In 2023, the prestigious "VOGUE Fashion Fund" project landed in China for the first time. The award was jointly founded by American VOGUE and the American Fashion Designers Association (CFDA), and has nurtured many cutting-edge designers in the past 20 years. A few days ago, the VOGUE Fashion Fund 2024 China Young Designers Support Program was officially launched. This support program will protect the growth of designers in all directions. In addition to winning awards, contestants can also deeply connect with top international fashion resources.
As one of the most eye-catching industry events this year, how to undertake the influence radiated from the designer circle online? Unlike international projects, which often seek the head platform, "VOGUE Fashion Fund" finally chose Xiaohongshu as the exclusive platform partner.
Think about it carefully, such a choice is reasonable-since last year, Xiaohongshu has made full efforts in e-commerce.
Thanks to the unique content gene, Xiaohongshu e-commerce is rapidly forming an atmosphere of integration of brand merchants, buyers and users. Xiaohongshu e-commerce has established brand recognition through rich content, and the advantages of high repurchase rate and low return rate have also made many brands start to make efforts in Xiaohongshu e-commerce, treating it as a high-potential player at the same level as WeChat video number, and the last "traffic depression".
Among them, designers are a special group, which is a circle that matches the platform mind and user portrait of Xiaohongshu. In the past year, the potential of designers in the rise of Little Red Book is obvious: under the topic of Little Red Book # First Person Designer #, the exposure of notes has exceeded 79 million. In 2023, Xiaohongshu launched Xiaohongshu REDlabel, as a store IP with Xiaohongshu certification, unique concept, fashionable attitude and leading the trend. Since March last year, the number of REDlabel brands has increased fourfold.
If we look at the whole industry horizontally, designers are also one of the brightest new forces in the past two years.
In the past, designers in China made their mark in the industry more by "creativity", but the lack of business operation knowledge made the subsequent development of designers’ brands weak. Changes have occurred in recent years. More and more young designers have completed the identity transformation from "designer to manager", and the incubation process of independent designer brands has obviously accelerated. These stylized designer brands have enriched the content of the platform and the source of "goods" with diverse brand temperament, and after gathering people with different interests, they have precipitated and formed "circle culture".
Xiaohongshu, which has rich content and buyers’ resources, naturally has the advantage of attracting designers, but how to maintain this advantage? How to make designers realize commercialization while recognizing the value of content planting grass, Xiaohongshu has its own solution.
Designers who are not obsessed with "explosive models"
Found a friend here
"I don’t really approve of the Internet, or the presentation of some short videos."
In 2014, Linhuanying registered her own original brand under the name of the pinyin of her name "Lin Huanying". At that time, the domestic market style was single, and there was no new national tide or new Chinese style. The most popular markets for clothes with oriental elements are in Europe and America. The sales logic of the apparel industry is mostly "fast-moving", and the high-priced "designer money" appears more in the show.
For a subdivided style like "New Chinese Style", it is no exaggeration to say that we want to find accurate users such as "looking for a needle in a haystack".
But Lin Huanying doesn’t want to give up. In 2023, the "New Chinese Style" became popular, and it swept out of the circle from Xiaohongshu, becoming the fastest growing track. According to the data of thousands of melons, the volume of notes related to "New Chinese Style" in Little Red Books increased by more than 390% last year, and the total amount of interaction increased by more than 188%. After nearly ten years, Lin Huanying finally waited for the "fashion reincarnation" and ushered in her own opportunity.
Lin Huanying described it as a feeling at that time: "I felt that I saw hope in Little Red Book." The notes spontaneously created by a large number of users make the "new Chinese style" completely out of the circle. This platform potential energy leads the cutting-edge trend style and quickly gathers a circle of "loving the new Chinese style". Here, she found fans-or "friends"-who can exchange brand ideas and fabric technology.
LINHUANYING, the manager of the new Chinese clothing brand Lin Huanying
Detonating the style of the minority, even the subdivided categories can find "accurate user groups" for them, input the first batch of users for the brand, and accumulate the reputation of designers through content fermentation, which is the unique value that Xiaohongshu can provide.
Long Hongzi, the founder of the handmade silver jewelry brand "soft mountains Soft Mountain", recalled that when he was studying in london college of fashion in his early years, he brought the traditional accessories of the Yi people, and people around him were very interested in these jewels. This gave her the idea of "building a brand in a literary and humanistic way". However, after returning to China to set up "Soft Mountain", it was not smooth at first.
She often feels lonely. "No one in China can understand what we are doing, and almost no one is optimistic. I don’t even have anyone to discuss, how to do this style of brand is to cross the river by feeling the stones. There is no case reference in China. "
She is eager to know, "What are my guests, living them?"
In 2023, exploring the beauty of tradition, represented by national tide culture and minority culture, became a new popular trend of Little Red Books. "It turns out that what my grandmother and they wear can also be worn by modern young people." Long Hongzi began to receive such private messages frequently on the account of Xiaohongshu. She was surprised to find that the face of the "guest" was no longer blurred. The unique customer community and sharing community in Little Red Book are natural research fields and communication spaces. This made her "a little closer to the real guests".
At the same time, the original vegetable tanning leather brand "Qiuzhen" also found this unique group in Little Red Book: "tap water users". Founder Cheng Baohua attaches great importance to these "real voices". These loyal customers shared their real experience and satisfaction with Qiuzhen products in Little Red Book, which made great contributions to Qiuzhen’s attention and growth. He believes that "because these sharing are real experiences, they are from the heart, so other users can feel that this is a real sharing."
The unique user communication atmosphere and real user voice on Little Red Book platform enable designers to find "confidence" and gain insight into market trends. Even in constant communication and collision, designers generate can come up with new ideas and feed back product development.
However, one problem is that when the field of "content planting" and "user communication" is opened, how can designers be willing to settle in and retain them, not only to "plant grass" but also to realize "transaction"?
From planting grass to trading
How to expand the "living space" of designer brands?
For a long time, Little Red Book has been imitated by other platforms.
Under the background of the peak of Internet demographic dividend, "seeking increment" is no longer the core competitive idea, and how to "tap the stock" is the main theme of competition. And "content" is the most intense battlefield-whether it is to improve the platform DAU (the number of daily active users), or to increase the frequency of users’ use and stretch the duration of users’ use, "content" has a miraculous effect.
For merchants, Xiaohongshu is the most suitable platform for interacting with consumers. When e-commerce enters the era of "diversified and multi-platform operation", many merchants begin to operate across platforms, while Xiaohongshu, video number and other platforms that have not invested much in e-commerce business before are considered as the last "traffic depression".
In 2023, Xiaohongshu obviously accelerated the process of commercialization and increased investment in e-commerce. In this year, Angel, Orfila and other small red book buyers’ live broadcast rooms have been circled one after another. The original power of small red book, "designer", became the first group to catch the small red book e-commerce express train, realizing "opening the market with content and buyers planting grass, and stabilizing the passenger flow with buyers’ cooperation and shops".
Soft mountains soft mountain new products
This is also in line with the expectations of many designers: customers who spend in Xiaohongshu first perceive the brand and content, and then trade, rather than the traditional e-commerce "54321" sales promotion. This gives Xiaohongshu e-commerce a "differentiated" advantage.
Lin Huanying recalled that she registered her corporate account in Xiaohongshu in April 2022, but it was only as a supplement to offline business at that time. It was not until July that she began to spend 50% of her energy on the operation of Xiaohongshu. Until the end of the year, she suddenly discovered that the online demand for Xiaohongshu was very high. She said that she came to Xiaohongshu at first because of "operating costs". "Because of the high investment in offline branding and the large market for other head brands, it is more difficult to start. However, being self-media has little pressure on capital requirements. "
In Xiaohongshu, they experienced three stages of growth. Due to the lack of certain e-commerce experience, they initially achieved initial growth through the investment of commodity notes. After Daren took the initiative to seek cooperation, it achieved a large increase again; After that, in the context of the platform encouraging brands to do shop broadcasting, preparations, anchor search and mutual running-in began in July last year, and shop broadcasting began to improve from September to October. To sum up, through the three steps of "note drainage, live broadcast by talented people, and self-broadcast by shops", we gradually found the rhythm of business.
ALMOND ROCKS(AR), a brand of designer socks, takes a fancy to the "stability" of management.
Its founder said that at first, the unique value of Little Red Book to AR brand mainly lies in its rich content and interactive community, as well as the gathering of buyers who have a unique understanding of wearing and fashion. But they gradually found that this value is not limited to promotion. "Our buyers are all real users. They are opinion leaders in the minority field, and they share the rules and feelings of dressing in daily life. I think this is the most touching thing for consumers." He revealed that the most direct impact is that consumers can understand products from multiple angles, which greatly reduces impulse purchases and the return rate is very low.
The founder of cashmere knitting brand "322 workhouse" believes that the small red book e-commerce is an incremental supplement. "After Xiaohongshu planted grass, even through passwords and other means, there will be a loss rate in the process of forming and transforming another platform. These data feedbacks made the team realize very early that opening a store in Xiaohongshu has the opportunity to minimize the turnover rate and improve the initiative. "
Whether it is because of the controllable operating costs, the consideration of inventory and return rate, or the incremental supplement, these designer brands have started to invest in Xiaohongshu e-commerce for different reasons. Xiaohongshu’s active user content community and rich buyer resources make them grow rapidly and have considerable potential.
The offline physical space of designer socks brand ALMOND ROCKS(AR)
China cutting-edge designer
What kind of long-term business position is needed?
In recent years, China designers have attracted more and more attention on the international stage and brought more and more heavyweight design awards back to China. Most of these designers graduated from famous design and art schools all over the world. Their design styles span traditional and modern times, and the original brand stores they created appear in the streets and lanes, which are gradually becoming the vanguard of China fashion industry.
But in the past, designers were a relatively "closed" group. A designer wants his own brand to survive, and the places where his works can be seen are very limited. Behind the seemingly rich choices, designers often need to pay an "invisible tuition fee". Designers who don’t know how to operate, channel or market may have to bear the price of failure. How to balance creativity and business is also a science-excessive commercialization may make the brand lose its creativity and become boring; However, excessive pursuit of creativity may also leave the market and make the brand unable to survive.
How can these young designers be seen by more people and cross the market cycle when the brand is still young?
Little Red Book, which is not so "commercialized" and has a unique "content gene", may be the most suitable platform to support designers’ brands. Xiaohongshu e-commerce is biased towards the bottom logic of "content community" and has built a set of traffic distribution mechanism with "content" as the core. Even the most individual niche designer brands will not be involved in the endless situation of "advertising and advertising". The right to speak is dispersed to buyers, users and experts, so that small and medium-sized brands also have the opportunity to "mine traffic by content".
These designers who are good at sharing their lifestyles and life concepts are not only the brand owners, but also one of the most important user groups of Xiaohongshu. It can be said that their style is brand style, which constantly attracts users with the same "smell" to approach the brand.
This is also an important reason why Xiaohongshu e-commerce has continuously introduced favorable measures to support designers.
Since last year, Xiaohongshu e-commerce has promoted designer brands with the help of many fashion buyers. Such as Angel, Orfila and Han Huohuo. The offline showroom launched once a month last year has created a space for designers to communicate with fashion buyers, so that designers can be seen by more people. This popular activity was continued this year, creating an online showroom.
In order to better support the brand, Xiaohongshu e-commerce launched the Focus30 list and the Rise100 annual list. This year, the RedForce project was also launched, which provided customized support according to the needs of the brand, such as the latest on-line riding plan, and invited fashion bloggers and designers to jointly build a brand live broadcast room, so as to open a bigger world for designer brands and find new growth.
Recently, Little Red Book REDlabel has become the exclusive platform partner of VOGUE Fashion Fund 2024, which is also to better incubate designer brands. During the event, Little Red Book REDlabel will join hands with VOGUE to open an exclusive registration channel for designers. REDlabel of Xiaohongshu will also provide "note flow incentive" and "green channel for opening a store" for the participating designers, as well as all kinds of training and resource support needed for the long-term operation of the store, so as to help the brand’s fans accumulate and grow, and open up the business path of "content-e-commerce" for them.
From opening a store in the offline trend block to creating the IP of the manager, this is the traditional path of designer brand development in the past.
However, with the increasing popularity of the domestic independent designer market, a more mature and professional way is needed to incubate brands. This requires not only enough fashion resources for irrigation, but also financial and commercial assistance to capital, which requires founders to learn multi-dimensional knowledge such as supply chain management, channel management and cost control to launch brand management.
In a sense, Xiaohongshu e-commerce, which supports designers from various aspects in terms of content, management and resources, has become an important platform for obtaining industry information and communicating with peers, and has also become a "novice training camp" for founders to change from designer status to brand management. In the future, with more and more original designers settling in and opening stores, Little Red Book will also become the core business position of cutting-edge designers in China, and under the unique ecological blessing of "content community", it will become a key channel to get through the dialogue between designers and users.
