**丨Internet monster thief group
I remember two years ago, I was discussing the e-commerce industry with a senior industry insider, and the other party issued a "violent theory": China's community platforms have not yet been very successful in doing e-commerce.
I feel a little surprised, because at that time, the short ** platform has done a good job of e-commerce, and many ** communities are also doing e-commerce, and the paper data is still quite good. However, the friend said that those are "a simple combination of content platforms and e-commerce", and the use of old wine in new bottles is not a real fusion of the two. Specifically:
Take the live broadcast e-commerce that was already popular at that time, for example, the head anchor often had to talk about more than 50 products in a 2-3 hour live broadcast, and the explanation time for each product was only 3 minutesEveryone is concerned about the big promotions of big-name products that they are already familiar with.
As for the small and medium-sized anchors' delivery and short-** delivery, to a large extent, it still focuses on "impulse consumption", with low customer unit price and high return rate, which has nothing to do with content in essence. This kind of impulsive delivery is essentially free from the content gene of the platform, and is no different from simple and crude information flow advertising.
As for the delivery of most of the ** platforms, it is even more abrupt. How to organically combine content with commodities, creators have no experience, and neither do platforms. The end result is a not-so-clever product placement with questionable conversion rates and sustainability.
I am compelled to accept the above arguments.
Over the years, I have seen that almost all content platforms are talking about "bringing goods" and "e-commerce closed loop", and there are only a handful of them that have really done a good job.
The only clear stream of these is Xiaohongshu – as a light Xiaohongshu user, I've gotten into the habit of reading shopping notes on it before bed.
Recently, I saw the conversation between Conan, the COO of Xiaohongshu, and Geek Park, so as to have a deeper understanding of the concept of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce and even the overall commercialization.
During the conversation, Conan mentioned a point that made me feel a lot: Xiaohongshu is a community, and everyone has always had two doubts about the community, the first is that the community is not big, and the second is that the community is difficult to make money.
However, Xiaohongshu feels that community and business are not opposites, and can grow a thriving business ecology. Many brands want to operate for a longer period of time, which means being able to connect with consumers and hear their voices directly.
In the beginning, businesses focused on reaching their user base on a large scaleGradually, they began to think about how to accumulate users and build user assets more stably. What Xiaohongshu wants to do is to help everyone better operate in the long term and build Xiaohongshu's "native" business system.
I'm not a Little Red Book creator, but there are two things that stand out to me:
The first is that the threshold for Xiaohongshu creators to monetize is extremely lowCreators with hundreds or thousands of fans can receive good business orders;
The second is that Xiaohongshu's commercial content is indeed based on "content".Introducing products or brands in a eloquent manner is in stark contrast to the popular "oppressive delivery" on other content platforms.
This is what Conan called the "originality" of the business ecology to the Xiaohongshu community!
Here's a vivid example:
I recently built a NAS private cloud at home to store my personal data and video library. I did a lot of calculations, but I didn't count the huge noise caused by the operation of the NAS. I searched for relevant answers on major e-commerce platforms, Tieba, and Zhihu, but I couldn't find a mute solution that suited me.
In desperation, I thought of Xiaohongshu, but I didn't expect to immediately find two or three practical solutions - one of the creators' self-made "acrylic soundproof mini cabinet" is quite popular with me, and I am consulting him whether he has a listing**, and how the heat dissipation performance is. You know, digital 3C has never been considered Xiaohongshu's strong point, but I solved my own digital 3C problem here!
The legendary Little Red Book NAS cabinet grass notes.
But let's be honest, the heat dissipation of acrylic cabinets is a problem that needs to be properly addressed before it can be used on a large scale.
To use a fashionable phrase, I was planted by the "acrylic soundproof cabinet" in Xiaohongshu.
In fact, the concept of "planting grass" originated in Xiaohongshu, which originally referred to a new generation marketing method based on real content. Therefore, "planting grass" must be native to the community and take authenticity as the core.
At present, mainstream e-commerce platforms are emphasizing the "integration of grass planting and weeding", and they are first occupying the "weeding" link and marching to the upstream "planting grass";Xiaohongshu first occupied the mind of "planting grass" and is actively exploring "pulling weeds". Both of these paths are correct and workable, while Xiaohongshu's path is significantly more dependent on its community attributes.
In other words,In the iron triangle of "people-goods-field" of e-commerce, Xiaohongshu takes "people" as the starting point, relies on "people" to establish a "field", and then fills more and more "goods" in this "field".
At present, what Xiaohongshu is doing, the first is to strengthen the scientificity and quantification of grass planting, and the second is to open up the first chain and introduce more businesses.
Since the beginning of this year, the above-mentioned development strategy has achieved phased results, and it is no longer the "community that does not make money and makes money" in everyone's stereotype. This is especially evident in these places:
In addition to the buyers Zhang Xiaohui and Dong Jie's GMV in Xiaohongshu's live broadcast exceeded 100 million, a large number of GMV buyers with millions or tens of millions of GMVs have also emerged. Xiaohongshu buyers' non-oppressive live broadcast style has attracted widespread attention from the outside world.
During this year's Double 11, the number of Xiaohongshu e-commerce orders was 38 times, the number of participating merchants was 41 times, and the GMV of the live broadcast room was 4 in the same period last year2 times. It is no exaggeration to say that this year's 11.11 marks Xiaohongshu's official entry into the table of the retail e-commerce industry.
According to third-party data, Xiaohongshu's live streaming has the characteristics of "three highs and one low", that is, high customer unit price, high conversion rate, high repurchase rate, and low return rate, which is in stark contrast to traditional live streaming. Therefore, the "gold content" of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce data is even higher than it seems on the surface.
Xiaohongshu e-commerce has two key roles:"Buyer" and "Owner". The former is the creator who communicates the brand and consumers, and the latter is the person in charge and creator of the brand (often a designer brand, D2C fashion brand, etc.). Both of these roles are inseparable from "content creation", and they are tonal, warm, and community-native content creation.
Therefore, we can understand why, compared with similar platforms, Xiaohongshu e-commerce has a significantly higher unit price and a significantly lower return rate: on the one hand, it is due to the trust brought by real content;On the other hand, if consumption is based on deep understanding rather than impulse, the actual effect will naturally increase.
Looking forward to the future, the development path of Xiaohongshu e-commerce in the next stage is actually very clear in Conan's interview. I think there are two things that I am most excited about and optimistic about:
The first is search, we know that search is the most important user entrance and monetization of all e-commerce platforms**.
Now, 70% of Xiaohongshu's monthly active users will use search, and 1 3 monthly active users will go straight to search when they open Xiaohongshu. Some people have dubbed Xiaohongshu a "live-action version of GPT", and it turns out that this title is not in vain. If the search is done well and the coverage is wider, it will undoubtedly further improve the efficiency of e-commerce content to reach users.
In my case, I found a new world by searching for "NAS noise cancellation". From this perspective, it is not bad to say that Xiaohongshu is a "new generation" search engine.
The second is some very subdivided vertical commodities, which are being hatched from Xiaohongshu.
For example, there is a store that has been very popular on the Xiaohongshu platform recently, selling customized "pet felt" - users can send their pet's **or** to the store owner, and he will customize very cute pet image felt for you. The store's comment section shows that orders have been lined up for a few months!
It was difficult to imagine such a subdivision of vertical categories before, but Xiaohongshu's community-native content can give birth to such categories. Thinking about it from another angle, the NAS noise-canceling cabinet I'm consulting about is not a subdivided verticalIt may not be difficult to find such a cabinet, but if you want to find a high-value cabinet that is quite ornamental in the living room, you can only find it in Xiaohongshu.
From a broader perspective, Xiaohongshu's "community-native content" atmosphere is not only a unique advantage for e-commerce, but also for commercialization as a whole. Like any content platform, Xiaohongshu's commercialization is not limited to the closed-loop e-commerce (i.e., "planting grass and pulling weeds"), but also includes the traditional advertising business (i.e., "planting grass" in the general sense).
As long as the commercial content and the community are organically integrated, not obtrusive, and let users have a sense of trust, then whether it is through e-commerce closed-loop monetization, or jump to third-party platform effect advertising, or pure product advertising, it will be effective in occupying the minds of users.
By the way, in this interview, Conan's answer to the question "Is Xiaohongshu a slow company" is very incisive:
The community has its own originality and growth, and you must follow the direction of its native origin in order to better meet the needs of the original. What does it mean to be faster?It is to hurry up and 'graft', the grafted thing is the fastest, but it may not be suitable for us, and it may not really meet the real needs in the original ecology. I think it's really challenging to build a business system for the community, but it's the only way to make it more native and better integrated into the community, and there's no better way. ”
This probably explains why other community platforms often do e-commerce as a simple "stitching" and "old wine in new bottles", while Xiaohongshu's e-commerce and even commercialization can be integrated with the community atmosphere. Of course, the process will not be once and for all, and care must be taken to maintain balance and efficiency. I hope Xiaohongshu can do this well in the future.
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