-value consumers on Xiaohongshu are strict, have a certain tone, and love to share their experience. They have the potential to become a unique information source for corporate VOC (voice of customers) and a unique sample library for market research.

In summary, only by combining the two dimensions of "crowd" and "product" can the differentiated value of the "crowd anti-funnel model" be truly reflected:

N SPUs penetrate N groups of people: The upper limit is further expanded, and multiple SPUs can run through exclusive paths and overlap with multiple scenarios. Instead of a single hot product logic

Implement the “small steps, fast progress” model: use a smaller budget to make attempts, quickly verify the market strategy, and then increase investment to break the circle after success, rather than using the idea of ​​mass marketing, spending a few million first and then seeing how big a splash it makes.

Highlight the community atmosphere of "ordinary people helping ordinary people": consumers are no longer numbers in the background of advertisements, but real people. Brands respect the process of users' self-decision-making more - by providing rich reference content and real experience of buyers, users will generate their own desire to buy and convert. Finally, users will share the purchased products and usage experience, forming new reference content, and promoting the entry and conversion of more people.

IV. Five examples of closed-loop promotion of trendy fashion brands

No matter how the model is planned, it must ultimately lead to performance growth. So in the process of planting grass along the "crowd reverse funnel model", what specific actions should brands in different life cycles take to achieve conversion goals?

This depends on the closed loop of Xiaohongshu's global content promotion: the most common path is value spillover, that is, through Xiaohongshu content promotion, the interested groups are guided to external e-commerce channels for conversion; while the self-closed loop can directly convert the interested groups within the site through Xiaohongshu's gradually mature mall and live broadcast system. According to the needs of different life cycle stages, the two can be closed independently or combined and complemented.

Some brands actually still have an outdated idea: "To promote products on Xiaohongshu, you need to first promote 5,000 KOLs/KOCs." This basic approach is not wrong, but it cannot be compared with the efficiency of the early bonus period. For the fashion industry, Xiaohongshu's promotion system is now more systematic and refined. For example, we have conducted in-depth research on the most representative KFS model, and we can see that these operating methods are actually higher than the original threshold. The simple and crude method of increasing volume has gradually transformed into a more scientific long-term business.

As for the building of brand potential that is essential for the trendy fashion industry, Xiaohongshu also provides solutions for fashion shows, trendy exhibitions, and brand events: the rich IP resources on the site can help brands communicate deeply with consumers and convey brand value through screen-sweeping brand events.

Next, we will further analyze the five benchmark cases mentioned at the beginning: based on different types of grass-planting, how to use the "crowd anti-funnel model" to plan a path to break the circle, and implement a full-area grass-planting strategy based on value spillover + self-closed loop within the site, and finally seize new growth on Xiaohongshu.

1. Scene seeding type

(1) Li Ning hot pot down jacket breaks the circle through differentiated marketing

background:

In recent years, Li Ning has been working hard on the "national trend" and has set its sights on the sports fashion field. Although it has created many successful products, the down jacket category faces a problem during the autumn and winter seasons: the category is relatively traditional, the market competition is fierce, and the product mind of the old giants is stronger. If a new product is launched without a unique selling point, it will naturally not have an impact on the consumer mind - finding a differentiated marketing method for new products has become the focus of the GTM stage.

Opportunity Insights:

Li Ning has a keen insight into the data trend of Xiaohongshu users: when the seasons change, not only do users’ dressing habits change, but other life scenes also change. For example, the popularity of hot pot has soared by nearly 2 times before Double Eleven. The mentality of hot pot is not only related to the feeling of physical warmth, but also reflects the emotional "warmth" when friends get together. So why not combine the warmth and splash-proof features of the new down jacket with the hot pot scene? Wouldn't this further expand the audience?

Growth Path:

Therefore, Li Ning not only gave the product the nickname "hot pot down jacket", but also launched the slogan "wear hot pot when it's cold"; at the same time, the properties of keeping warm and easy to care for are also linked to "not being afraid of getting stained by hot pot oil".

However, if you want to convey the unique selling point to consumers and generate associated memories of hot pot scenes, it is useless to just shout slogans. Therefore, the new product has a diversified scene design. As can be seen in the figure below, the "hot pot scene" is not as monotonous as sitting at the table to eat, but is composed of a series of diversified combinations such as "hot pot + camping scene" and "hot pot + sports scene". We used OpenAI to perform image analysis and found that in the notes of these bloggers, without exception, they would wear new down jackets and hot pot bodies at the same time. This constitutes the visual formula of "XX hot pot scene as background + hot pot body + hot pot down jacket entity + character".

On the other hand, in order to gain popularity, the Li Ning hot pot down jacket series has also launched a diversified matrix of SPUs and colors equipped with different technological functions, and has cooperated with bloggers of various types. The note types also cover the two major mainstreams of scene wear and product evaluation.

After the hot pot down jackets were initially recognized by users, Li Ning began to penetrate the general population. This was mainly due to the search and follow-up capabilities of Xiaohongshu: first, Li Ning brand keywords and crowd packages were used to further penetrate the core population, and then users who searched, read, and interacted with the down jacket category were allowed to see the hot pot down jacket related notes. After that, the content was pushed to users who were interested in autumn and winter fashion. In the end, the hot pot down jackets successfully broke through the circle and appeared in front of a wider range of hot pot lovers.

Judging from the data of seeding, the popularity of related topics and keywords exploded during the Double 11 period. If we analyze the keywords of all the content of Li Ning on Xiaohongshu, we can find that half a year ago, it was mainly brand words + general category words, but during the Double 11 period, it turned into brand words + hot pot down jacket related words (Xiao Zhan is the spokesperson).

This shows that the logic of "crowd anti-funnel" has successfully driven a large number of UGCs from the general population, which has greatly increased the discussion of the new product on Xiaohongshu. In the end, Li Ning's new hot pot down jacket achieved very impressive results: during the Double Eleven period, the Tmall search index increased by more than 35 times month-on-month, sales exceeded 100 million, and sales exceeded 300,000 pieces.

(2) HOKA's new hiking shoes hit the precise scene

background:

As an outdoor sports rookie founded in 2009, HOKA's revenue in fiscal year 2023 has reached 1.41 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 58.5%, and has achieved a 50% revenue growth for four consecutive years. Although HOKA started with professional sports people such as cross-country running elites, it has gradually expanded to ordinary people and broken the boundaries between fashion and sports.

We found that since HOKA began to exert its strength in the Chinese market in 2021, it has always used Xiaohongshu as its main battlefield to continuously strengthen its connection and communication with consumers. Wu Xiao, general manager of HOKA China Business Unit, once said: "What we have always wanted to do is to be one step ahead of others, rather than responding to what happens... Although outdoor core sports are still a niche market in China, we will still grasp the accurate insights of this group of people."

Opportunity Insights:

By looking into Xiaohongshu user data, HOKA found that the popularity of "hiking" in outdoor sports has increased by more than 13 times, and the search popularity of hiking shoes has increased by nearly three times. Therefore, HOKA launched a new hiking shoe SKU before Double Eleven: "KAHA2 GTX Pioneer Red", and made it the main model for the Chinese market.

Growth Path:

As a new product, HOKA chose to directly target the core group of "hiking" to achieve scene matching. Therefore, HOKA integrated the IP "This is how I want to live" on Xiaohongshu and launched the #野出新路来爬 event, using the event content to generate online and offline linkages.

In addition, through KFS content operation, brand words, category words and scene words are infiltrated to achieve accurate reach of target groups. From the perspective of the full-domain closed-loop results, HOKA achieved the conversion effect of TOP1 for regular-priced hiking shoes and TOP2 for mid-top waterproof hiking shoes on Tmall Double Eleven.

2. Category planting type

(1) HEFANG achieves matrix seeding + multi-dimensional conversion in segmented categories

background:

As an independent designer jewelry brand, HEFANG has been established for ten years, with revenue approaching 500 million yuan and 60 stores across the country. In addition, it has the title of the number one designer jewelry brand on Tmall, which has actually begun to transcend the category of "niche brand". However, in the face of the traditional jewelry market dominated by giants, HEFANG still needs to maintain its brand differentiation positioning and expand new sales.

Opportunity Insights:

Compared with traditional giants, the advantage of local designer brands lies in "speed". They can keenly capture the birth of new demands in the Chinese market and promptly adapt to changes in consumer preferences. HEFANG founder Sun Hefang once said: In the fast-paced current era, its product launch speed is very fast. Compared with the quarterly launch of new products when it was first established, it would be difficult to catch up with market demand if it was operated with traditional thinking, so it is necessary to speed up. As a result, there is now a new product launched every month, and the audience's choice range will be wider.

Another insight she has is that "young consumers are more receptive to domestic and emerging brands... At the same time, young people's consumption habits are influenced by seeding platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin. New brands can do better marketing to attract young groups."

Then, combining its own advantages of agile innovation to expand sub-categories, and adding the efficient path of grass-growing GTM, Xiaohongshu became the best choice for HEFANG.

According to Xiaohongshu’s data, searches for “fashion accessories” increased more than four times year-on-year in 2023, which actually reflects the rise of many subcategories. Taking earrings as an example, not only can millions of notes on ear studs, earrings, and ear clips be divided, but also style features such as square, round, and teardrop shapes can be further subdivided. Correspondingly, the styles and scenes in which users wear these accessories are becoming more and more diverse. Therefore, there is still a lot of incremental space for jewelry brands in Xiaohongshu’s long tail of subdivisions.

Growth Path:

HEFANG chose to use two paths simultaneously: matrix seeding and self-closed loop within the site, integrating the resources of official accounts and bloggers.

From the perspective of matrix seeding, it is actually based on the brand's existing fan base, penetrating and breaking through the circle in a rich range of categories and usage scenarios, and finally expanding to the general opportunity group. Among them, the more distinctive ones are accounts with different roles, corresponding to different stages of breaking through the circle. Take the official account as an example: the main focus is on the brand image and serving people with brand interests, and often cooperates with KOLs to show dressing notes. Throughout November, the number of posts reached 35, and the total number of notes on the account exceeded 800.

Let’s look at the more popular KOS strategy on Xiaohongshu. HEFANG has built dozens of KOS matrix accounts, corresponding to different stores, saleswomen and even the bosses themselves. These life-oriented contents will be more conducive to penetrating the category crowd.

From the perspective of the closed loop within the site, HEFANG has achieved the integration of seeding and conversion within Xiaohongshu by relying on live broadcasts on the official account. Throughout November, the official account launched 24 live broadcasts, almost every day for more than 2 hours, and the sales of many single products exceeded 100,000 yuan. After analyzing many high-GMV live broadcasts, we found that search push has become an important source of traffic for live broadcasts - this actually corresponds to the phenomenon that vertical categories and scenarios are more compatible with search, and this is the case in the era of shelf e-commerce.

HEFANG has achieved ideal results in all areas:

• Five single products with sales of one million yuan across all channels were born
• "Pasta Pearl Ring" ranked first in Tmall's new ring products list and ranked second in Tmall's live broadcast room's Double Eleven jewelry brand store sales list
• Xiaohongshu store sales increased 36 times year-on-year

(2) Leshi seizes the hard shell jacket category with its high performance advantage

Background & Opportunity Insights:

In the past year, jackets have become one of the most popular categories on Xiaohongshu. According to the data of Chan Xiaohong, both the number of related content and the amount of interaction in the jacket category have shown explosive growth.

Data from Xiaohongshu shows that in the entire outdoor equipment category, functional demands will increase by hundreds of times in 2023 - for highly professional jacket brands, entry will be more advantageous.

As one of the world's three largest full-line climbing brands, Kalash is committed to promoting the development of mountaineering and adventure sports, creating high-performance outdoor equipment for athletes and professional enthusiasts. It started out as a hardcore professional outdoor brand, so it naturally would not miss this opportunity. According to relevant reports, Kalash's overall performance growth percentage in 2023 is close to three digits. [8]

However, how to leverage its own "high performance" advantage to achieve greater breakthroughs has always been the focus of Kalas. Zhong Chengzhan, the founder of Kalas, once said: "...Now everyone who buys high-performance products is a KOC. In the past, our products were mainly used by core professional users, which was a bit separated from our mass business. This group of people could not cover most of the business, that is, professionals belong to professionals, and the masses belong to the masses. Now high-performance products are in a benign state, and these users are enthusiasts, between professional customers and mass customers."

Growth Path:

Therefore, Kalas hardshell jackets began to expand the number of outdoor people with the help of professional KOCs on Xiaohongshu. First, Kalas anchored the most hardcore mountaineering scene, and achieved professional mental endorsement by launching online challenges + offline outdoor activities, breaking through the jacket category in the mountaineering scene. Later, it further penetrated into mass outdoor scenes such as hiking and travel.

Through data mining, we found that in the entire category of jackets, the audience's biggest interest tag is "outfit", and Kalenji's grass-seeking content is also based on this. In the end, Kalenji's search popularity on Xiaohongshu increased by nearly 3 times, and its penetration among mountaineers doubled. It successfully ranked on Tmall's best-selling list of jackets above 1,000 yuan and Tmall's Double 11 pre-sale list.

3. Trend seeding type

(1) Ubras base layer takes advantage of the healing and warmth of the whole site to ferment the popularity

Background & Opportunity Insights:

Compared with the categories and scenarios mentioned above, "trends" are more ever-changing, but they are also an important lever for fashion brands to take advantage of. Therefore, keen user insights have become a necessary condition for capturing trends.

As a popular new brand in the clothing field, ubras has gotten rid of the label of "size-free underwear" through the continuous expansion of product categories, and upgraded its brand positioning to "let the body be free first", thus breaking through to a wider group of women. In 2020, ubras created the category of "underwear", trying to get users out of bulky autumn clothes and trousers, and achieved sales of 800,000 pieces in 3 days on Double Eleven in 2021, and was selected for the Golden Product Award that year.

During the fall and winter season this year, Ubras discovered two rapidly emerging trends on Xiaohongshu:

• Topics related to keeping warm in autumn have increased nearly 20 times, with thermal underwear and base layers both seeing a peak in search popularity
• Healing-related content in the autumn and winter seasons has become the most popular topic on the site

Growth Path:

Therefore, ubras has further explored the trend and locked in the product selling point, achieving penetration into a wide range of people. First, in the category of thermal underwear, the words for dressing appeal have increased several times. On this basis, the "relaxed feeling" dressing has been extended, evolving from the concept of traditional thermal underwear to "relaxed feeling undershirt", which emphasizes comfort and warmth while fully reflecting the characteristics of easy matching.

From the perspective of the characteristics of grass-growing, ubras actually adopted the combat method of "air force + army", first relying on celebrities to penetrate the fan group, and then gradually expanding to N general groups such as fashion wear, healing topic lovers, etc. More than half of the grass-growing content focuses on the product selling points themselves, and the rest of the topics cover the healing atmosphere exclusive to autumn and winter, staying at home and other topics.

Judging from the overall results, ubras has also achieved growth in both volume and performance:

• Xiaohongshu UGC notes increased by 2 times, and the topic #暖过chill天 received more than 60 million views
• The main product became the top pre-sale item on Double 11
• Tmall flagship store becomes the No.1 store in total GMV in the technology and warmth category

V. Conclusion

The M-shaped society: How American teams can regain their competitive advantage, written by William Ouchi, a Japanese-American management expert, and the M-shaped society: The crisis and business opportunities of the disappearing middle class, written by Kenichi Ohmae, a Japanese economic commentator, both used developed countries as examples to propose and demonstrate the emergence of an M-shaped society, which is specifically manifested in an economic society that has shifted from being dominated by the middle class to being dominated by high-income and low-income groups.

Many opinions point out that under the trend of slowing global economic growth, my country's consumer market is also experiencing consumption stratification, and the asset structure of the population is changing from an olive-shaped society to an M-shaped society. This makes consumption growth correspondingly more inclined towards luxury goods and low-priced goods. Therefore, future business and even employment opportunities are likely to be closely related to the growth of these two major groups and their consumption habits.

As a "life encyclopedia", Xiaohongshu just meets the needs of both sides.

For trendy fashion brands that pursue "quality life", the value of Xiaohongshu will become more and more obvious, and will not be limited to the Double Eleven promotion. Data research shows:

• Xiaohongshu users pay more attention to product quality and emotional value, which is consistent with the tone of the industry.
• Most of the fashion trends popular among young people today originate from Xiaohongshu, and young people tend to use Xiaohongshu as a way to discover new products, with "planting grass" becoming their first thought.
• When it comes to product recommendation scenarios, consumers increasingly value real feedback from ordinary people, and Xiaohongshu provides such a unique community atmosphere.

In addition, Xiaohongshu provides brands with a wealth of commercialization paths and tools, including increasingly diverse blogger resources, and the closed loop of e-commerce within the site is showing a trend of continuous growth. Brands can achieve global seeding conversion at any node through value spillover + closed loop within the site.

As the "everything can be promoted" model has created more incremental space for Xiaohongshu, Growth Black Box will continue to pay attention to Xiaohongshu's latest strategies and cases in the future, and bring you more in-depth industry analysis and trend summaries.

Author: yolo WeChat public account: Growthbox