Product operation analysis of Xiaohongshu, Kaola.com and Ymatou!

Due to the pursuit of personal quality of life, consumers' demands have become more personalized and differentiated, making the competition in the overseas e-commerce industry increasingly fierce. This article analyzes several overseas shopping products including Xiaohongshu , competitor Kaola, and Yangmatou to see what merits they each have.

Experience environment:

Table of contents:

1. Market analysis

2. Identify competing products

3. Competitive product analysis

4. Vision and Interaction

5. User Data

6. Product Strategy

1. Market analysis

1.1 Industry Background

Data source: iiMedia Research Report "2019 China Cross-border E-commerce Development Trend Research Report"

Data shows that the scale of China's cross-border e-commerce transactions is growing rapidly and is expected to reach 12.7 trillion yuan in 2020. Currently, more and more merchants and platforms are paying attention to the field of cross-border e-commerce, and the industry is expected to enter a period of rapid growth along the early development trajectory of B2C e-commerce. In addition, the rapid development of the industry has attracted more companies to enter cross-border e-commerce, but its development still faces problems of high customer acquisition costs and insufficient user experience. In this context, dual-channel integration, live streaming and social communication have become the three major trends in the development of the industry.

As the Chinese consumer market entered a new round of consumption upgrades, the consumption structure shifted from survival-oriented consumption to enjoyment-oriented and development-oriented consumption. Internet users migrated from PC to mobile terminals, and e-commerce also sought new growth channels. As consumption levels increase, people's consumption patterns have gradually shifted from traditional methods to overseas shopping, pursuing high-quality goods.

The current mainstream overseas shopping consumers have surpassed the stage of using "foreign goods" to show off in the past, and are now enjoying the actual improvement in their quality of life brought about by overseas shopping. However, it is precisely because of the pursuit of personal quality of life that consumers’ needs have become more personalized and differentiated, making the competition among apps in the overseas e-commerce industry increasingly fierce.

1.2 User scale

Data source: iiMedia Research Report "2019 China Cross-border E-commerce Development Trend Research Report"

Statistics show that the number of Chinese overseas shoppers will continue to grow in the next few years and is expected to reach 211 million in 2020. With consumption upgrading, the number of Chinese online shopping users continues to grow. Moreover, with the improvement of relevant policies and regulations and stricter market supervision, merchants will continue to make progress in supply chain upgrades and product quality assurance. More consumers will engage in overseas shopping, and it will become more important for merchants and platforms to pay attention to user experience.

1.2.1 Development Trend

Users are concentrated in first- and second-tier cities, and are gradually moving to third- and fourth-tier cities.

Data source: iResearch: 2018 China Cross-border Import Retail E-commerce Industry Development Research Report

Data source: iResearch: 2018 China Cross-border Import Retail E-commerce Industry Development Research Report

At present, users of cross-border online shopping are mainly located in first- and second-tier developed cities, with the highest proportion of users in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. In the future, with the increase in per capita disposable income of residents and the change in consumption concepts, the consumption power of residents in third- and fourth-tier cities will gradually increase, and the number of users in third- and fourth- tier cities and below is much larger than that in first- and second-tier cities, and their proportion will become higher and higher in the later period.

Richer product categories:

At present, cross-border online shopping products are dominated by food, 3C digital products, beauty and personal care products, and clothing, shoes and hats. As the user scale increases, in order to meet the diverse needs of users, cross-border e-commerce will continue to enrich the variety of platform products.

Improve user shopping experience:

At present, there are more or less problems with cross-border shopping authenticity, logistics speed, customer service communication, and returns and exchanges on various platforms, which affect the user shopping experience to a certain extent. Improving its internal and external negative factors and enhancing user experience remain the top priorities for the development of cross-border e-commerce.

Overseas shoppers attach great importance to product quality. However, due to the origin of the product, it is more difficult to understand the actual condition of the product when purchasing online. Therefore, the online and offline dual-channel integration model is an important development direction for cross-border e-commerce.

Shopping remains the core demand of users for offline overseas shopping stores. Interactive experience functions such as AR makeup trials are certainly attractive to some users, but product quality and product variety are still the fundamental elements that offline overseas shopping stores need to continuously improve.

Cross-border e-commerce integrates into new retail:

The optimized integration of O2O online and offline channels can effectively make up for the shortcomings of insufficient user trust. By attracting traffic from both online and offline channels, it can tap into potential customers, expand the scope of influence, and promote platform growth. Currently, major mainstream cross-border e-commerce platforms have begun to join the ranks of opening offline experience stores.

1.3 PEST Analysis

Politics: Analysis of cross-border import retail e-commerce policies

The period from 2012 to 2016 was a period of explosive development for cross-border e-commerce. In order to curb the barbaric growth of imported products, such as personal purchasing on behalf of others, concentrated smuggling, and the quality of products being uneven, the policies successively introduced by various relevant national departments undoubtedly had a great impact on imported goods, excluding a considerable number of non-standard small-scale import retailers/individuals from the game.

The extension of the transition period for cross-border import retail e-commerce management in 2016 and 2017 will undoubtedly play a certain role in the adjustment and standardization of related companies in the industry.

The reduction of import taxes on relevant commodities and the establishment of comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce in 2018 are an affirmation and encouragement of the development trend of cross-border e-commerce.

E-commerce ushered in new development opportunities in 2019. With the promulgation and implementation of the "E-Commerce Law of the People's Republic of China" and other relevant laws, the market was further regulated and the country paid more attention to the cross-border e-commerce model. Currently, purchasing on behalf of others and overseas shopping will gradually fade out of history because of the limited inventory and potential for development. Starting from 2019, the cross-border e-commerce model will be encouraged by national policies and will encounter considerable development opportunities.

To sum up, national policies have a decisive influence on cross-border import retail e-commerce. Only companies that are standardized, policy-oriented, and have rapid feedback and rectification capabilities for relevant policies can achieve long-term and stable development in this field.

Bconomic: Economic Analysis of Cross-border Import Retail E-commerce

As my country's per capita disposable income increases, residents have more disposable funds and their purchasing power is gradually increasing. With the improvement of people's consumption level, commodity consumption has shifted from simple material satisfaction to the pursuit of high-quality goods, and the consumption concept of focusing on brands has gradually become prominent. Foreign products have a very good reputation in China, and driven by the "consumption upgrade" in recent years, they have provided a good user base for cross-border shopping.

In addition, with the changes in the exchange rate between the RMB and foreign currencies, the appreciation of the RMB against the US dollar and the euro, the gradual recovery of the international economic situation, and the structural adjustment of the domestic economy, my country's imports will maintain relatively stable growth for a certain period of time, creating a good market environment for cross-border e-commerce.

The much-watched Sino-US "trade war" has little impact on cross-border retail e-commerce buyers. The categories of products on which China imposes additional tariffs on the United States do not include maternal and child products, beauty and personal care products, health products, clothing, etc., which are currently the main products of cross-border import retail e-commerce.

Social: Social Analysis of Cross-border Import Retail E-commerce

With the rapid development of mobile Internet in my country, the number of mobile payment users exceeded 700 million in 2019, and the scale of mobile payment transactions in China reached 27.74 trillion yuan in 2018. In addition, e-commerce has made outstanding progress in the expansion of mobile social e-commerce.

On the one hand, e-commerce's easy accessibility to mobile users and word-of-mouth marketing features make social media a new entry point for e-commerce to obtain traffic; on the other hand, social data makes it easier for businesses to grasp user attributes, and precision marketing supported by big data will also become a service explosion point for online retail.

In addition, overseas shoppers attach great importance to product quality. Due to the origin of the product, it is more difficult to understand the actual situation of the product when purchasing online. Therefore, the online and offline dual-line integration model is an important development direction for cross-border e-commerce. In 2019, mainstream cross-border e-commerce platforms have also accelerated the pace of offline new retail store layout.

The number of Chinese people traveling across borders, studying abroad and returning home is growing continuously. A considerable number of these people have a certain understanding and usage habits of overseas products. They will infect the people around them with their familiar products and living habits, thus stimulating the demand for cross-border shopping.

Technology: Cross-border import retail e-commerce technology analysis

At present, domestic 4G technology has matured and domestic 5G network layout has been completed by 80%. After the network upgrade is completed, the mobile network speed will greatly meet user needs, and of course also meet the network needs of mobile shopping.

It is nothing new to use Alipay for cross-border travel. In recent years, my country's mobile payment has developed rapidly. Alipay, WeChat Pay, and JD Pay cover almost all mobile online shopping payment channels. Their safe and convenient payment methods have become the choice of more and more netizens, providing great convenience for e-commerce payments.

The development of big data and various intelligent algorithms have provided e-commerce with a large amount of user preferences. Through certain algorithm analysis, not only can the client recommend their favorite products to consumers, but data reports can also be generated in the background, providing a certain basis and data support for e-commerce sales, procurement, and operations.

1.4 SWOT Analysis

2. Identify competing products

Starting from the strategic perspective of customer demand, combined with the purpose of this competitive product analysis and product iteration, in line with the principle of selecting the best e-commerce apps for customers, we screened competitors through five aspects: demand positioning, product positioning, user positioning, number of active users and number of new users. Finally, we selected Kaola and Yangmatou as the objects of competitive product analysis for Xiaohongshu.

2.1 Demand Positioning

As China's internationalization continues to deepen, the demand for online shopping has further intensified. Compared with traditional store shopping, people now prefer to shop online. Therefore, choosing an online shopping APP that suits you for online shopping has become an urgent need for people today.

To this end, this section uses the latest official rankings of overseas shopping on the iResearch APP Index website and the official rankings of I0S popular APP social categories on the App Annie website as a reference for ranking, and selects the top 10 overseas shopping apps, thereby determining the best and most recognized overseas shopping and shopping sharing apps by consumers, as shown in the following figure:

iResearch APP Index website overseas shopping category official ranking

iResearch APP Index website shopping sharing category official ranking

App Annie website iOS popular APP social category official rankings

2.2 Product Positioning

From the top ten apps, the following apps were selected as the best overseas shopping and shopping sharing apps: Xiaohongshu, Kaola.com, Mogujie, Yangmatou, and Onionomall.

2.3 User Analysis

The five apps, Xiaohongshu, Kaola, Mogujie, Yangmatou, and Onion omail, were further screened based on the gender and age ratios of the population.

2.3.1 Gender Ratio of the Population

In terms of user gender, except for Onion Omall, the other four apps have a higher proportion of female users, and Mogujie has the highest number of female users.

2.3.2 Age ratio of the population

Xiaohongshu ranks first in terms of the proportion of users aged 25 to 30, while the other four apps rank first in terms of the proportion of users under 24 years old. People under 24 years old are basically students, those aged 25-30 are young people entering the workplace or highly educated students, and those over 30 are basically practitioners. Therefore, the user group of Xiaohongshu is mainly newcomers to the workplace and highly educated students, which is somewhat different from the other four applications.

2.4 Identify competing products

3. Competitive product analysis

3.1 Product Positioning

Little Red Book:

Xiaohongshu’s slogan is “Mark my life”, and it focuses on users sharing the products they have purchased overseas. Its current positioning is very clear. As a community with a large amount of high-quality UGC, it provides timely product information and usage experience to users who want to purchase foreign products through active user self-propagation, thus attracting huge traffic to the community. At the same time, it will make use of its accumulated high-quality users to open up the shopping closed loop of "planting grass - pulling grass" and establish a new community + cross-border e-commerce platform.

Koala Overseas Shopping:

NetEase Kaola’s slogan is “Global Goods, Genuine Direct Sales”. With official authorization from overseas brands and endorsement from NetEase Kaola, it focuses on 100% authentic products at low prices, high-quality after-sales and delivery services, and launches preferential activities to gain a place among cross-border e-commerce platforms. Later, a grass-planting community was launched, transforming from a simple cross-border e-commerce platform to a cross-border e-commerce + community type.

Ocean Pier:

The slogan of Yangmatou is "For overseas shopping, go to Yangmatou". As a representative of independent cross-border e-commerce, Yangmatou has a differentiated platform operation model that focuses on operations and efficiency instead of stock preparation and inventory. The powerful fragmented supply chain organization capability enables efficient matching of numerous non-standard categories with personalized overseas shopping demands. The flexible and lightweight model allows Yangmatou to move forward with ease and focus more resources on empowering buyers and merchants.

The complete and mature buyer empowerment system combines theoretical guidance with practical operations to continuously promote the professional development of buyers and merchants in product selection, marketing, and services. It builds buyer personas through short videos, live broadcasts, content marketing, etc., helps buyers match accurate customers, improve conversion rates, and establish a one-stop overseas shopping platform.

3.2 Product Function Structure

Xiaohongshu functional structure diagram

Kaola.com functional structure diagram

Functional structure diagram of Yangmatou

3.2.1 Similarities

1. The structures of the three apps are similar, all of which include two parts: online community and shopping mall.
2. All three apps use a bottom tab bar structure with five major modules, and the entrance to each module is relatively clear and convenient.
3. The structures of the three apps tend to be flat and the navigation is clear. The flat structure reduces the number of user operations, improves the user experience, and helps to increase the conversion rate.

3.2.2 Differences

1. Xiaohongshu's product structure is simpler, and content shared by the user community occupies a relatively large space. Hiding some less frequently used functions in the "More" menu bar also makes the entire page look more concise. The video on its homepage will be displayed in a dynamic form, which can attract your attention more. After clicking in, swipe down to continue browsing similar content automatically recommended by Xiaohongshu, and the video content is extensive. Relatively speaking, the "shopping cart" entrance is not added to the bottom tab bar.
2. Kaola.com is a combination of traditional e-commerce and weak community structure, with comprehensive content and numerous functions, but a clear structure. Add "Today's Activities" to the bottom Tab bar to centrally display the activity page with complete information.
3. Compared with the previous two apps, Yangmatou has added a live broadcast function, and the community content is mainly commodity-based. It has many functions and is relatively concentrated. The categories in the top bar, the homepage, and the mall have some overlapping structures.

3.3 Product Features

3.3.1 Similarities

All three apps include the following basic functions, and the operation processes are similar:

1) Mall functions: product information, event information, shopping cart.

2) Community functions: blogger notes, publishing, commenting, and sharing.

3) General functions: search, message, settings, profile, address management.

3.3.2 Differences

The functions of the three software are relatively complete, but there are differences.

From the perspective of product positioning, Xiaohongshu is positioned as a lifestyle sharing community for young people; NetEase Kaola is positioned as a safe and reliable cross-border shopping website; and Yangmatou has built a one-stop overseas shopping platform.

1) Xiaohongshu’s core business is placed on the UGC community, so it has rich social functions but weak shopping mall functions. However, the integration between the community and the mall is good. Compared with NetEase Kaola, the benefits of Little Red Card membership are not prominent enough and not attractive enough. Xiaohongshu’s core competitiveness lies in focusing on high-quality community content and attracting high-quality social users.

2) Kaola.com tends to focus on cross-border e-commerce functions, providing a smoother shopping experience. Although community functions have been added on the basis of traditional e-commerce, the modules are loosely connected and not well integrated with the mall. However, through NetEase's self-operated direct purchasing model, relying on the strong strength of the NetEase system, the product quality is effectively guaranteed, thus forming core competitiveness.

3) Yangmatou adopts the model of mall + community + live broadcast, and is more like a product shopping guide website. The blogger's notes are of low quality, have too many commercial attributes, and lack appeal. When searching in the mall, you will find not only products but also related live broadcasts, which allows the mall and the community to form a closed loop and increase competitiveness through live broadcasts.

3.3.3 Recommendations

1) Xiaohongshu adheres to the UGC model to improve user stickiness, further extends on the basis of vertical community, improves the quality of video content, and develops in a refined and high-quality manner. Increase live broadcasts of overseas shopping and increase the discounts offered in the live broadcast rooms. At the same time, strengthen the construction of mall functions and increase product diversity. For example: enrich product categories and strengthen product quality assurance; highlight the rights and interests of Little Red Card members, such as: highlight the Little Red Card entrance and highlight Little Red Card discounted products. Enhance e-commerce functions to form a more complete "social + e-commerce" closed loop.

2) While improving its e-commerce functions, Kaola.com is optimizing the quality of community content and emulating short video models such as TikTok to increase user stickiness. Kaola's core business is cross-border e-commerce transactions, and it wants to maintain positive revenue growth.

First, we need to increase the number of platform users, mainly through advertising and the platform's unique advantages to create a word-of-mouth effect; at the same time, we need to improve the conversion rate of the Koala platform in terms of price, rankings, reviews, buyer shows, buyer answers, and customer service; and we need to increase the average order value of the platform through related product combinations, coupons, shipping cost combinations, and customer service recommendations.

3) While doing a good job of live streaming, Yangmatou needs to improve the quality of community content. In addition to relevant product content, it can also add content from aspects such as life to increase user stickiness.

4. Vision and Interaction

Since all three have the attributes of community-based e-commerce, this article focuses on comparing and analyzing the visuals and interactions of the community page, content detail page, and product detail page.

4.1 Icom

The three softwares all use red and white as the main colors and adopt a flat design style to cater to the aesthetics and image of modern young women.

1. Xiaohongshu uses product names as icons, which are highly recognizable.
2. The icon of Kaola.com is cute and gives people a sense of intimacy.
3. The icon of Yangmatou is more attribute-oriented, clearly showing its shopping function attributes. The word "foreign" increases people's subconscious evaluation of the high quality of foreign goods, making it more commercial.

4.2 Home Page

Xiaohongshu Kaola.com Yangmatou Home Page

Visual:

Xiaohongshu places the community page, which is mainly based on user experience evaluation reports, on the homepage. The content occupies the vast majority of the page, and the "Follow", "Discover" and "Nearby" at the top are all centered around the content. It uses white as the main color with red embellishments, giving people a pure and simple feeling and highlighting the content itself.

Koala Global Shopping uses light gray as the base color, which highlights both simplicity and texture, and is paired with Koala gradient red, giving people a sense of simplicity and texture as well as a warm and friendly feeling.

Yangmatou uses the traditional festive color - red as the background color. The local color changes give people a sense of nobility while also having a simple and elegant feel.

Interaction:

The tab bar at the bottom of Xiaohongshu has the same feature, that is, the red "+" in the middle, which can be clicked no matter which section you switch to, in order to attract more sharing from other users to increase community activity. Kaola.com places the sharing button in the floating window at the lower right corner of the "Community of Planting Grass", which makes it more convenient and encourages users to share when browsing this page. Xiaohongshu can refer to this aspect.

Yangmatou highlights the live broadcast function, which should give users a real visual experience. All three use swiping left and right to switch to different channels in the community, and the transition is smooth, but Kaola has too many channels, making it inconvenient for users to find them.

4.3 Content details page

Xiaohongshu Kaola Haigou Yangmatou content page

Visual:

Compared with focusing on KOL sharing, Xiaohongshu pays more attention to more and better high-quality content. Xiaohongshu notes, which are mainly based on UGC, often have cute expressions and symbols, and are deeply loved by female users. The feature of the details page is that you can add tags. Click to jump to related topics, or the purchase page of related products. You can also pull down to view related notes, which brings convenience to users who are interested in this category.

The content module of Kaola.com is not as rich as that of Xiaohongshu. It is presented in the form of pictures and texts. Users can like, comment and buy immediately. The content is highly relevant and is basically displayed in the form of comments. The layout is reasonable and the font size and spacing are appropriate, making it more comfortable and attractive for users to read.

Yangmatou’s model is to add live streaming and use fan economy to complete GMV. With dynamic visual and language stimulation, it is easier to promote purchases, but its disadvantages are that on the one hand the quality of content is uneven, and on the other hand the live streaming content is subject to time constraints.

Interaction:

Xiaohongshu displays the content shared by users on the page at the same time, reducing the number of jump steps and enabling smooth and seamless switching and product click operations, making the process from browsing to ordering feel refreshing and smooth, greatly improving the user experience.

When you click Buy Now on a content page on Kaola.com, all the products mentioned on that page will be displayed, and you can choose to add them to your shopping cart. There are few steps, making it very convenient for users.

Yangmatou allows users to click to purchase while watching live broadcasts, without having to jump to the product details page, eliminating the trouble of switching pages.

4.4 Mall Page

Xiaohongshu Kaola Global Shopping Ymatou Mall Page

Xiaohongshu's mall page is mainly about promotional information. There are not many categories, so coupons and promotional items are more prominent. The product categories are in the upper right corner. Compared with NetEase Kaola, they are not prominent and not easy to click. It adopts a pink theme color, and the page design is warm and harmonious, giving people a pleasant and relaxing feeling. .

The mall page of Kaola.com is the homepage, which has a typical e-commerce layout, with carousel pictures + popular categories + promotional activities, but there are too many categories, making it difficult for users to focus on one point. However, the display that focuses on product promotion attracts users' attention, and the color matching is relatively consistent, conveying the concept of fashionable and quality shopping.

Yangmatou is mainly composed of carousel pictures + popular categories + promotional items, but the classification is better and the theme is highlighted. In addition, the centralized display of coupons and promotional items attracts users and gives them a first-come, first-served experience.

4.5 Product Details Page

Xiaohongshu Kaola Global Shopping Ymatou Mall Details Page

Visual:

The product details pages of Xiaohongshu, Kaola.com, and Ymatou are roughly the same, and basically include buttons such as shopping cart, add to cart, buy now, share, and favorite. Both Xiaohongshu and Kaola.com can pop up membership discounts to encourage users to consume. In comparison, Xiaohongshu's membership mechanism is more attractive.

Kaola.com provides preview thumbnails for the same products in different colors, allowing users to see the products at a glance. The purchase button also uses gradient colors, which is very fashionable. In addition, an installment button has been added, which gives it an advantage in order settlement. However, Xiaohongshu does not have a "customer service" function, and this aspect can be appropriately optimized.

The product details page of Xiaohongshu not only has standardized "picture + text" introductions and user purchase reviews of the product details, product functions, and usage methods, but also uses notes shared by community users to replace this part of information. This is also the characteristic of Xiaohongshu as a community e-commerce platform. It allows users to have a general understanding of the attributes of products by reading the sharing of experts through the "Related Notes" recommendation, and cultivate users' shopping habits through note sharing.

Interaction:

When Xiaohongshu users click the "Add to Cart" button on the product details page, the "Cart" button on the page will pop up with the product type selection. After confirmation, a message prompts "Successfully added to the shopping cart, go to checkout". The prompt will disappear after 3 seconds, and the "Cart" button will automatically display the current number of items in the shopping cart. This kind of interaction with pop-up information on the shopping button can better guide users to go to the shopping cart for checkout.

When a product has different colors and specifications to choose from, click the "Add to Cart" button, and a "floating layer" will pop up on the page for users to select the required product specifications, colors, sizes, quantities and other information. Click "Confirm to Add" to successfully add the product to the shopping cart.

Kaola.com has the richest content on the product details page, with a menu of product brands and similar brands. Users can click to switch at will. The switched content occupies a very small area on the screen, which will not cause large-scale switching and make users lost in the interface process. Click the "Add to Cart" button, and a message will pop up in the middle of the page saying "Added to Cart Successfully". The message disappears after 2 seconds, and the "Cart" button automatically displays the current number of items in the cart. The process is simple and smooth.

Moreover, compared with the other two options, Kaola.com provides pre-ordered logistics information, related fees and instructions, ensuring the authenticity of the products while also providing users with a clear price structure.

The product details page of Yangmatou will display about 1 to 5 product pictures, giving users the urge to swipe left and right to continuously view the pictures. After adding to the shopping cart, the product will be dynamically collected in the upper right corner icon. The store information and evaluation information displayed below it are more attractive. It not only achieves the purpose of promotion in the same store but also directly feedbacks user evaluation of the product, which is very experiential.

4.6 Summary

The purpose of visuals is to create an atmosphere for users. It should not interfere with the transmission of information. Even pictures and animations must be consistent with the product positioning. The interaction should cater to the user's operating habits and give the user a better experience. Comparing the three, each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Since users share a large variety of products with many tags in the Xiaohongshu community, but relatively few can be purchased directly in the Xiaohongshu mall, users cannot tell which tags can jump to the product details page. It is recommended that the jump tags that can be purchased directly in the mall be designed to be more conspicuous, so as to reduce unnecessary jump steps and increase the conversion from community to mall purchases.

On the other hand, considering that the main users are women with generally smaller hands, Xiaohongshu can improve by changing the original "More" button on the upper left corner of the homepage and content details page to a floating window on the lower left corner. This will not affect the overall aesthetics, but also make it easier for users to quickly click to jump to the corresponding page. In addition, you can refer to the installment form in the Kaola Global Shopping details page to prepare for switching to second- and third-tier cities.

5. User Data

5.1 Android downloads

5.1.1 Xiaohongshu Android

5.1.2 Kaola Global Shopping Android

5.1.3 Yangmatou Android

5.2 IOS application ranking

As of March 8, 2020, Xiaohongshu, NetEase Kaola, and Yangmatou ranked 26th, 142nd, and 183rd in the overall ranking of apps on iOS, and ranked 3rd, 11th, and 14th in the social shopping app rankings. Judging from the overall IOS application rankings and shopping rankings, Xiaohongshu's user growth rate is higher than that of Yangmatou and NetEase Kaola. (Data source: Cicada Master).

5.2.1 Xiaohongshu IOS

5.2.2 NetEase Kaola IOS

5.2.3 Ymatou IOS

5.3 User Reviews

The current version of Xiaohongshu is rated 5, and all versions are rated 5. The current version of NetEase Kaola is rated 4.7, and all versions are rated 4.7. From this set of data, it can be clearly seen that NetEase Kaola is constantly improving the user experience during the new version update process, but it is still slightly lower than Yangmatou.

The current and historical versions of Yangmatou both have a score of 4.9, so Yangmatou has always focused on user experience and interface function interaction from the first version to the later version upgrades. The highest score belongs to Xiaohongshu.

In the current version, the total number of comments on Xiaohongshu, NetEase Kaola, and Ymatou are 4,468,156, 87,981, and 292,541 respectively, and the number of five-star reviews are 4,343,745 (97.2%), 77,393 (88%), and 274,714 (94%) respectively. Xiaohongshu's total number of comments and positive reviews are far higher than those of Yangmatou and NetEase Kaola, and it also leads in terms of the proportion of five-star positive reviews. (Data source: Chan Tianshi)

5.3.1 Xiaohongshu User Reviews

5.3.2 Kaola.com User Reviews

5.3.3 User Reviews of Yangmatou

6. Product Strategy

6.1 Product Iteration

6.1.1 Experience

The publishing entrance in the upper left corner of the homepage and the tab publishing entrance at the bottom exist at the same time, but are not complementary and take up space. It is recommended to cancel the publishing button in the upper left corner of the homepage. In my personal experience, the touch feedback of the Tab at the bottom of Xiaohongshu is just bold font, which is not a good effect. I suggest you refer to the Tab at the bottom of QQ, with icons and text.

6.1.2 Visual aspects

In addition to the bottom Tab problem mentioned above, the color difference between the interface background color and the product module is too small, which will cause visual confusion and needs to be upgraded.

6.1.3 Functional aspects

(1) Most users use Xiaohongshu for the purpose of recommendation and shopping. If daily product recommendations and discount reminders are added to the [Message] on this basis, and active reminders are given from a social perspective, it can increase user satisfaction and stickiness to the platform.

(2) With reference to e-commerce platforms such as Kaola, Taobao and JD.com, the shopping cart can be set as a separate tab (replacing the position of [Message]) to allow users to find the products they are interested in at the lowest cost. This can also increase the website's transaction rate. [Message] can be placed directly at the top of the homepage. In this way, when opening the homepage, according to user habits, the [Message] column at the top is more prominent than at the bottom.

(3) With reference to e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, it is more appropriate to place the order entrance under the "Me" tab. Considering the fact that Xiaohongshu attaches great importance to social interaction, "Order" can be placed above "Share Moments" and under the "Me" column, which is also in line with the shopping habits that users have built up on other shopping websites such as Taobao and JD.com.

In addition, in the [Me] interface, the user information display takes up a large space. It is recommended to refer to Kaola Global Shopping, streamline the content, make the interface more tidy, and add the order entrance mentioned above to make it more e-commerce-like and improve efficiency.

6.2 Marketing Strategy

1) Xiaohongshu’s community can develop horizontally, from a vertical community to a comprehensive community, expand the user base it serves and then look for growth space, thus realizing a three-dimensional development model.

2) The "community + e-commerce" model has brought the number of Xiaohongshu users to around 100 million, of which over 30 million are active users. This is a very remarkable user data. However, 70% of Xiaohongshu's user base is female, and the age range is concentrated between 25 and 35 years old. They are young women with certain consumption power and pursuit of quality. Such a user group is still a niche group. Therefore, Xiaohongshu should consider how to break through this user limitation, allow more people to participate, and occupy more market share.

3) Xiaohongshu’s main source of profit currently still comes from its e-commerce platform. In order to ensure product diversification, Xiaohongshu has introduced merchants in addition to its own operations. However, at present, the functions of the e-commerce link are still not very good. Xiaohongshu needs to enrich the product categories, speed up the logistics and delivery, and improve after-sales service in order to achieve real traffic monetization.

6.3 Analysis Conclusion

6.3.1 SWOT Analysis of Xiaohongshu

6.3.2 Strategy

(1) Optimizing community functions

Optimize algorithms, strengthen personalized customization, and provide users with more accurate recommendations. Strengthen the supervision of published content to reduce the phenomenon of counterfeit content.

The content of the notes can be differentiated according to different consumption levels (white-collar workers/students), and the investment in live broadcast functions can be increased.

(2) Optimize e-commerce functions

• Optimize the purchase process and improve user experience.
• Add pre-sales and after-sales customer service system (add a customer service button on the product details page).
• Strengthen product operations. Social e-commerce currently has various forms such as group buying, content, and KOL distribution. We will strengthen existing models and expand services on this basis to build a multi-functional and multi-faceted three-dimensional social e-commerce platform. In addition, emphasizing promotional activities through system messages and increasing group purchases are also effective methods.

(3) Strengthen supply chain construction.

In order to expand its own influence, in addition to expanding its own products, it is also necessary to attract merchants and brands to settle in.

Carry out offline layout as early as possible. Overseas shoppers attach great importance to product quality, and the physical display format of offline stores allows consumers to experience the products and enhance their shopping confidence. The layout of offline new retail stores lays the foundation for the formation of a three-dimensional commercial closed loop in the future.

Strengthen product supervision, ensure product quality and establish reputation.

Optimize the logistics system, speed up delivery, and increase logistics tracking.

(4) Pay attention to the needs of users born in the 1990s and 2000s and those in second- and third-tier cities, and prepare for future market expansion.

6.4 Version Planning

1) The community is more structured and personalized. By utilizing its own labeling mechanism, from products to users, it caters to their preferences through precise labels and push methods, and recommends notes and products to users.

2) Increase the variety of goods in the mall and improve the conversion rate from product sharing to product purchase.

2) Strengthen product quality protection. As the transaction volume of Xiaohongshu products increases, negative news about product quality is gradually exposed. By combining product sharing, product purchase, product review and product supervision of problematic products, a window for solving problematic products will be opened, allowing more and more users to purchase products on Xiaohongshu with confidence.

6.5 Development Expectations

Consumers under the trend of consumption upgrading, especially young consumers and consumers in the sinking market, rely on the guidance of opinion leaders and tend to be instantly satisfied. As consumers' economic ability improves, their demand for shopping experience is also increasing. Overseas shopping live streaming and social communication have narrowed the distance between customers and users, increased the frequency of user interactions, and promoted user purchases. The integrated development of both online and offline channels and live streaming can make up for the shortcomings of traditional overseas shopping experience from different angles and comprehensively upgrade the user consumption experience.

In such an environment, Xiaohongshu should expand its services based on its existing advantages, form a three-dimensional commercial ecological closed loop, and achieve two-way conversion of social and e-commerce traffic. Of course, the future is full of opportunities, but also full of challenges. This requires operators to assess the situation, focus on the future, and seize the present.

Data source: iResearch report: "2019 China Cross-border E-commerce Development Trend Special Research Report"

Author: indreax

Source: indreax