Written by | Wu Xianzhi

Edited by | Wang Pan

For Chen Shiwu, a post-2000s girl who loves fashion, turning her passion into an online business isn't an easy task despite her experience on multiple platforms.

Her brand, "Chen Shiwu," targets the Korean-style sweetness, catering to the lifestyle and daily routines of workers aged 25 to 35. She opened her first online store in 2022 and has noticed the increasing need for content creation in online operations over the past two years, as well as new opportunities in content communities. Around the same time, furniture brand Snob, outdoor brand BEIN SPACE, and many other merchants in the furniture, beauty care, toy, and other industries also embarked on new endeavors.

These personalized and creative products often lack opportunities to reach the public amidst the tide of search-based traffic.

During Singles' Day, omnipresent advertisements not only confuse merchants with unique spirits but also cause aesthetic fatigue among consumers who expect more than just product functionality. Especially in fashion and beauty, search and recommendation functions struggle to capture values beyond appearance.

Wang Xing of Meituan once said that every consumption decision is like a vote, implying that transactions involve more than just currency exchange or ownership transfer from B to A; they also encompass trust accumulation, aesthetic preferences, and even value identification. Traditional methods either focus on the volume of information flow or involve extensive time investment in live streaming, with some even resorting to extreme measures like creating personas and IPs.

Due to human involvement, transactions go beyond mere goods exchange and include recognition from various aspects. Perhaps for this reason, this year's Singles' Day sees platforms and merchants seeking new supports beyond price anchors.

Taobao and Tmall are strengthening their membership systems and refining live streaming classifications and operations. JD.com is filling its content with short videos after consolidating virtual anchors and procurement live streaming. Latecomers like Xiaohongshu are also attempting to provide merchants and users with new shopping scenarios and experiences through an "ecommerce of lifestyle" ecosystem built on its community.

Turning Singles' Day shopping into "life reenactment

For many furniture brands, online operations not only face the same challenges as other widely circulated product categories but also grapple with long transaction chains, low repurchase rates, complex aesthetic preferences, and the lack of effective online conversion methods. During eight years of shelf operation, Lai Shangbo, the head of furniture brand Snob, discovered that user discussions far exceeded post-purchase reviews. "Interested users would ask purchased users about the pros and cons, which poses a problem for purely e-commerce merchants due to this one-way communication."

Therefore, Lai Shangbo undertook two significant changes last year. Firstly, he reduced the shelf operation team from 10 to 3 members and increased the content operation team. Secondly, he adjusted resource allocation, decreased shelf traffic payments, increased investments in content channels, and set rigid KPIs. He issued a firm order: "We must conquer Xiaohongshu within three months."

After these drastic changes, Snob quickly tasted success, selling 2,000 units, up from an initial stock of 50, during last year's Double 12. To further growth, he experimented with various solutions on Xiaohongshu, including buyer live streaming, blogger recommendations, and store live streaming.

Lai Shangbo noticed that traditional e-commerce live streaming emphasizes scripts, whereas Xiaohongshu employs a different narrative system. For example, when launching a new cloth and solid wood bed, many users were concerned about the removability and washability. After receiving feedback, Snob redesigned the product to better fit users' specific usage scenarios and rebuilt the live streaming studio accordingly.

'For example, waterproof fabric is traditionally described as breathable and waterproof in live streaming.' However, in scenario-based live streaming, we also specify the living needs of pet owners for sofa dirt resistance, enriching user perception. Users can immediately understand by seeing us remove and wash the product in the scenario, and some even copy our scene decoration and furniture arrangement."

During this year's Singles' Day, Photon Planet observed that under Xiaohongshu's positioning as an ecommerce of lifestyle, innovative themed block promotions expanded the physical scenarios of existing e-commerce formats to the mental scenarios of promotions, aligning with Snob's aspirations. "We found buyers like kk and Youyang Meixue and made subtle adjustments to design and style based on their fan profiles and actual needs to achieve better conversions." During this year's Singles' Day, Snob recorded multiple million-yuan sales events on Xiaohongshu alone.

In content-driven communities like Xiaohongshu, contentization and scenarization have quietly become one of the essential tools for many merchants to leverage the Singles' Day shopping node.

The team of the outdoor brand BEIN SPACE recently completed testing of new products for Singles' Day in October. In September, the team visited the eastern slope of Mount Everest to test usage requirements in real scenarios, and one pair of pants sold to the top 2 on Xiaohongshu. During testing, the team found that when the drawstring at the bottom of the pants was tightened, the excess length would get tangled in branches and stones, posing a hazard. Therefore, they incorporated the drawstring within the pants.

Given the primary target audience of female users, the product design considered external factors like strong winds in mountainous areas and internal cooling and ventilation needs during activities, while also emphasizing aesthetics with a purple and white color blocking design.

BEIN SPACE's design philosophy revolves around addressing specific scenario pain points, an approach they extended to Xiaohongshu live streaming. Anna, another key manager responsible for R&D, not only explains how products address scenario issues during live streaming on Xiaohongshu but also shares her outdoor experiences, fostering deep connections with users.

"Xiaohongshu's live streaming room is not just a sales venue but a field for content expression," mentioned Lili, the key manager of BEIN SPACE. The themed block event during Singles' Day further broadened their perspective. "We will conduct live streaming sessions aligned with event themes and different nodes." During this year's Singles' Day, BEIN SPACE achieved over 6 million yuan in monthly sales.

Some users remarked that previously, entering live streaming rooms felt burdensome for merchants who persistently persuaded users to make purchases, forcing users to diligently research while in the room, "completely losing the joy of shopping." However, entering BEIN SPACE's live streaming room, users heard the key manager start with, "I have a fun game today; let's interact," immediately changing the atmosphere.

The scenarization feature is also evident in the e-commerce ecosystem of lifestyle communities like Xiaohongshu. One merchant mentioned that in 2023, buyers were selected based on products, but this year's Singles' Day sees buyers matched with products based on lifestyles. "For example, in the community, you can find buyers specializing in eclectic, modern industrial, Italian vintage, and colorful dopamine styles, but under the search and recommendation system, products are classified by function."

Scenarization becomes a new supply in e-commerce

Pre-sale, in-sale, and post-sale are critical stages influencing user purchasing decisions, with pre-sale undoubtedly being the most influential. For instance, low prices offer a direct pre-sale experience.

As platforms and merchants raise the banner against internal competition, can e-commerce find experiences beyond low prices to supplement or even "replace" user pre-sale experiences? "Scenario reenactment" is just part of the new experience. During the search for new growth, more novel experiences have emerged on Xiaohongshu.

"People like listening to me chat, and as long as they enjoy it, there's an opportunity."

Zhang Meng, a buyer who only realized the potential of Xiaohongshu live streaming during last year's 618, started her live streaming journey with an "awkward chat." Without a mature product selection, her first buyer live streaming event only generated sales of over 100,000 yuan, breaking the million-yuan mark within a single month. Her live streaming after transforming into a buyer seemed like an extension of her daily note content: "What I share on Xiaohongshu is not just a sales pitch but my lifestyle."

She gained many fans early on as a knowledge-sharing blogger on Xiaohongshu. To bridge the gap with users, she named her Xiaohongshu fan community "Big Girlfriend Group," positioning her fans as her "digital girlfriends." They are willing to spend extended periods in Zhang Meng's live streaming room, receiving knowledge while providing feedback—a virtuous cycle of interaction and purchasing.

For example, a German vegetable washing machine brand that only had a shelf presence and nearly no relevant content on Xiaohongshu, with a unit price of several thousand yuan, achieved a single-session GMV of one million yuan in Zhang Meng's live streaming room. During the live streaming, Zhang Meng invited the brand manager and a related expert to form a "chat session," first introducing pollution-free food and then explaining product principles one by one. "After clearly explaining everything, users placed orders without needing a countdown; the sales process was completed."

Similarly, in live streaming, users who come for mechanism explanations typically focus only on price. In Zhang Meng's live streaming room, users are more concerned with how to use the products and the products themselves.

We've seen similar practices in the industry before, such as top anchors setting up live streaming studios resembling makeup counters for lipstick swatches or platforms placing live streaming studios at product origins for consumer traceability. Even Meituan has seen food delivery merchants set their live streaming sources in kitchens.

However, these content-based live streams mostly appear in resource-concentrated head streams or special events promoted by platforms. On Xiaohongshu, they are spontaneous actions by buyers and merchants within the content community. This means similar styles and abilities will spread within the community through person-to-person, person-to-store, and store-to-store interactions.

Another buyer, "Kouzi's Life Aesthetics," might be more representative of growth from scratch. Initially on Xiaohongshu, he was a creator sharing his terrace. Kouzi's Life Aesthetics started as a typical user on Xiaohongshu and transformed into a buyer, essentially extending his understanding of life and sentiment from his user days. From a user perspective, he can perceive many unsatisfied aesthetic, emotional, and even interest needs, sharing them through live streaming and notes.

"When I started live streaming, I had about 2,000 followers, with fewer than 10 online at a time. The live streaming room often had zero viewers, and I couldn't make a single sale." However, through consistent sharing, he achieved a breakthrough with a candle warmer, and he has since become a top buyer on the platform with over 100,000 followers accumulated through live streaming and note content.

We found that for most buyers and merchants who "cold start" on Xiaohongshu, the buyers' understanding and sharing of lifestyles become a crucial supplement to user pre-sale experiences. As Zhang Meng said, "You have to show users how these products fit into their lives, including knowledge, logic, systems, and rules, broadening dimensions like functionality, aesthetics, and interests."

Based on their experience, an average user dwell time of one and a half minutes in live streaming rooms on other platforms is considered good. On Xiaohongshu, even when Zhang Meng live streams for over ten hours, users stay for 9 to 10 minutes—they are patient enough to listen to buyers and brands introduce products, making rational purchases based on different selling points rather than just pursuing mechanisms and prices.

When lifestyle becomes a value amplifier for merchants

"When choosing a live streaming platform, we're actually selecting our potential users and style. I want to present more aesthetically pleasing clothing and outfit combinations."

After many detours, Chen Shiwu finally took root on Xiaohongshu. Following the introduction of the "ecommerce of lifestyle" positioning, more merchants like Chen Shiwu have emerged on Xiaohongshu during this year's Singles' Day.

Wu Ting, the key manager of the handmade women's shoe brand Dunlvdao, also has deep feelings about this. In her view, the brand's success hinges not only on her design concepts and aesthetics but also on her early learning and understanding of shoe manufacturing processes and techniques. She has transformed her live streaming room into a "shoe try-on room" for her and her fans.""While chatting casually with fans about aesthetics, products are naturally introduced, which forms the basis of trust with my fans." This deep sense of transactional trust enabled Dunlvdao, founded in April last year, to surpass 2 million yuan in sales within the first ten days of Xiaohongshu's annual shopping extravaganza.

More and more merchants who may have had lackluster performances under the original e-commerce model have achieved breakthroughs on Xiaohongshu. Following merchants, Xiaohongshu also seized this year's Singles' Day promotional opportunity, introducing new gameplay to complement the deep scenarization and contentization of live streaming—launching the annual shopping extravaganza, moving offline shopping scenarios online, and creating five themed blocks.

Growing within the community, Xiaohongshu's lifestyle ecommerce encourages users to spend more time engaging, and user market interactions and community fissions bring more growth opportunities for merchants. During this year's shopping extravaganza, Xiaohongshu also introduced a gameplay on the user side, setting up a live streaming room stamp collection and redemption system similar to an offline market.

The ad delivery operations of the Giant Engine once explained the ROI of brand placements on their platform based on "brand exposure." Similarly, under Xiaohongshu's gameplay, users will enter and stay in live streaming rooms of interest while browsing and purchasing, providing brands with exposure, reach, and even conversions beyond search and recommendation, leveraging Xiaohongshu's status as a content community.

As known, Xiaohongshu, as the birthplace of "grass-seeding," boasts a community atmosphere that benefits others, which is the foundation for ensuring community content supply and positive interactions. Lifestyle sharing within the community acts as a value amplifier for Xiaohongshu merchants, while the annual sales event serves as a practical amplifier based on daily sales.

During Singles' Day, a group of new merchants and buyers with sales exceeding tens of millions and millions of yuan emerged, continuously driving the maturity of the lifestyle ecommerce ecosystem."From last year's "buyer era has arrived" to focusing on store live streaming and then proposing the concept of lifestyle ecommerce in July this year, we can see that Xiaohongshu's ecommerce is gradually enriching its supply side and e-commerce infrastructure, slowly forming its system."More importantly, the community's grass-seeding gene is more friendly to segmented categories based on user demand insights, and the gradually improving key manager and buyer ecosystems are also more conducive to the "cold start" of new merchants."A year has passed, and platforms are no longer exclusively about low prices. Both merchants and platforms are seeking change, and the path of e-commerce is far from over. Compared to "low prices," diversified supply may usher in a more interesting new era.