Xiaohongshu is the best solution for e-commerce buyers who grew out of the community

Doing e-commerce on Xiaohongshu is different from other platforms. To become bigger and stronger, there is a different set of methodologies. How should it be done specifically? In this article, the author puts forward three suggestions on how to do e-commerce on Xiaohongshu well. Let's take a look.

1. Regarding Xiaohongshu e-commerce, these two things are done right

COO is directly responsible for e-commerce

To know which business a large company values, we should not only look at the news, but also see its actual actions. The most direct signal is the structural adjustment and the appointment of the person in charge.

Xiaohongshu upgraded its e-commerce business to a first-level department, which is now in charge of COO Conan.

It has a very direct impact on the resource utilization, key decision-making, and external confidence building of e-commerce business.

Host an e-commerce conference

If Xiaohongshu wants to do e-commerce, it must win over merchants. To win over merchants, it must do three things:

2. Hold a meeting, provide traffic, and build tools

Therefore, Xiaohongshu’s recent Link e-commerce partner week and public speeches by official roles such as the COO were the right thing to do.

This has been verified many times by other platforms before. It is better to hold this kind of conference than not.

At this e-commerce conference, the official speeches all revolved around the word "buyer". Let me share my understanding:

1. Positioning buyers, the best choice

This conference is held for merchants to explain policies, give confidence, and call on them to open stores and sell goods on Xiaohongshu.

But after all, it is a latecomer in the short video platform e-commerce field, and merchants have been fooled by other platforms, so Xiaohongshu must find a differentiated entry point.

2. Buyers must be the best choice at the moment

• The essence of Xiaohongshu is a community, and e-commerce grew out of the community. This is the relationship between the first and second floors. In reflection, buyers are first the role of the community, and then the merchants.
• Xiaohongshu is currently unable to absorb large, mature and powerful merchants, and has no advantage in the competition with other platforms.
• Xiaohongshu’s advantage is its long-tail creators. By allowing this group of people to try e-commerce, they will become buyers.
• Therefore, positioning buyers can not only differentiate from competitors, but also suit one's own advantages.

3. How big is the e-commerce that grows out of the community?

The advantage of e-commerce that grows out of a community is that it does less harm to the community and is more stable. In other words, as long as it can grow out, it must be integrated with the community and be successful.

But this means that the imagination space for e-commerce is limited.

1. The entry threshold for merchants has become higher

In this model, the prerequisite for starting an e-commerce business is to become a member of the community and fully integrate into it. This threshold is actually quite high.

Some businesses do not have content capabilities and cannot operate in the community, and may never be able to enter Xiaohongshu's discourse system.

2. Merchant traffic has a ceiling

If merchants and products want to obtain traffic, their own content must have traffic in the early stage, which is a funnel relationship.

Judging from this point alone, Xiaohongshu and Kuaishou are very similar.

Previously, the live broadcast room of Kuaishou anchors could only be distributed on the follow page, which means that only their own fans could see it. It was purely private domain, not public domain.

At that time, the number of people online in the live broadcast room of Kuaishou anchors might not be that large, but they could still sell goods, because those who came were all their own fans, and the stickiness was very strong.

Later, Kuaishou began to distribute live broadcast rooms in the public domain and tried personalized recommendations.

The difference is that Kuaishou’s DAU is three times that of Xiaohongshu, and its vv is also much larger. The effect can be felt if it is rolled out in the public domain.

Xiaohongshu’s overall scale is relatively small, and it is mainly double-column, with low traffic efficiency (lower than Douyin which is mainly single-column), so even if you put a live broadcast room in the public domain, it may not necessarily have a good effect.

Small traffic scale and low operating efficiency are the problems that Xiaohongshu e-commerce has to face.

4. After e-commerce grows, it will give back to the community

In the past, it was believed that communities and e-commerce had never been perfectly combined and would always hurt each other.

But Xiaohongshu’s current approach gives me hope.

If Xiaohongshu continues at this pace, the community and e-commerce can be better integrated, and e-commerce can even give back to the community.

1. The community is slow, and Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce doesn’t seem to be fast either.

When building a community, you must not pursue speed. You must slowly nurture it and do a good job of management and service. Those who pursue speed will become watered down or die.

When doing e-commerce in the community, you cannot focus on speed or scale.

Judging from the signals released by Xiaohongshu, it is doing e-commerce in a very stable and rhythmic way. It feels that e-commerce can fail, but it cannot affect the community.

The outside world has such high expectations for Xiaohongshu e-commerce, but the company has chosen such a calm strategy internally, which is really admirable!

2. E-commerce will make content more valuable

Content has commercial value, but who provides this value and how is it reflected?

The current successful cases are brand implantation in content, and there are very few e-commerce companies that rely heavily on community content.

For example, the live broadcast rooms of e-commerce anchors on Douyin and Kuaishou are no longer focused on content, but on transaction conversion. The higher the conversion rate, the more exposure opportunities there are for the live broadcast room, which is a mature rule of the game.

Xiaohongshu made a different choice: content first, then e-commerce.

Therefore, if e-commerce is developed, the content will definitely have incremental value, and the supply and demand relationship in the community will be healthier.

The above is the full text.

Author: Han Xu, WeChat public account: "Operation Dog Work Diary".