dentifying its business as a social “e-commerce” platform, Xiaohongshu’s seamless in-app shopping experience is one of their crucial services. Thus, online shopping service is the biggest advantage owned by the company. Of course, you might like to refute that Instagram and Pinterest are also social media apps supporting e-commerce, and that online shopping is indian phone number nothing special to Xiaohongshu. Partly true, however, Xiaohongshu is different in the sense that it operates an online store and supports a one-stop shopping journey. (cf. Pinterest and Instagram cannot be accessed in China without VPN.)
Xiaohongshu operates an online store within the app and there are largely two types of stores. One that is self-operated by Xiaohongshu and the other that is operated by registered brands. Xiaohongshu works as a middleman for brands that are not sizable enough to manage online stores and sell selected goods to its customers. It also accepts licensed brands (individuals with no brand license cannot apply) to register on its online store to directly sell their products. Therefore, Xiaohongshu does not only exist as a bystander selling advertising products to brand sellers but takes active actions to create sales. As of March 2019, Xiaohongshu sells more than 200,000 SKUs. (link)
User’s shopping journey on Instagram
Seamless shopping journey is another great advantage offered by Xiaohongshu. That is, where many Instagram and Pinterest shopping posts directs users to the brand’s online pop-up store hosted outside of the app when purchasing a product, shopping at Xiaohongshu makes this process a lot simpler with the help of in-app online store. Users are not required to exit the app and hence are able to shop quickly with saved mobile payment information.