Analysis Report on Xiaohongshu and Netease Koala's Competitive Products in Sea Purchase

in recent years, domestic e-commerce has sprung up under favorable policies, and has been in a relatively stable situation after several rounds of reshuffle. There are comprehensive cross-border e-commerce platforms that rely on large group companies, such as Tmall International, Netease Koala Haibao and JD.COM Global Shopping, as well as entrepreneurial companies that have survived fierce competition, such as Xiaohongshu and Vipshop.

this paper selects xiaohongshu and Netease koala haigou (hereinafter referred to as koala) to make a simple competitive analysis and explore their similarities and differences.

(I) Overview of the platform

As can be seen from Figure 1, Xiaohongshu was established two years earlier than Koala, but their business model and logistics model are the same. The main difference is that Xiaohongshu itself is positioned as an overseas shopping note sharing community. Since its launch in 213, this has become a barrier for Xiaohongshu, and it is also a place that other platforms cannot replicate and surpass. From note sharing, it gradually evolved into another big sector, that is, the cross-border e-commerce "welfare agency" (now renamed as "purchase"), and attracted a large number of users through very efficient social network promotion methods. Koala, on the other hand, prefers the traditional e-commerce approach. With its strong group background and strong financial support, it focuses on the concept of self-operated direct mining and builds a comprehensive e-commerce platform focusing on cross-border e-commerce. And through Netease games, Netease news client and other Netease products to do traffic import, also attracted a large number of users.

(II) Target users

1. From a geographical point of view, the users of Xiaohongshu and Koala are mainly concentrated in first-tier developed cities (provinces) such as Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Zhejiang, but due to the location of the company, there is an obvious gap in Shanghai, Guangdong and Zhejiang. Generally speaking, these areas are the distribution areas of middle and high-end white-collar workers, which are relatively consistent with product positioning. (see Figure 2)

2. From the age point of view, users of Xiaohongshu and Koala are concentrated between 18 and 34 years old, accounting for nearly 7%, and users between 35 and 44 years old account for about 15% (see Figure 3). Users of two age groups, some white-collar workers and civil servants who are in a stable career, have sufficient purchasing power, strong consumption desire and pursue quality of life; Another part of students or students (international students) who have just started working with relatively young users are quick to accept new things and have limited income levels, and are more willing to buy overseas high-quality goods at low prices. Users younger than 18 years old or older than 45 years old, due to limited purchasing power, or older, poor ability to accept things, more traditional consumption habits and other reasons, resulting in a relatively low proportion of users.

Among them, because koalas are mainly engaged in maternal and child products in the early stage of development, the proportion of users in the older age range of 25-34 is higher than that in Xiaohongshu. Xiaohongshu is a beauty and skin care product that is popular among fashionable women, so the proportion of users in the age range of 18-24 is higher than that of koalas.

3. From a gender perspective, most of the users are women, with 82.3% of the users in Xiaohongshu and 69.4% in Koala (see Figure 3). Women are more enthusiastic about shopping than men, and are more inclined to buy luxury goods and high-quality goods cheaper abroad than at home.

On the whole, the users of Xiaohongshu and Koala are * * *, mainly women in first-tier cities aged 18-34. Their main characteristics are love of eating, love of visiting beauty, love of sharing, pursuit of high-quality life, strong desire for high-quality goods, strong income ability and high loyalty.

(1) Sales share

According to the data of II Media Research, in the distribution of cross-border e-commerce retail import sales in China in 216, koala ranked first with 21.6% market share, while Xiaohongshu accounted for 6.5% (see Figure 4). As can be seen from the sales share, the gap between koala and Xiaohongshu is still relatively large. There is a very important reason for this, that is, the category and commodity richness of koalas are much greater than that of Little Red Book, which has always focused on "Don't want the whole world, just the good things of the whole world". The difference between them can be summarized as: koalas are big and complete, while Little Red Book is small and beautiful.

(II) Authentic Guarantee Trust

Compared with the disadvantages of personal Haitao and domestic online stores, such as lack of effective supervision, low cost performance and no genuine guarantee, the rise of cross-border e-commerce platforms has great comparative advantages. The report shows that among the important reasons why users choose cross-border e-commerce instead of domestic e-commerce and physical stores, genuine protection is the primary concern of most users.

according to the report, 36.7% of China mobile phone Haitao users said that they trusted Netease Koala Haibao the most, and Xiaohongshu won the trust of 25.2% of China mobile phone Haitao users (see Figure 5).

(III) User Satisfaction

According to the report, in the survey of user satisfaction of self-operated cross-border e-commerce platforms in China in 216, Netease Koala scored 3.99 points, leading Xiaohongshu with a slight advantage (see Figure 6).

Ai Media Consulting analysts believe that user satisfaction has an important impact on the profitability and healthy development of cross-border e-commerce self-operated platforms. Improving user satisfaction is conducive to increasing user viscosity and promoting platform brand communication.

On the whole, although Xiaohongshu entered the cross-border e-commerce market earlier than Koala, Koala has risen with a strong posture since it entered. At present, it is slightly stronger than Xiaohongshu in market share, user trust and user satisfaction, but koala's achievements can not be separated from the influence of powerful Netease dad, and Xiaohongshu, as a small platform, can stand out from many platforms and occupy the third place in the market without its unique community-based e-commerce model.

(1) Little Red Book: Community-based E-commerce

Timely transformation: tools-community-community-based E-commerce

1. Tool-based products

In October 213, Little Red Book's shopping strategy based on PGC (full name: Professional Generated Content) came into being, which is aimed at female users who like to travel and shop abroad.

2. Community-based products

In early December 213, in view of the lag of tool-based strategies in reflecting overseas trends, discounts and other information, the application of "Little Red Book Shopping Notes" was launched, targeting at overseas shopping experience sharing communities, targeting female users with overseas shopping habits, with text+picture UGC (full name: UserGeneratedContent) as the main content.

3. Community-based e-commerce

In October 214, Xiaohongshu launched the online shopping function, combining the community with e-commerce, realizing the self-operated platform mode of imported cross-border e-commerce with brand authorization, overseas direct purchase and bonded warehouse protection, and realizing the closed loop of information and commodity circulation.

4. Xiaohongshu-Community Operation

Xiaohongshu overtook many cross-border e-commerce companies by virtue of its "excellent community function". Compared with koalas, its content quality and activity are important magic weapons. Although we can't dig into the essence of the operation of Xiaohongshu community, we can guess the operation of Xiaohongshu community through the way of product experience.

first, the quality of pictures is high and the sense of reality is strong, which is mainly from the third angle of view or self-portrait. It can be seen that the operation of Little Red Book should mainly manage the content from two sides, which are true and complete (excluding advertisements) and beautiful pictures (beautiful people, beautiful goods and beautiful composition). In addition, from the picture browsing, it is found that the quality of pictures uploaded by users is good, which is nothing more than two reasons, that is, users have higher shooting skills themselves or teach picture processing technology programs behind the scenes. After testing, it is mainly caused by operational interference. Every user's share will be reviewed, and poor quality will be called back. At the same time, you will be taught how to take high-quality photos. These are all followed up by operators.

second, unify "tonality", strengthen the importance of content and weaken the user's factors. Using the idea of "decentralization" and relying on users' content to win, we will create a high-pressure and desirable lifestyle and use these emotions as the driving force to promote consumption desire.

(II) Koala: Media-driven E-commerce

Koala has always been positioned as a media-driven E-commerce (this is inseparable from Netease's origin as a news product), introducing excellent overseas products to consumers in the cabinet, and using media attributes to help foreign brands enter China, realizing the transformation from selling goods to promoting lifestyles.

inconsistent with many cross-border e-commerce platforms, koala has always adhered to the self-operated operation mode since its inception, which means that koala has set up branches and offices in many foreign direct supply places, directly cooperated with overseas brands and large supermarkets, and directly imported high-quality foreign goods to bring to domestic users. This mode has been recognized by users, which is also an indispensable factor for koala to rank first in user trust.

in the second half of 216, koala focused on the slogan of "follow koala to buy the whole world". Ding Lei and Lei Zhang, CEO of Netease koala, went to different countries to sign strategic cooperation agreements with different overseas brands or large supermarkets, and displayed them on koala APP through video, which had a strong impact on users, improved their trust and laid a solid foundation for their outstanding performance in several major promotions in the second half of the year.

Little Red Books emphasize content and demand. Pay attention to word-of-mouth communication in content and tap the needs of female users, rather than simply rough output. Decentralized experience sharing and commodity selection based on it are conducive to speeding up the sales pace and improving user viscosity. Netease koala sea purchase, heavy media, heavy goods Clear self-positioning and control of upstream supply chain and midstream hasty logistics quality promote the stable development of the whole platform.

On the whole, the success of Xiaohongshu and Netease Koala is due to their clear platform positioning. The irreplaceability of Xiaohongshu in content makes it always occupy a certain share in the cross-border e-commerce field. Recently, Xiaohongshu should be in the direction of personalized recommendation of goods. Let us look forward to the results this time. Netease has always focused on genuine guarantee, and also strongly demonstrated its genuine ambition and ability to users.

Therefore, to make a successful product, it is very important to have a clear and strong product positioning. We can't make it big and complete. Why not learn from the little red book to make it small and beautiful, keep an eye on a certain point, give full play to its maximum value, and finally gain something.