Exquisite luxury or affordable prices for the masses? What is the future of Xiaohongshu e-commerce?

Xiaohongshu, as a platform for sharing exquisite lifestyles, has recently entered the Internet e-commerce market with the gimmick of "low prices". This article analyzes Xiaohongshu's main e-commerce direction - affordable or light luxury. The author believes that one must choose one of the two, and cannot have both. Recommended for friends who want to understand Xiaohongshu's e-commerce business.

"My friends, this is amazing, only 13.9!" After seeing this title on Xiaohongshu, Chen Zhe was surprised at first, and then quickly clicked on the note, fearing that he would accidentally refresh and never find it again. In the video, the blogger showed a simple and elegant black underarm bag with good texture, shiny reflective material, and even a design that imitated a big-name bag. However, the price in the lower left corner showed that the bag cost only 13.9 yuan.

After clicking on the link, Chen Zhe discovered that this bag has a total of 6 colors. Not only has it sold 3,263 pieces so far, more than 1,000 people have added it to their shopping cart within 24 hours, and it has also participated in Xiaohongshu's "11.11 Shopping Festival" cross-store discount event.

With a try-it attitude, Chen Zhe placed an order for this cost-effective bag that cost less than 20 yuan. After three days of waiting, she received the goods successfully. The courier box and bag were printed with the store's logo, which looked very formal. According to her feedback, except that the bag's material was soft, its weight was very light, and its feel was average, there was almost no major problem. In Chen Zhe's words, "I bought a bag for 14 yuan, what else do I need a bicycle for?"

There are many people who share the same idea as Chen Zhe.

In the comment section of this shopping link, some users said "great value for money", "the quality makes me want to buy all the colors", "very good, I bought it without any expectations".

Obviously, for such low-priced products, users don’t care about the quality at all. As long as there are not too many problems with the workmanship, users will give a good review.

Similarly, on Xiaohongshu, the number of products that use low prices as a gimmick has increased since the arrival of Double Eleven, such as 8 yuan sweaters, 90 cents cups, 2 yuan bracelets... Not only are the categories complete and the styles diverse, but most of them also have a very high rate of praise.

In a trance, one can’t help but sigh, is this still the Xiaohongshu I know?

In many people's minds, the word "low price" seems to contradict the "refined" and "light luxury" atmosphere that Xiaohongshu has been committed to creating for many years. Although they are both traffic codes in the Internet, especially the e-commerce industry, they are destined to be difficult to integrate.

Perhaps, it is difficult for Xiaohongshu to achieve both sophistication and low-keyness.

1. Bags are sold for 9.9 yuan, and Xiaohongshu stores are full

Under the filter of Xiaohongshu, a batch of low-priced bags with a unit price of less than 20 yuan seem to have become high-end goods displayed on the first floor of the shopping mall. Similarly, there are clothes priced as low as a few yuan and accessories costing a few cents.

Although the price is low, the related promotional posts are not sloppy at all.

In a note promoting a bag priced at 19.9 yuan, the bag was placed under a dim light. A hand with a light luxury manicure stretched out from the bottom of the picture, touching the bag left and right, and knocking it twice to show the texture. Coupled with the soothing BGM and flashing filters, it looked a bit like the store’s promotion when the bag was sold for 199 yuan.

The store page shows that as of now, this bag has sold 6,354 pieces in total, with a total of 3,587 product reviews giving it a score of 4.7.

The store mainly sells low-priced bags. The most expensive one is only 49.9 yuan, and the cheapest one is 9.9 yuan. With such low prices, the store has sold more than 25,000 bags and has a good reputation of 4635.

Overall, small profits but quick turnover has brought good traffic and sales to this store.

There are many similar stores on Xiaohongshu. Most of them sell the same categories, from bags to clothes, from bracelets to cups, and the prices are almost lower than the average price of such products in people's impression.

At the same time, according to AI Blue Media’s survey, the products in these Xiaohongshu stores are also slightly lower than those on other platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, and Pinduoduo.

Still take this bag as an example.

After AI Lan Media searched for the same bag on Taobao, it found that the prices ranged from 29.9 yuan to 328 yuan; the same style on JD.com had a minimum price of 56 yuan; Pinduoduo had similar styles ranging from 19.9 yuan to around 70 yuan.

Screenshots from Pinduoduo, Taobao, and JD.com

It seems that for the same product, the price of Xiaohongshu is almost on par with that of Pinduoduo.

On the other hand, although the same low-priced bags can be seen everywhere on Xiaohongshu and are all produced in the bag production base in Baoding, Hebei, according to consumer feedback, they are all marked with the logos of different merchants and are also hung with certificates and labels of different stores.

With excellent workmanship, complete certification labels, and professional filters, Xiaohongshu is like Cinderella's fairy godmother, transforming those low-priced bags that were once considered shabby into exquisite and cost-effective models that everyone wants to buy.

2. Xiaohongshu cannot have both the low-end and the affordable luxury

An undeniable fact is that for e-commerce platforms, users actually have their own filters in their hearts, which is not difficult to understand.

Users are used to shopping for clothes on Taobao, digital products on JD.com, and daily necessities on Pinduoduo. As for Xiaohongshu, many people's most intuitive impression of it is that it is exquisite, socialite, and white-collar, and the things bought here should also match this label.

At least, not in a “low price” sense.

As for e-commerce, Xiaohongshu, which decided to focus on the e-commerce sector this year, appears to be very divided.

On the one hand, low-priced products have entered the users' field of vision, and low-priced goods of various categories have slowly penetrated into the users' homepage push notifications, and only under filters do they appear to be closer to the platform's positioning; on the other hand, high-end celebrity anchors such as Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui have successively settled in, becoming the main force of Xiaohongshu's move towards live streaming sales. Not only do these anchors have a higher average customer unit price in their live broadcast rooms, they also use their own IP to continuously deepen the platform tone of Xiaohongshu.

This is undoubtedly mutually beneficial for the anchor and the platform.

The best example is Veronica Yip’s live broadcast a few days ago.

On October 15, Zhang Xiaohui launched her second live broadcast on Xiaohongshu. The platform's report showed that the sales of this live broadcast exceeded 100 million, making her the first anchor to exceed 100 million in sales.

In her live broadcast room, there are no exaggerated adjectives and she speaks at a pace as fast as a wheel. She usually wears lazy and fashionable clothes and sits in the room to slowly talk about the products. She described the eyeshadow palette as "rendered on your eyes like an oil painting", and when promoting loose powder, she said "it reminds me of static portraits taken by famous American photographers in the 20th century".

Full of knowledge and well-educated, Gigi Lai's personal IP perfectly fits the platform tone of Xiaohongshu.

It is also because of this that even though the average customer spending in Zhang Xiaohui's live broadcast room has soared to several times the regular price, such as 168 yuan for a hair band, 2,000 yuan for an eye cream, and 1,000 yuan for a mascara, it still receives support and praise from users.

At present, in Zhang Xiaohui's Xiaohongshu shop "Rose is Rose", the best-selling "KITSCH Pillow Hairband" is priced at 168 yuan, with sales exceeding 30,000. This product, which can be bought in large quantities for 9.9 yuan on other platforms, has become a hot item thanks to Zhang Xiaohui's IP effect and the Xiaohongshu community's natural pursuit of celebrities.

At the same time, during this Double 11, Xiaohongshu invited many anchors with styles similar to those of Gigi Leung and Dong Jie to live broadcast and sell goods on the platform. Necklaces worth thousands of yuan and underwear worth hundreds of yuan are standard products in their live broadcast rooms, and they have also received support and praise from many users.

With high average order value and an ever-expanding number of anchors, Xiaohongshu could have stuck to its high-price strategy to the end amid widespread applause from users.

However, too many low-priced products have begun to emerge. Although this may win the favor of users in the short term, it may not be a good thing for Xiaohongshu in the long run.

Perhaps, Xiaohongshu can only choose between exquisite luxury or low prices for the masses.

Author: Yan Ye

Source: WeChat official account: "AI Blue Media (id: 1089327)"