In this article, we have selected Xiaohongshu and NetEase KaoLa HaiShou (hereinafter referred to as KaoLa) to conduct a simple competitive analysis, and to dig out their similarities and differences.
(a) Platform Overview
From Figure 1, we can find that Xiaohongshu was founded 2 years earlier than Kaola, but the business model and logistics model of the two are the same. The main difference is that Xiaohongshu itself is positioned as an overseas shopping note-sharing community, which has become a barrier for Xiaohongshu from its launch in 2013 until now, and is something that other platforms can't copy or surpass. From the sharing of notes gradually evolved into another major segment, namely, cross-border e-commerce "Welfare Society" (now renamed more commonly known as "purchase"), and through a very efficient social network promotion methods, attracted a large number of users. Koala, on the other hand, is more inclined to the traditional e-commerce approach, utilizing its strong group background and strong financial support, and focusing on the concept of self-supporting direct sourcing, to create a comprehensive e-commerce platform mainly for cross-border e-commerce. And through the NetEase game, NetEase news client and other NetEase full range of products to do traffic import, also attracted a large number of users.
(B) target users
1, from a geographical point of view, Xiaohongshu and koala users are mainly concentrated in Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Zhejiang and other first-tier developed cities (provinces), but due to the location of the company, there is a more obvious gap in Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang. Generally speaking, these areas are the distribution areas of middle- and high-end white-collar people, which is relatively consistent with the positioning of the product. (See Figure 2)
2, from the age point of view, Xiaohongshu and Koala users are concentrated in the 18-34 years of age, accounting for nearly 70% of the users between 35-44 years of age accounted for about 15% of the users (see Figure 3). Users in the two age groups, part of the white-collar workers and civil servants who are in the period of career stabilization, have sufficient purchasing power, strong desire to consume, and pursue the quality of life; the other part of the relatively younger users who have just started to work as students or students (international students), accept new things quickly, have a limited level of income, and are more willing to buy overseas high-quality commodities at a low price. Users younger than 18 years old or older than 45 years old, due to limited purchasing power, or older, less able to accept things, more traditional consumption habits and other reasons, resulting in a lower percentage of users.
Among them, because the koala in the development of the early stage of the mother and baby goods as the main products, in the older 25-34 years of age in the interval of the user accounted for higher than the small red book. And Xiaohongshu is the main fashionable female favorite beauty and skin care products, so the proportion of users in the 18-24 year old range is higher than the koala.
3. From a gender perspective, both users are mostly female, with 82.3% of Xiaohongshu's female users and 69.4% of Koala's female users (see Figure 3). Women's enthusiasm for shopping is stronger than men's, and they are more inclined to buy cheaper luxury goods and high-quality goods abroad than at home.
Comprehensively speaking, the users of Xiaohongshu and Kaola are ****, mainly women aged 18-34 in first-tier cities, mainly characterized by their love of food, love of shopping, love of beauty, willingness to share, pursuit of high-quality life, strong desire for high-quality goods, and strong earning power, with a high degree of loyalty.
(I) Sales share
iiMedia Research (AiMedia Consulting) data show that in 2016, China's cross-border e-commerce retail import sales share distribution, Koala topped the list with a 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 Little Red Book is still relatively large. There is a very important reason for this, that is, the category and product richness of the koala is much larger than the small red book, the small red book has always been the main focus of the "do not want the whole world, as long as the world's good things", the difference between the two can be summarized as, the koala is a large and comprehensive, the small red book is small and beautiful.
(B) Genuine guarantee trust
Compared to the lack of effective supervision of personal nautical, domestic online stores and other forms of lack of cost-effective, no guarantee of authenticity and other disadvantages, the rise of cross-border e-commerce platforms have a greater relative advantage. The report shows that among the important reasons for users to choose cross-border e-commerce over domestic e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores, the guarantee of authenticity is the primary concern of the vast majority of users to choose.
The report shows that 36.7% of China's cell phone haitao users said they trusted NetEase Kaola HaiShou the most, and Xiaohongshu gained the trust of 25.2% of China's cell phone haitao users (see Figure 5).
(C) user satisfaction
The report shows that in 2016, China's cross-border e-commerce self-operated platform user satisfaction survey out of 5 points, NetEase Kaola HaisaoShu scored 3.99 points, with a slight edge ahead of the small red book (see Figure 6).
The analysts at AiMedia Consulting believe that user satisfaction has an important impact on the profitability and healthy development of cross-border e-commerce self-supporting platforms. Improving user satisfaction is conducive to increasing user viscosity and promoting platform brand communication.
Comprehensively speaking, although Xiaohongshu entered the cross-border e-commerce market earlier than Koala, Koala has risen up in a strong position since its entry. At present, from the market share, user trust and user satisfaction are slightly stronger with the small red book, but the koala can have such a result can not be separated from the influence of the powerful NetEase dad, and the small red book as a small platform, can stand out among the many platforms, occupying the third place in the market results, can not be separated from its unique community-based e-commerce model.
(a) Xiaohongshu: community-based e-commerce
Timely transition: tools - community - community e-commerce
1, tool-based products
In October 2013, with PGC (full name: Professional Generated Content (PGC) based Xiaohongshu shopping guide is generated for female users who love outbound travel and shopping, providing them with shopping guidance, mainly focusing on Japan, South Korea, the United States and other tourist crowds.
2, community-based products
In early December 2013, in view of the tool-type guide in reflecting the trend of foreign countries, discounts and other information has a certain lag, "Xiaohongshu shopping notes" application on-line, is located in the overseas shopping experience to share community, for the overseas shopping habits of female users, to The UGC (full name: UserGeneratedContent) content is mainly text+picture.
3, community-based e-commerce
In October 2014, Xiaohongshu on-line shopping function, the community and e-commerce combination, to achieve brand authorization, overseas direct procurement, bonded warehouse bonded imported cross-border e-commerce self-supporting platform model, to achieve the closed-loop information and commodity flow.
4, Xiaohongshu -- community operation
Xiaohongshu with "excellent community function" to overtake many cross-border e-commerce, compared to the Koala, the quality of its content and activity is an important magic weapon. Although we can not dig into the essence of the small red book community operation, but through the way of product experience, guess the small red book community operation of one or two.
First, the high quality of picture shooting and a strong sense of realism, all have a third perspective or selfie perspective, you can see that the operation of the small red book should be mainly from the two sides of the management of the content, true and complete (does not contain ads) and beautiful pictures (people, things, composition), in addition to picture browsing to find the quality of the pictures uploaded by the user is good, which is nothing more than two parts of the reason, the user himself! This can only be attributed to two reasons: the users themselves have higher shooting skills or the behind-the-scenes professor's image processing technology program filters poor quality images. After testing, mainly due to operational intervention, users will be audited for each share, and poor quality will be beaten back, and at the same time, you will be taught how to take high-quality photos, which are followed up by operations.
Second, unify the "tone", strengthen the importance of content, weaken the user factor. The use of "decentralized" thinking, with the user's content to win, to create a high style, desirable lifestyle, these emotions as a driving force to promote the desire to consume.
(2) Koala: media-driven e-commerce
Koala has always been located in the media-driven e-commerce (which can not be separated from the reason that NetEase started out as a news product), the excellent overseas products introduced to the cabinet consumers, and the use of media attributes to help foreign brands to enter the Chinese market, and to realize the change from selling goods to promoting lifestyle.
What is inconsistent with many cross-border e-commerce platforms is that Koala has been adhering to a self-management-based operating model since its inception, which means that Koala has set up branch offices and offices in many of the sharpest direct supply places abroad, and has cooperated directly with overseas brand names and large-scale superstores to directly procure high-quality foreign goods from overseas to bring them to the domestic users, and this model has been recognized by the users, and is the first place in the user trust degree of Koala. This model is recognized by users, which is also an indispensable factor for Koala to rank first in user trust.
In the second half of 2016, the main slogan of Koala is "follow Koala to buy the world", Ding Lei and Zhang Lei, CEO of NetEase Koala HaiShou, traveled to different countries to sign strategic cooperation agreements with different overseas brands or large superstores and displayed them on Koala's APP through the form of videos, which created a strong impact on users and increased their confidence in the company. Strong impact, improve the user's sense of trust, for its excellent performance in the second half of several big promotion laid a solid foundation.
Little Red Book, heavy content, heavy demand. In the content of the importance of word of mouth on the dissemination of mining female users' needs, rather than simple rough output, decentralized experience sharing and commodity selection based on this is conducive to accelerating the pace of sales and enhance user viscosity. NetEase Kaola HaiShou, heavy media, heavy goods. The clear positioning of itself and its control of the upstream supply chain and the quality of the midstream warehouse logistics, to promote the stable development of the whole platform.
Comprehensively speaking, the success of Xiaohongshu and NetEase Kaola HaiShou is due to their clear platform positioning. The irreplaceability of Xiaohongshu in terms of 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, the results of this time let's look forward to it. NetEase has always been the main guarantee of authentic products, but also to the user to strongly show its ambition and ability to authentic products.
Therefore, to do a successful product, clear and strong product positioning is very important, can not do big and comprehensive, why not learn from the small red book to do small and beautiful, focusing on a certain point, to play the maximum value, and ultimately will be rewarded.