Fighting for Double 11: Bilibili and Xiaohongshu’s exploration of live e-commerce

This year's Double 11 is coming, and many platforms are vying to start the road of live e-commerce. This article focuses on the measures taken by Bilibili and Xiaohongshu to direct traffic to e-commerce, analyzes the characteristics of the two platforms and the reasons for doing so, and looks forward to future development prospects. Recommended for those who are interested in platform live e-commerce.

This year's Double 11 has kicked off. In addition to the "Three Kingdoms Double Kill" of Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Kuaishou, Douyin, and Video Account, there are also two "inexperienced" new players on the table this year.

Before the start of the Double 11 promotion, Bilibili and Xiaohongshu took several actions: launching various "incentive plans" to attract many buyers and UP hosts to start live streaming and selling products on Double 11; at the same time, expanding the product selection pool, Bilibili cooperated with platforms such as Tmall, and Xiaohongshu gave out red envelope subsidies for buyers and UP hosts to play live streaming in various ways; finally, they launched special entrances to Double 11 on their respective sites.

Both Bilibili and Xiaohongshu are focusing on live streaming to sell goods, while also making efforts in "people, goods, and venues" with the aim of getting a piece of the pie during the Double 11 shopping festival, a time when everyone is spending.

This move is not surprising. Content platforms have no choice but to engage in live e-commerce. Affected by the overall environment, advertising business is under pressure, and Bilibili and Xiaohongshu need new growth points.

However, as "newcomers", they have made limited splashes. In the perception of many users, only a small number of UP hosts on Bilibili sell goods through live broadcasts, and the number of online users in the top live broadcast rooms is only a thousand; Xiaohongshu's atmosphere for selling goods is very lively, but in terms of details such as returns and discount settings, it is not mature enough.

It is worth noting that, despite the excitement of the Double 11 shopping festivals of Bilibili and Xiaohongshu, there was also some frustration. Bilibili seemed to have the deep support of Tmall to supplement its product selection pool, but in fact it was just making a "wedding dress" for Tmall; Xiaohongshu buyer Zhang Xiaohui's second live broadcast on October 15th brought in more than 100 million yuan in sales, which was a good start for the Double 11 shopping festival. However, some industry insiders said that such live broadcasts cannot be normalized.

Fortunately, Bilibili and Xiaohongshu have injected vitality into the 15-year-old Double 11, bringing different opportunities and experiences to merchants and consumers who cannot or do not want to squeeze into the big platforms. For the industry, the exploration of these two companies also represents many possibilities. The future of live e-commerce is still full of unknowns.

1. What are the new players of Double 11 playing?

As the live streaming e-commerce industry enters the deep water zone, in addition to the traditional Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili and other content platforms are also actively participating in the Double 11 in their own ways. And now a major trend is that content platforms are not only satisfied with playing the role of "auxiliary marketing".

Overall, in terms of the subsidy intensity of this Double 11, Bilibili is more open and Xiaohongshu is more closed-loop.

This year, Bilibili’s promotion was even more obvious during Double 11. Externally, Bilibili changed the original “member purchase” entrance to the “Double 11” entrance, displaying Tmall products and supporting direct purchases on Tmall. Internally, Bilibili’s recommendation page not only has Double 11 shopping guides, but also features live streaming rooms of UP hosts that users follow. Some of the product links brought by UP hosts come from Bilibili’s product selection plaza, and most are external links to Tmall and JD stores.

The main feature of Bilibili's Double 11 this year is that it continues its platform's large open-loop e-commerce strategy and directs Bilibili's traffic to e-commerce platforms.

Yu Yanhuan, deputy general manager of the business department of Weishidun, said that currently it can be felt that Bilibili hopes to develop the live streaming business. On the one hand, it will increase additional traffic subsidies for merchants under the Taobao Alliance, and on the other hand, it will open up more data services for Taobao merchants to help brands understand the preferences of young consumers and obtain business conversions.

"In addition to building its own closed loop, Bilibili has embraced other leading e-commerce platforms and made wedding dresses for others. The platform may hope to use national e-commerce consumption nodes such as Double 11 to make a name for itself, or it may want to prove that its users have strong purchasing power and thus endorse itself," Yu Yanhuan concluded.

During Double 11, Xiaohongshu's incentives and support are mainly aimed at merchants and buyers on the platform, with the focus also on live streaming, aiming to promote merchants to complete the closed loop of opening stores, planting grass, and live streaming on the site.

On September 26, Xiaohongshu held a "Double Eleven E-commerce Partner Mobilization Meeting" and released "two matchmaking plans, three live broadcast methods, and eight support policies" for merchants and buyers. It also provided merchants and buyers with tens of billions of traffic exposure and hundreds of millions of platform subsidies during Double Eleven.

There is also an entrance to Double 11 on the Xiaohongshu website, and there are random recommendations of live streaming rooms with goods in the feed.

However, in comparison, judging from the Double 11 atmosphere of live streaming sales, the "shopping" section is placed at the end of the live streaming area of ​​Bilibili. There are fewer live streaming sales merchants on Bilibili, and many live streaming sales rooms are in the "lazy" form of playing recorded videos, talent shows, and hanging products in the lower right corner of the page; Xiaohongshu's sales atmosphere is hotter, with a large number of participants, and there are more "request for matching" and "request for display" interactions in the live streaming rooms.

At the same time, the number of people online in the live broadcast room of the top anchors selling goods on Bilibili remains at around 1,000, and many of the users who come to watch the live broadcast are fans of the UP. On Xiaohongshu, the number of people online in the live broadcast room of the top buyers exceeds 10,000, and the number of people online in the live broadcast room of the top stores is over 5,000. If we put these two into the entire live broadcast e-commerce industry, there is still a long way to go before we can expand on a large scale.

However, even though the intensity and atmosphere are different, there are still many merchants competing for Double 11 on Xiaohongshu and Bilibili.

"Mr. Midong", a home furnishing review and science popularization UP with 1.65 million followers, told "Dingjiao" that they started live streaming to sell goods on Bilibili in March 2022, and have not missed several big promotions. The GMV of goods sold is also gradually increasing. Last year's 618 was the first time to try a big promotion, and more than 100 million were sold. Last year's Double 11 sold 460 million, and this year's 618 sold 770 million. The goal for this year's Double 11 is a GMV of 1.5 billion.

"No matter the early publicity or the inventory and personnel planning, we are more prepared than before," said Mr. Mideng. During the Double 11 period, he broadcast two shows a day, focusing on mattresses, ergonomic chairs and other high-priced durable consumer goods, plus a live broadcast of fast-moving consumer goods.

Unlike Bilibili, which only has a few top anchors, Xiaohongshu had many new anchors on Double 11 this year.

Zheng Yiyi, the manager of "sowhat garment room", said that he started to open a store and live broadcast on Xiaohongshu after the Chinese New Year this year. Previously, he focused his energy on Taobao store, but this year on Double 11, he focused his energy on the Xiaohongshu platform.

The reason for making this choice is, on the one hand, that I found that posting on Xiaohongshu can accumulate fans; on the other hand, Xiaohongshu’s gameplay is simpler, the threshold for starting broadcasts is lower, and the traffic is relatively accurate.

On average, there are only 20 or so people online in his live broadcast room, but there are transactions every day. According to his experience, the transaction volume during the promotion period will double that of usual. Do not stop broadcasting before and after this period. He broadcasts twice a day, from 2 pm to 1:30 am.

Wang Jie, the owner of the coffee bean roasting company RUSTIC ROOTS, had a similar experience. He started live streaming on Xiaohongshu a month before Double 11. Compared with his own Taobao store, he believed that by following the rules of the Xiaohongshu platform, he could obtain more direct traffic and sales data feedback during the promotion period.

"When my account is live streaming, only 20 out of 100 fans are online. Now for the Double 11 live streaming, the platform can push the number to 300 with the same 100 fans. I sold a few thousand yuan in August and more than 10,000 in September. So far this Double 11, my sales have at least tripled or quadrupled compared to last month," he said.

2. Fighting for Double 11: Platforms need to make profits and retain merchants

In today's world where many traditional e-commerce players are competing with each other, why are Xiaohongshu and Bilibili still scrambling to participate in Double 11 and bet on live streaming e-commerce?

In essence, Xiaohongshu and Bilibili each have about 100 million daily active users. Compared with the advertising that they have vigorously developed before, e-commerce is a way of monetization with a higher ceiling. At the same time, compared with their own e-commerce, live streaming is more efficient. Douyin and Kuaishou have also gone through the same path.

Previously, due to the slowdown in the growth of its advertising and gaming businesses, Bilibili has long been troubled by profit pressure. Bilibili CEO Chen Rui has repeatedly stated that Bilibili will achieve break-even in 2024.

B Station’s self-operated e-commerce platform “Member Purchase” mostly sells two-dimensional IP derivatives such as figures and models. It has a low ceiling, and the front-end and back-end costs are very high. The decision-making chain for adding product links to videos is long. Live streaming with products is an important transformation direction for B Station.

In fact, last year, Bilibili started to focus on Double 11. Data shows that in the second quarter of this year, Bilibili's e-commerce advertising revenue increased by more than 140% year-on-year, and live broadcast revenue increased by 32% year-on-year, close to Bilibili's advertising revenue growth of 36% year-on-year.

Xiaohongshu started its e-commerce journey earlier than Bilibili. In September this year, Xiaohongshu announced that its self-operated cross-border e-commerce "welfare club", which was established in December 2014, will be officially closed on November 16. Xiaohongshu has now embarked on the path of cutting off external links, building an e-commerce closed loop, and focusing on supporting "buyer e-commerce".

In addition to expanding their e-commerce territory, Xiaohongshu and Bilibili also need to find ways to retain bloggers and UP hosts on the platform and provide them with more efficient monetization methods.

UP hosts are the foundation of the B station ecosystem. The number of active UP hosts on B station fell for the first time in Q2 last year. In Q2 this year, the number of UP hosts who earned income through live streaming and video sales increased by more than 220% year-on-year, and the average number of daily active UP hosts increased by 19% year-on-year.

Similarly, in the past year and a half, the number of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce buyers and managers 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. Only by retaining these people can Xiaohongshu successfully enter a new stage of commercialization.

The platforms are interested in attracting merchants, and merchants are taking the opportunity to develop. It can be seen that Bilibili and Xiaohongshu have attracted a group of small and medium-sized brands and white-label brands that are difficult to scale up and require low investment on other platforms. Based on this basic foundation, the two platforms have also developed their own distinctive merchant categories.

In Mr. Miteng's opinion, Bilibili has its own advantages in live streaming sales. When selling durable consumer goods such as digital products, home furnishings, and home appliances, which have high budgets and long shopping decision cycles, it is just right to use medium and long videos to explain details and selling points . "Our past video content explained the products in detail to users, and they could make transactions directly in my live streaming room on Double 11."

From the perspective of user consumption mentality, Xiaohongshu and Bilibili have their own advantages in bringing goods. Yu Yanhuan explained that when Bilibili users make decisions, the decision cycle is shorter than that of Xiaohongshu users. Bilibili content will try to explain the product selling points and user pain points in a 3-5 minute video. Xiaohongshu has a better effect of planting grass, but after seeing a recommendation, users will continue to search and place an order after fully understanding the product.

This consumption mentality and habit also makes Xiaohongshu users pay for designer brands and niche brands with medium and high customer unit prices, and also order low-priced fast-moving consumer goods, beauty products, snacks, pets, maternal and child products, etc., which are for vertical groups. However, Bilibili users are more likely to pay for 3C digital products, home life products, etc., which are higher in customer unit price and closer to consumer decision-making. "For example, VR glasses, which cost about 2,000-3,000 yuan each, can achieve a ROI of 4-5 on Bilibili."

Bilibili is not very suitable for the conversion of products with low average order value, because Bilibili’s live broadcast room has no way to “hard-inject traffic”. One needs to click to enter the live broadcast room, and it is very difficult to increase the audience of the live broadcast room.

"GMV of live streaming sales = viewership × conversion rate × average order value. When the overall traffic of the live streaming room is not large enough, we must make good use of the conversion efficiency and average order value of each traffic. The key lies in the professionalism of the UP host and the trust of fans. If Bilibili focuses on low-priced categories, not only will its GMV not be high, but it will also be at risk of a reputational setback. " Mr. Mideng pointed out.

Of course, different brands and merchants come to the content platform to participate in Double 11, and they have two common goals, which is to attract vertical fans and establish brand image; to attract new customers during the promotion period, complete private domain conversion, activate potential users and guide old customers to repurchase.

The efficiency of attracting new users during each promotion is very high. Mr. Mideng said that before the Double 11 event this year, his private domain had accumulated about 200,000 people, and after the Double 11 event, the number of people is expected to accumulate to more than 300,000.

Mr. Mideng also said that in order to retain users, on the one hand, he would take out most of the commission to feed back to consumers. For example, the commission for selling a bed is 300 yuan, and 200 yuan of it would be subsidized to consumers. Secondly, he would give differentiated explanations, not only explaining the advantages of the product but also its disadvantages, allowing consumers to make their own choices. Most importantly, the team puts a lot of effort into after-sales service, providing all-inclusive return services for home improvement building materials that basically have no freight insurance.

In addition to product introductions and transaction guidance, Wang Jie also focuses on popularizing coffee expertise on Xiaohongshu. “Xiaohongshu’s transaction data may not be as good as Taobao’s, but I care more about establishing a professional brand positioning.”

3. One Double 11 Shopping Festival is not enough, new players need to catch up

As Xiaohongshu and Bilibili both enter the Double 11 market, compared with mature platforms, both still have homework to do.

The most important thing is to cultivate users' consumption habits.

A UP host told Dingjiao that when he first started live streaming to sell goods on Bilibili, many fans had very negative comments, which lasted for more than a year. " Many people have gone from being confused at the beginning to being 'really attracted' now, and consumers are gradually changing their mindsets . But the subsequent tests will be the price and the UP host's ability to sell goods."

Some maternal and infant brand merchants have seen that many vertical mother users will wait in their Xiaohongshu live broadcast rooms and place orders only after doing their homework. "Users who place orders after selecting a brand have a high acceptance of prices and a relatively low return rate, but this process requires constant guidance from merchants."

To improve the platform's e-commerce infrastructure, there are many challenges left for Bilibili and Xiaohongshu, which test their supply chain, logistics, after-sales and other capabilities.

" Comparing Taobao and Xiaohongshu, some of the immaturity of the latter lies in the details ." Wang Jie gave an example, when facing promotional activities, e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and JD.com will directly display the price after the coupon, but the price that customers see on Xiaohongshu is still the original price, and they need to collect the coupon themselves before the price after the coupon is displayed at checkout. Even if they are doing the same activities, the appeal to users will be weakened.

In addition, Xiaohongshu's cooperation with the industry chain is also weak on the road to commercialization. For example, Xiaohongshu is relatively weak in the cloud printing tools for express delivery orders and mobile phone terminal delivery functions of e-commerce logistics platforms. Especially during major promotions such as Double 11, when there is a surge in orders, the supporting service capabilities are tested.

What B Station has to continue to face is the issue of development stage. "Now all content platforms are doing their own closed-loop e-commerce, but B Station is still insisting on open-loop. With open-loop, B Station cannot keep users on the platform to consume, and the revenue is unimaginative. Once it becomes a closed-loop, it will face huge investment." Yu Yanhuan pointed out that this is something B Station needs to think clearly about.

Judging from the communication between "Dingjiao" and many UP hosts, only UP hosts who can solve supply chain problems by themselves can make money, while most content-based UP hosts are still on the sidelines regarding live streaming sales.

Many small and medium-sized UP hosts do not dare to easily promote products on Bilibili . Mr. Mi Deng explained that, on the one hand, Bilibili's traffic is quite special, and video UP hosts and live broadcast UP hosts each have a pool of traffic. In addition, creating content and live broadcasting are two completely different abilities. Creating content requires creativity and personal charm, but retailing tests the ability to control the supply chain, mechanism and products, as well as the ability to understand services.

“In fact, this problem exists on many platforms. Our company’s core team has more than 10 years of retail experience. We are more like shopping guides in a shopping mall rather than celebrity bloggers.” Mr. Mideng said, but he still hopes that more UP hosts will join in and “roll” together.

At present, Bilibili has already produced several top UP hosts who sell goods, but it remains to be seen whether it can support a group of small and medium-sized UP hosts who broadcast goods stably.

Similarly, Xiaohongshu has top anchors, but it is more of a star-making mechanism that needs to maintain a certain tone and mystery. These bloggers are more cautious in choosing brands, and the live broadcast format is emotional, mainly outputting more life concepts. Yu Yanhuan said that the problem with Xiaohongshu is that this method is not suitable for high-frequency live broadcasts, and users will have aesthetic fatigue.

As Double 11 has passed, Wang Jie is unsure about how Xiaohongshu’s traffic will develop in the future.

"When we were doing live streaming with low investment in the early stages, there was no obvious change in Taobao. We needed to slowly accumulate data and invest according to mature methodologies. In the early stages, Xiaohongshu's traffic and conversion feedback were faster than Taobao's. But if one day the traffic became unstable and declined rapidly, we would have to face different costs and different business strategies." Wang Jie said that the traffic on each platform is limited. As more and more players enter the market, the traffic he receives is no longer as much as before.

However, under the main theme of promoting consumption, both Bilibili and Xiaohongshu are the boosters needed by the e-commerce and consumer industries. Many merchants also mentioned that for the "newcomers" in the Double 11 industry, they can see the progress of Bilibili and Xiaohongshu. The potential of Bilibili and Xiaohongshu to bring goods has not been fully tapped. The platform is growing, bloggers and merchants are growing, and users are also growing.

Author: Bruce

Source: WeChat public account "Dingjiaoone (ID: dingjiaoone)"