Video accounts create gods, Xiaohongshu becomes popular again

After the resurgence, both old and new e-commerce platforms have been working hard. On the surface, the short video war between Video Account and Douyin is the mainstream; while under the surface, the e-commerce live broadcast of Video Account and Xiaohongshu is the highlight of the battle for position. This article analyzes the current situation of 618 this year, let's take a look.

In the first 618 after the recovery, both new forces and old players in e-commerce are trying their best. Can they achieve their goals as expected?

The first is to defend the title. JD.com, which is 20 years old, is the pioneer of 618. It has declared that "618 is the most invested and most powerful 618 in history to help merchants grow". The "low-price mentality" represented by the "10 billion subsidies" has also become one of JD.com's main strategies. Taobao and Tmall, which started the 618 promotion earlier than JD.com, also hope to consolidate their basic market in the slowing e-commerce market.

The second is the siege. Pinduoduo and Douyin have long been powerful disruptors of 618. Douyin's e-commerce GMV (gross merchandise volume) increased by 80% year-on-year last year. The growth rate of e-commerce is rapid, and it is moving from live e-commerce to shelf e-commerce. Since the second quarter of 2022, Pinduoduo has also left JD.com and Tmall behind, maintaining a double-digit revenue growth rate. In the first quarter of this year, the revenue growth rate reached 58%, and it is still reaping market dividends rapidly. Finally, there is the surprise attack. Xiaohongshu, which participated in the 618 for the first time, and Video Account, which participated in the 618 for the second time, are both symbols of new hope for each company.

Although the size of the two cannot be compared with the first two forces for the time being, they have no historical baggage and no pressure to attack the city. Xiaohongshu and Video Account took similar steps during this year's 618: supporting new forces and betting on female anchors.

In fact, the user overlap between Xiaohongshu and Video Account is not high, but whether it is Zhang Jingchu, who broadcast live 12 times in 15 days on Xiaohongshu, or Guo Yiyi, a new Internet celebrity who sold over 20 million products in a single video, they have become the benchmarks they are promoting. Whether amateurs rise to fame or celebrities become popular again, the essence is to find more commercial possibilities in their respective ecosystems, which has also become a common trend of Xiaohongshu and Video Account: creating myths.

Above the surface, the short video war between Video Account and Douyin is the mainstream; beneath the surface, the e-commerce live streaming between Video Account and Xiaohongshu is the highlight of the battle for position.

1. Video accounts began to create gods

This year marks the second time that Video Account has participated in the 618 shopping event.

In 2022, Video Account tried to get a share of the e-commerce market by creating the "618 Video Account Live Goods Festival" and trying to attract merchants through traffic rewards. Traffic is the biggest advantage of Video Account. At that time, the total user usage time of Video Account exceeded 80% of the total user usage time of Moments, and the total video playback volume of Video Account increased by more than 200% year-on-year.

One year later, the usage time of Video Account has already surpassed that of Moments, and the GMV of Video Account live streaming payments has increased by 800% year-on-year. Although it is still small in scale, Video Account is what Ma Huateng calls "the hope of the entire company", and its direction is to "close the e-commerce loop well". Naturally, 618 has become a training ground to test whether Video Account e-commerce can achieve a closed loop.

The strategies adopted by the video account live broadcast promotion are still traffic incentive plans and service discounts for merchants. Whether it is reducing the technical service fee of about 5% on weekdays to 1% like Douyin, or encouraging merchants to participate in live broadcasts to achieve GMV goals by issuing traffic coupons, the essence points to the same problem: we have people and venues, but where are the goods?

What WeChat Video Account lacks the least is naturally traffic, but what it lacks is good products and merchants who can sell good products.

Therefore, for a long time in the past, the e-commerce case narratives of WeChat Video Accounts have been demonstrated by packaging the stories of B-side merchant stores.

The transaction volume of Alice Clothing ALICE in its live broadcast room easily exceeded 55 million in the first month; the live broadcast room of Xin Xiangyin, a subsidiary of Hengan Group, increased by more than 300% month-on-month; the sales of Hippocampus Photography Studio exceeded 7 million in a single session; and the women's clothing brand Brothery had a monthly live broadcast room turnover of over 10 million in less than a year. The store live broadcast rooms of these brands themselves have become typical examples of video accounts shaping the way live broadcasts sell goods.

The brand store live broadcast room is a major feature of WeChat Video Account. According to Baizhun data, the top 10 live broadcast sales rankings on WeChat Video Account on June 18 last year were basically all brand store broadcasts, concentrated on brands such as Adian Silk Cashmere, Gloria Women's Wear, and Joy International Skincare Products.

It was not until June 18 this year that Video Account became a little bit of an exception. The live broadcast rooms of experts began to rise and surpass the live broadcast rooms of brand stores, and received the official support of Video Account.

The latest case of Video Account is Guo Yiyi, a "new internet celebrity" who brought more than 20 million yuan in sales in a single session during the 618 shopping event this year. He has only been operating Video Account for 6 months, has released 89 short videos, and has only 400,000 fans.

New anchor Guo Yiyi became a dark horse in the video account. This achievement surprised the live broadcast industry. Even the official WeChat Open Class described his performance as "this result is a bit incredible."

How did Guo Yiyi achieve such "god-defying" feat?

The summary of the WeChat open class is: Guo Yiyi's affinity, the couple's grasp of product selection, and the creation of live broadcast theme venues and atmosphere are the three magic weapons of Guo Yiyi's live broadcast room. Penetrating the gorgeous data coat, its rapid rise still does not escape the basic business logic: the exquisite coordination of people, goods and places can create the data myth of the live broadcast room.

In fact, the views of people in the live broadcast industry are more accurate. Guo Yiyi maintains a persona of a mother and addresses the users of the live broadcast room as "sisters". Her precise customer group is sisters who are around 40+ years old, have money and free time. Through a series of private domain traffic guidance operations, she has successfully pushed high-priced products to female users.

Mom Guo Yiyi is a new myth created by Video Account, and behind her are thousands and thousands of female consumers supporting this myth.

More importantly, according to the outside stereotype, the proportion of male users of Video Account is higher than that of female users, and it is not as young as platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou. However, this year's 618 live streaming sales once again reinforced a signal: female users of Video Account have demonstrated consumption power far higher than that of men.

Especially in the field of live streaming sales by influencers on video accounts, the TOP10 on the popularity list are basically female anchors targeting the female market. This has also led them to surpass brand-sellers and successfully enter the overall ranking of live streaming sales on video accounts.

Although female consumption power is a highlight of Video Accounts during the 618 shopping festival this year, just like Make a Friend and Brother Yang to Douyin, Li Jiaqi to Taobao Live, and Simba to Kuaishou Live, will Guo Yiyi become the top label of Video Accounts? Obviously not yet.

2. Xiaohongshu’s comeback

Video accounts see ordinary people rising to fame, while Xiaohongshu sees celebrities becoming popular again.

Zhang Jingchu, the queen of art films, released her first video content on WeChat as early as November 2020. Two months later, she released her first Douyin video. Now, Xiaohongshu has become her main battlefield. She appeared in Xiaohongshu's live video broadcasts with a more engaged and active attitude, and broadcast 12 live broadcasts in 15 days in June.

Image source: Screenshot of Zhang Jingchu’s Xiaohongshu live broadcast

Zhang Jingchu, who appears in front of the public through short videos and live broadcasts rather than film and television works, still maintains her image as a literary queen. She shares her fitness achievements, methods of making delicious food, skills in learning English, and books that have profound insights. She posted the same video content on Xiaohongshu, and the number of likes was ten times that of the video account.

Since the same content is more popular on Xiaohongshu, it is not difficult to understand why Zhang Jingchu embraces Xiaohongshu's live broadcast so much.

This year is the first time that Xiaohongshu has participated in 618, and live broadcasts by celebrities are one of its highlights. The most representative ones are "female classmates with stories" such as Dong Jie, Zhang Xiaohui, and Zhang Jingchu. Their former star halo has a natural traffic advantage. With the official recommendation of Xiaohongshu, it is easy to achieve tens of millions of GMV in a live broadcast.

But in fact, the three female celebrity influencers of Xiaohongshu, Dong Jie, Zhang Xiaohui and Zhang Jingchu, did not fully participate in this year's 618 through live streaming.

Since Xiaohongshu officially announced the launch of the 618 Shopping Festival on May 24, Dong Jie's Xiaohongshu account has only broadcast one live broadcast on May 25, and no live broadcast in June; Zhang Xiaohui's Xiaohongshu account also did no live broadcast during this period; only Zhang Jingchu frequently appeared in the live broadcast room, with 26 live broadcasts in May, 17 live broadcasts in June, and even two live broadcasts a day, but the live broadcasts with goods were only concentrated in the two shows on June 15, and the rest of the live broadcasts were more about sharing sports and study life.

Why didn’t the benchmark celebrities participate in the 618 event? One reason may be that celebrities are unwilling to disrupt the frequency and rhythm of their monthly live broadcasts and prefer to promote products through short video ads. Another reason may be that the platform is making way for more celebrities and stores to live broadcast.

According to Huxiu, driven by the "Dong Jie effect", a large number of brand merchants and bloggers have settled in Xiaohongshu. From March to May this year, the number of e-commerce brand merchants settled in Xiaohongshu was twice that of the same period last year. The monthly transaction volume of live broadcasts has tripled compared to the beginning of the year. Live broadcasts also became the main channel for the platform's sales in May.

Xiaohongshu, which has been slow to break out of the e-commerce closed loop, has finally found the magic weapon of live streaming e-commerce. At this year's Xiaohongshu E-commerce Live Streaming Fashion Partner Conference, the official data released by Xiaohongshu was that in 2022, the number of Xiaohongshu e-commerce live streaming anchors increased by 337% year-on-year, and the number of live streaming sessions increased by 214% year-on-year.

In March this year, Xiaohongshu promoted its live streaming business to an independent department, which was set up under the newly established first-level transaction department to unify the management of content live streaming and e-commerce live streaming. The head of the new department is Yin Shi (nickname). Before this, Xiaohongshu's live streaming business belonged to the business group of the second-level department under the community department.

Xiaohongshu has firmly moved towards live streaming sales. Before June 18 this year, many well-known influencers and active creators on the Xiaohongshu site received invitations from official operators, inviting them to start live streaming on the Xiaohongshu site. At the same time, they will receive traffic resources and support. More "female classmates with stories" that are in line with Xiaohongshu's consumption tone are on the way.

From Dong Jie to Zhang Jingchu, "female classmates with stories" and female celebrities' resurgence have become the homogenized narrative of live streaming e-commerce on Xiaohongshu. This narrative worked in the early stages of live streaming e-commerce, but it is clearly not enough to move towards a larger e-commerce ecosystem.

3. The convergence of video accounts and Xiaohongshu

The first 618 after the recovery was jokingly called "the most exciting in history".

This is not only reflected in the slogans of "the largest investment in history" or "the most favorable price" shouted by major e-commerce platforms, but also in their hungry competition for traffic, and even going deep into the main battlefield of the other party. The most obvious example is Luo Yonghao's "Make Friends" live broadcast room, which was stationed on Taobao during Double Eleven last year and on JD.com's live broadcast during 618 this year, with sales exceeding 150 million in a single broadcast.

On one hand, JD.com and Taobao need to rely on the power of live broadcasting experts to alleviate their traffic anxiety; on the other hand, live broadcasting e-commerce represented by Douyin is penetrating into the hinterland of traditional e-commerce platforms and using traffic advantages to expand shelf e-commerce. Before the launch of 618, Douyin officially disclosed that shelf e-commerce accounted for more than 30% of the overall GMV, and Douyin Mall's annual GMV increased by 277% year-on-year.

The competition among the top players is so fierce, especially for Xiaohongshu and Video Account, which are still small in size. They are exploring their respective live broadcast ecosystems from different paths and intersecting with each other.

Expert live streaming and brand store live streaming are the two major types of live streaming e-commerce. Video account live streaming has shifted from encouraging store live streaming to supporting expert live streaming, while Xiaohongshu’s e-commerce live streaming focus has shifted from creating the myth of expert live streaming to supporting brand store live streaming.

A pet brand manager told "Blue Hole Business" that the exposure and data conversion effects achieved through Xiaohongshu are far higher than those on other short video platforms, so they have planned to invest in store broadcasts to achieve more comprehensive brand penetration in the pet track.

In addition to improving their own live streaming e-commerce ecosystem, Xiaohongshu and Video Account have also shown their desire for the female consumer group.

Xiaohongshu, which has women as its main user group, has always emphasized its precise users with high useful consumption power and high knowledge. Their user portraits are often over 30 years old, concentrated in first- and second-tier cities, with relatively mature aesthetic tastes and high unit-price consumption power. They are frequent consumers of Xiaohongshu's live broadcast rooms, represented by Dong Jie.

Xiaohongshu understands women, and WeChat naturally knows the power of it. Guo Yiyi’s performance in the video account during the 618 period this year is proof of this.

Official data released by WeChat Open Class shows that the average customer spending on WeChat video live streaming exceeds RMB 200, with consumer goods mainly concentrated in clothing, food and beauty products, which are the top three categories. In terms of user portraits, users from first-, second- and third-tier cities account for more than 60%, female users account for 80%, and the age distribution is relatively mature.

On the surface, the short video war is between Video Account and Douyin, because Douyin has the highest overlap in the proportion of Video Account users active on typical KOL platforms, followed by Kuaishou, Weibo, Bilibili and Xiaohongshu. But even though the user groups of Xiaohongshu and Video Account do not overlap much at present, the competition between the two in live e-commerce is more long-term.

After all, WeChat has an absolute advantage in terms of size compared to Xiaohongshu. More importantly, the video live e-commerce ecosystem has also demonstrated a consumption capacity far exceeding that of Xiaohongshu. For example, the "silver-haired group" held a 3.8 Women's Day on the video account, and silk merchants once occupied half of the sales list. You know, the consumption capacity of the silver-haired female group is not weaker than that of the young female group.

Of course, compared with the Douyin e-commerce ecosystem, Video Account and Xiaohongshu still have many shortcomings to make up. Creating a head myth and cultivating consumer mentality are only the initial competition, and the key behind it is still supply chain management and logistics. In particular, the efficiency of the supply chain is the key to the commercialization of the platform. The supply chain determines whether live e-commerce can form a competitive barrier with sufficiently cheap and high-quality products.

Competition in live streaming e-commerce is fierce. How big a future can new forces have? After all, the competition between the top two players has swept away the third and fourth players. This is not uncommon in the Internet field.

Author: Zhao Weiwei

Source public account: Blue Hole Business (ID: value_creation), in-depth, original and interesting business figures and stories.