Zhang Xiaohui's live broadcast sales exceeded 100 million GMV, Xiaohongshu e-commerce continues to grow

Recently, Xiaohongshu blogger Zhang Xiaohui has achieved outstanding results in live streaming and has helped the development of Xiaohongshu live streaming e-commerce. This article takes Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui, two of the top Xiaohongshu e-commerce bloggers, as examples to analyze the current status and internal logic of Xiaohongshu e-commerce development and look forward to the future development of Xiaohongshu platform in the e-commerce field. Recommended for students who are interested in e-commerce operations.

On the eve of the "Double 11" promotion, Xiaohongshu gave birth to its first anchor who earned over 100 million views in a single show, three and a half years behind Douyin.

At 1 a.m. on October 16, Zhang Xiaohui completed her second live broadcast on Xiaohongshu. The platform's battle report showed that the sales of this live broadcast exceeded 100 million yuan.

For Xiaohongshu, this is a node-like live broadcast. This year is a critical year for Xiaohongshu to vigorously develop live e-commerce. The platform has high hopes for live e-commerce and is willing to invest heavily in it.

For content communities, only by breaking out of the original niche circle and breaking through the user ceiling can they seek greater development space, but Xiaohongshu's user growth rate has slowed down: from the end of 2019 to 2021, the number of monthly active users increased from 100 million to 200 million, with an annual compound growth rate of more than 40%; but according to third-party data, from the end of 2021 to the present, Xiaohongshu's monthly active users have increased to about 260 million, and the annual growth rate has fallen back to 30%.

Live streaming is Xiaohongshu's way of increasing customer acquisition and attracting creators after pictures, texts and short videos. It also carries the important mission of accelerating Xiaohongshu's monetization and expanding its e-commerce business. This is also the first "Double 11" after Xiaohongshu completely gave up self-operation and announced its positioning as a "buyer e-commerce".

On August 24, Xiaohongshu COO Conan announced that the "buyer era has arrived." The official statement about buyers is: Xiaohongshu buyers have professional knowledge and the ability to deeply understand user needs. They can better convey the value of goods, establish trust with users, and continue to provide services to users. They are the connectors between goods and users.

On September 15, after closing its self-operated e-commerce platform "Little Oasis", Xiaohongshu announced that its self-operated store "Welfare Club" would also be officially closed on November 16. Xiaohongshu said that in the future, the platform will focus its resources and strength to serve more buyers, managers, merchants and brands in the development of e-commerce. It seems that Xiaohongshu has completely given up its self-operated e-commerce business.

As the vanguard of Xiaohongshu's buyer e-commerce, Zhang Xiaohui's responsibility is not only to bring goods, but also to set the tone. For this reason, the platform has invested a lot of exposure and other resources in her. However, in order to truly drive the growth of "buyer e-commerce", Xiaohongshu still has two problems to solve.

1. Changes in the top influencers of Xiaohongshu

On May 22, Zhang Xiaohui launched her first live broadcast on Xiaohongshu with her "Rose Live Broadcast Room". Data shows that the live broadcast lasted nearly 6 hours, during which the live broadcast room has been occupying the top spot on Xiaohongshu's sales list, with a total number of viewers approaching one million, more than 1.3 million likes, and sales exceeding 50 million.

From 6pm on October 15th to 1am the next day, Zhang Xiaohui conducted her second live broadcast on Xiaohongshu, with sales exceeding 100 million yuan. Among them, sales of 5 brands exceeded 5 million yuan, including aroseisarose, MY.ORANICS, HAIRMAX, Augustinus Bader, and Sudtana, all of which are international brands with a mid-to-high-end sales model.

For example, MY.ORANICS is a natural organic skin care and hair care brand founded in Milan, Italy in 2012. Its live broadcast sales on the same day reached 10.61 million yuan; the German brand Augustinus Bader sold 5.4 million yuan of goods during the live broadcast. The brand was founded by Augustinus Bader, a global expert in cell science and regenerative medicine.

In addition to the myth of high sales and popularity, Zhang Xiaohui's excellent language expression ability and elegant and calm temperament became the highlight that was repeatedly spread by users after the live broadcast . For example, in the early morning of October 16, before the live broadcast was about to end, Zhang Xiaohui put on a green dress and recited the dialogue from Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". Her rich emotions and soft tone touched many people.

After the two live broadcasts, the style of Rose's live broadcast room has been established, that is, the "niche brand + relatively high price" route. For example, a set of high-top shampoo set and two bottles of revitalizing hair mask are priced at more than 600 yuan each.

According to Kas, Zhang Xiaohui had previously tried live streaming to sell goods on platforms such as Douyin, but it did not make much of a splash. This year , she was able to stand out from the crowd on Xiaohongshu. There are many reasons, but the core factor is the stability of her personal IP. Zhang Xiaohui's appearance, temperament, life experience, and explanation style all fit the tone of Xiaohongshu. In addition to the "quality-price ratio" of the goods, she also provides users with emotional value and aesthetic experience, which is the core competitiveness of her live streaming room.

On Xiaohongshu, young female users are the majority, and the community is dominated by a refined and beautiful atmosphere. Zhang Xiaohui is a socialite, and she has a high aesthetic taste and can understand the needs and preferences of users. Therefore, fans on Xiaohongshu have a higher degree of recognition of her life philosophy and consumption concept than those on other platforms. It is understood that the average customer price of products in her live broadcast room is relatively high, but fans have shown a good acceptance, and many products were sold out as soon as they were put on the shelves during the live broadcast.

A Xiaohongshu user commented, "The most powerful salesperson is one who can convey values ​​and change the direction of the topic. She did not solve the problem of whether it is expensive or not, she said you are worth it."

Before Gigi Leung, Dong Jie was the anchor with the strongest sales power on Xiaohongshu.

In January this year, Dong Jie launched her first live streaming show on Xiaohongshu, and ranked first on Xiaohongshu's hot list. On February 24, Dong Jie live streamed goods on Xiaohongshu for the second time, and topped the list again, with an estimated GMV of 30 million. At that time, among the more than 200 product links in Dong Jie's live broadcast room, high-priced products abound, such as a cardigan of 5,200 yuan and ballet shoes of 4,932 yuan. After that, "Be the master of your own life" became Dong Jie's live broadcast slogan, and the IP "Dong Life" was completely launched.

At the end of May, a few days after Zhang Xiaohui launched her first show on Xiaohongshu, Dong Jie conducted another live broadcast. According to 36Kr, the sales of this live broadcast reached 73 million, setting a new personal record.

As the two top anchors of Xiaohongshu, Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui are inevitably compared. Kas believes that their live broadcast rooms have both similarities and differences.

One of the common points between the two is that they both adopt the "slow live broadcast" style . When explaining the products, the anchors always sit in front of the camera dignifiedly, not "making a fuss", but quietly recommending them to users, facing every audience with a sincere attitude. In addition, they show professionalism in every product, which adds points to their live broadcast room.

Second, as the top anchors promoted by Xiaohongshu, both Gigi Leung and Dong Jie fit the platform’s concept of “buyer e-commerce”.

During the live broadcast, Gigi Leung often used her own personal experience as an example to explain the advantages and features of the products in detail to the audience, making her recommendations more reasonable and well-founded. Statements like "I started buying it since the 1990s" also greatly increased the trust of users in the live broadcast room.

However, the volume of sales of the two top influencers is not much different, but the attributes of their fans are different. On Xiaohongshu, the attribute of "using people to bring goods" is particularly obvious, and fans are more willing to pay for their favorite KOLs.

Judging from the content, Gigi Lai focuses more on conveying the elegant and calm appearance of an independent woman, while Dong Jie takes the pure and fashionable route. In addition, she has been raising her children by herself for a long time and has maternal and child attributes, which makes her more attractive to the group of sophisticated mothers.

Judging from the data, the age groups of users who follow Gigi Leung and Dong Jie are similar, mainly between 25 and 44 years old.

However, 41.62% of Zhang Xiaohui’s fans are concentrated in first-tier cities, where they may have stronger economic power. They can be said to be “rich girls in Xiaohongshu.” Some media interviewed girls who placed orders in Zhang Xiaohui’s live broadcast room. They were basically 30+ or ​​40+ years old and had a monthly income of more than 20,000 yuan.

According to statistics from DT Business Observation, Zhang Xiaohui's best-selling products are basically personal image care products, such as high forehead, silk hair, and underwear laundry detergent sets, with an average price of more than 500 yuan. Half of Dong Jie's top 10 live broadcast sales are snacks, with an average price of just over 100 yuan, which are more life-oriented and down-to-earth.

2. Who can take up the banner of “buyer e-commerce”?

At this stage, the live broadcast e-commerce industry is still dominated by "low prices". On platforms such as Taobao, Kuaishou, and Douyin, the live broadcast rooms of big anchors all use "lowest prices" as their main selling point. The appearance of Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui seems to prove that the live broadcast rooms of Xiaohongshu that do not follow the "cost-effectiveness" route can also gain a broad space, which will undoubtedly help boost the confidence of anchors and merchants operating businesses on Xiaohongshu.

Of course, this does not mean that amateur anchors can have a better living environment. There is still a thick barrier between the objects that the platform promotes and the amateurs who make their own living.

Kas also noticed that even celebrity anchors have been unknown on Xiaohongshu live streaming. For example, actress Yang Rong has been live streaming on Xiaohongshu for half a year. Each live broadcast lasts for a long time and often ends in the early morning, but the results are not amazing. Yang Rong is just one of the celebrities who entered the Xiaohongshu platform for live streaming this year. Some celebrities who have not been noticed have quietly left the platform.

The lukewarm popularity of celebrity live broadcasts is only one aspect of Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce. In fact, Xiaohongshu’s overall live broadcast e-commerce journey has not been smooth either.

In the second half of 2019, after the failure of its social e-commerce attempt, Xiaohongshu once again started trying live streaming e-commerce.

In 2021, Xiaohongshu's e-commerce business has undergone "tremendous changes" and strives to create an e-commerce closed loop. First, it cut off Taobao's external links and implemented the "account and store integration" strategy, claiming that it can "open a store with zero threshold" and provide brands with the opportunity to "connect directly to consumers". At the end of 2021, it will further launch the "Home Opening Store Plan" to give brands that settle in Xiaohongshu a variety of rights and interests.

At the beginning of 2022, Xiaohongshu made organizational adjustments to its e-commerce department. In addition, Xiaohongshu's "Community Business Convention" emphasized, "Please do not direct transactions outside the site in personal pages, comments, private messages, etc." However, from 2019 to 2022, Xiaohongshu has never released overall data on live e-commerce performance.

Xiaohongshu, a holy place for promoting content, has never produced a top anchor with large traffic, and the live broadcast traffic of amateur anchors on Xiaohongshu is also obviously insufficient.

The "Visible Fan Value in 2020: KOL Fan Analysis Research Report on the Four Major Platforms" released by Clour shows that the number of fans of KOLs on Weibo and Douyin is concentrated between 1 million and 10 million; the number of fans of KOLs on Kuaishou is concentrated between 100,000 and 1 million; 71% of KOLs on Xiaohongshu have fans between 10,000 and 100,000, and the proportion of mid-level and tail bloggers is as high as more than 90%.

Compared with other content platforms, Xiaohongshu's mid-level and low-level bloggers are more favored by advertisers. According to the "2021 New Media Content Ecosystem Data Report", 57.6% of Xiaohongshu's low-level accounts were advertised throughout the year, more than twice that of other platforms.

From the perspective of the supply source of live broadcast products, Xiaohongshu's own mall, brand flagship stores and brand official websites are the main channels. In terms of the categories of goods brought, the strategy of focusing on beauty products and leaning towards categories such as clothing and luggage continues.

Without the top anchors, Xiaohongshu's resource allocation might be more evenly distributed, and the quality of the grass-planting community might be higher, but the lack of the anchor's personal appeal would greatly reduce the effectiveness of live streaming sales.

The irreconcilable contradiction between the need for mid-level bloggers to promote content and the need for top anchors to promote content seems destined to make Xiaohongshu's live streaming e-commerce unable to adapt to the community.

Under Xiaohongshu's decentralized content distribution model, the platform can only create a few top benchmarks, and the speed of pushing top traffic will be significantly slower than that of platforms with strong operations. This has been reflected in the areas of content seeding and live streaming.

It is undeniable that Xiaohongshu still has advantages in the live streaming e-commerce business.

Data shows that in 2022, the number of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce live broadcast hosts increased by 337% year-on-year, and the number of live broadcasts increased by 214% year-on-year. E-commerce live broadcasting has become an important field for Xiaohongshu's e-commerce.

Industry insiders pointed out that Xiaohongshu's advantages lie in high conversion rate, high customer unit price and high repurchase rate. Although its traffic scale cannot catch up with the top giants, Xiaohongshu wins in terms of stronger per capita consumption capacity and clearer and more accurate user portraits.

As mentioned earlier, live streaming is Xiaohongshu's way of continuing to grow its customer base and attract creators after pictures, texts, and short videos. At the same time, it also carries the important mission of accelerating Xiaohongshu's monetization and expanding its e-commerce business.

This year, Xiaohongshu has focused on increasing the proportion of performance advertising, including attracting more brands to join Xiaohongshu's e-commerce platform and conduct e-commerce live broadcasts, so that their advertising can be directly converted on Xiaohongshu.

Xiaohongshu has also invested heavily in live-streaming e-commerce creators and brand merchants.

On March 6, Xiaohongshu held the "E-commerce Live Streaming Fashion Partner Conference" and announced the launch of the "Fashion Spark Plan", which will provide 10 billion traffic support for fashion merchants and anchors.

On August 22, Xiaohongshu integrated its e-commerce business with its live streaming business and established a new transaction department, which became a first-level department parallel to the community department and the business department. Previously, the e-commerce business was a second-level department under the community department. Conan concurrently served as the head of the new department. She also served as the head of commercial products and commercial technology under the business department.

On August 24, Xiaohongshu e-commerce held a talk themed "The Buyer Era Has Arrived" at the Link e-commerce partner week in Shanghai. Conan said at the event that in the past year and a half, the number of buyers and managers on Xiaohongshu has increased by 27 times, the number of active sellers has increased by 10 times, and the number of purchasing users has increased by 12 times.

In order to encourage more buyers to emerge, Gintoki, head of Xiaohongshu's live broadcast business, said at the meeting that the platform will launch a "Million Buyers Plan", provide 50 billion traffic to support "millions of buyers", and help 1 million Xiaohongshu authors create a new career.

On September 26, Xiaohongshu held the "2023 Xiaohongshu Double Eleven E-commerce Partner Mobilization Meeting", announcing that it will invest tens of billions of traffic support and billions of subsidies during Double Eleven to help buyers and merchants develop on Xiaohongshu.

For Xiaohongshu, there are two issues that still deserve long-term attention and solutions - how to balance community ecology and commercial monetization, content seeding and live streaming e-commerce?

This year's "Double 11" is the first major promotion node to test the results of Xiaohongshu's buyer e-commerce, and it is also the golden sales period that Xiaohongshu is trying its best to fight for. In the melee of many platforms, what kind of report card will Xiaohongshu's e-commerce hand in? Kas will continue to pay attention.

Author: Lou Xingchui

WeChat public account: caasdata (ID: caasdata6)