When import e-commerce was booming, a website called Xiaohongshu also attracted the attention of many people inside and outside the industry, and many Xiaoqingxin was called a treasure. It can be said that when everyone was paying attention to the various dazzling price wars of several import e-commerce platforms, Xiaohongshu easily jumped into the battlefield in a fresh way, just like an agile elf handy in various battles. Let’s take a look at how import e-commerce is profitable?
Shopping guide self-operated model
In the fierce competition in the cross-border e-commerce market, how did Xiaohongshu stand out and compete with other platform giants? The answer lies in its unique model. Xiaohongshu may not be comparable to platforms such as Yangmatou, NetEase Kaola, JD Global Shopping, Tmall International, MiYa, and MiTao.com in terms of categories, product volume, and supply channels, but it has a shopping guide model that other platforms do not have.
The difference between Xiaohongshu and other e-commerce platforms is that it is a community-based e-commerce platform, which mainly includes two sections: an overseas shopping sharing community in the UGC (user-generated content) model and a cross-border e-commerce “welfare club”.
Xiaohongshu started as a community, and the overseas shopping sharing community has become its core competitiveness. A large number of community users provide it with a rich source of recommendations. Fulishe adopts the B2C self-operated model, directly cooperating with overseas brands or large traders and shipping to users through bonded warehouses. The self-operated model is one of Xiaohongshu’s profit methods.
Shopping guide rebate model
The success of Xiaohongshu represents the development of a new import e-commerce model, that is, the importance of shopping guide websites in the future import e-commerce market. In addition to the case of Xiaohongshu, there are some more special websites that are also doing shopping guides, such as Biyab.
Biyab’s headlines are very readable. By introducing products related to a series of themes in the headlines and introducing corresponding shopping guide links in the articles, users can click to enter the purchase interface at any time once they see their favorite products during the reading process. Unlike Xiaohongshu’s community recommendations, Biyab’s various recommendations pay more attention to the structure of the article and the description of the product. The readability of the three headlines per week is very strong, and the ability to attract traffic is what it pays great attention to.
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Shopping Guide Model
Having said so much, is the shopping guide model good or bad? What are its advantages and disadvantages?
Advantages:
In short, the shopping guide model focuses on content recommendation and information integration. Compared with the imported e-commerce platform, the model is lighter and relatively easy to operate. If the content is well done, it can bring considerable traffic to the website and convert it into consumers.
Disadvantages:
The disadvantages are also obvious. There are many uncertainties in the expansion of the shopping guide model. First, if the light model wants to expand, it will inevitably need large-scale adjustments in the later stage, and the advantages in the early stage will be gradually offset; secondly, due to its low threshold, compared with general imported e-commerce platforms, the competition is more intense and the degree of dependence on content is higher; thirdly, the control over the source of goods is insufficient.
Xiaohongshu stands out in the imported e-commerce market with its unique self-operated shopping guide model, while Biyabee has built a shopping guide platform with strong traffic diversion capabilities through headline recommendations. These two new imported e-commerce models represent the future direction of the industry.