Should merchants seize this new wave of opportunities on Xiaohongshu first or wait for the right moment?

As major platforms scrambled to engage in price wars during the 618 shopping festival, Xiaohongshu's e-commerce live streaming has entered a new phase.

On June 12, Xiaohongshu announced a set of latest data: The order volume in Xiaohongshu's 618 live streaming rooms was 5.4 times that of the same period last year, and the store live streaming GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) was 5 times that of the same period last year. Regarding this, Yin Shi, the head of Xiaohongshu's e-commerce operations, stated that store live streaming has become a new growth engine for merchants during the 618 period.

The surge in Xiaohongshu's order volume is attributed to the merger of its buyer operations and merchant operations businesses in late May, forming an e-commerce operations department as a secondary department. This is the "final step" in Xiaohongshu's three-step strategy for its e-commerce structure, following the promotion of live streaming as an independent department in March last year and the integration of live streaming, e-commerce, community, and commercial departments in August. This move centralized platform resources, improving operational efficiency and optimizing merchant service effectiveness.

In addition to further integrating buyer and merchant operations, Xiaohongshu is also enriching its "seeding tool" functionality. Simple note-based seeding is insufficient, so the platform has focused on live streaming since last year, including it in data standards. The ongoing "618" promotion has given priority to live streaming, especially store live streaming.

This year, Xiaohongshu has also undergone several personnel adjustments. According to multiple media reports, Wu Yingbing from Didi will help promote the e-commerce business, Zhang Rui has joined the marketing team, Zhao Weichen, the former secretary of the board of Yi Card Technology, is now responsible for internet commercialization, and Ye Heng, the former head of Kuaishou's e-commerce department, is reportedly in charge of C-end products.

Whether it's organizational restructuring or enhancing the platform's commercialization capabilities, Xiaohongshu's current emphasis and expectations for its e-commerce business are evident. However, with constant changes during the crucial 618 promotion in the first half of the year, does Xiaohongshu have a core competitiveness in its e-commerce business?

01 How to balance buyer live streaming and store live streaming?

As the 618 shopping festival, which has bid farewell to pre-sales, enters its final stages, merchants and live streamers have realized that consumers have become more rational. Aggressive sales tactics like "shouting" and "forcing orders" are being discarded, and users are no longer solely focused on price but also consider factors like brand positioning, product functionality, and experience differences.

Buyer live streaming and store live streaming on Xiaohongshu complement each other. Buyers have a deeper understanding of user needs and pain points, maintaining constant interaction and communication with users, and explaining and selling from a consumer's perspective. The advantage of store live streaming lies in the merchant's dominance, rich product offerings, and autonomous and flexible promotional methods.

Since August last year, Xiaohongshu's e-commerce has provided diverse live streaming methods and traffic support for merchants of different sizes. Through various incentives like broadcast incentives, GMV transaction incentives, and placement incentives, it provides traffic support to merchants at all stages.

If the key to the development of the buyer ecosystem lies in having more celebrity buyers like Dong Jie and Zhang Xiaohui, focusing on store live streaming, apart from improving the platform's ecosystem, requires Xiaohongshu to further enhance its attractiveness to merchants and consumers. This poses higher demands on Xiaohongshu in terms of product supply, platform operations, and merchant services.

Li Li, the brand owner of "Yu Jian," shared her experience. From initial seeding notes to live streaming sales and community operations, her team achieved a closed-loop from content to e-commerce. By updating only 4 notes, a single note exceeded one million in sales, and the GMV exceeded one million in the following month.

As some merchants reap the benefits, more follow suit.