This article is part of our Advanced Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to The Long View from Vogue Business, The Fashion Exec s Guide and Market Insights Reports, sign up for Advanced Membership here.
2024 marked a turning point for China’s e-commerce scene. For the first time in eight years, the 618 shopping festival — a key retail moment — saw a decline in sales. The once unassailable Singles Day, traditionally a one-day shopping spree, now stretches for a full month to drum up sales amid a sluggish economy (it also faced record-high return rates last year). Adding to the turmoil, Alibaba, a titan of China’s e-commerce ecosystem, cancelled its iconic Singles Day gala.
As the traditional e-commerce landscape falters, a new wave of social commerce is gaining traction. On social media, purchases are now more seamless than ever, with platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu (also known as Red in the West) leading the charge. Pablo Mauron, managing partner for China and board member of marketing and technology group DLG, aptly describes China’s social media as having evolved into a highly transactional landscape.
China’s embrace of social commerce has been swift. As management consultancy McKinsey’s recent report underscores, the country is now the global leader in this emerging sector, where consumers buy directly through social media. But despite the overall rise, the dynamics vary across platforms — each of which is carving out its own niche.
Among the four major social platforms, WeChat has long been a gateway for international brands seeking to tap into the Chinese market. Weibo serves as an aggregator for brand news, while Douyin has emerged as a social commerce leader. Xiaohongshu, meanwhile, has proven to be an effective tool for word-of-mouth marketing.
But this landscape is far from static. Economic headwinds and fierce competition are forcing social media platforms to experiment and evolve. Thomas Piachaud, head of strategy at luxury data solutions agency Re-Hub, observes that most platforms have experienced a slowdown in consumer engagement, signalling yet another possible shift in China’s fast-moving digital ecosystem.
From social to shopping
China’s social platforms have been flirting with commerce for years. In 2016, Dior became the first luxury brand to sell top-end bags on WeChat, offering its iconic Lady Dior style to mark the country’s Qixi Festival. Bvlgari soon followed, introducing limited-edition pink items in honour of the same celebration.
Dior later continued to take a lead on social media marketing, becoming the first to land on Douyin in 2018, the leading short-form video platform. Others followed in rapid succession, including Gucci, Prada, Armani and Fendi. Douyin’s capacity to blend video storytelling and commerce also attracted mainstream names in fashion and beauty — Inditex-owned Zara sparked buzz with innovative live streaming, while Fenty Beauty opened an official flagship store on the platform.
As international brands continue to use social platforms to boost brand awareness, another short video app, Kuaishou, has also begun to attract fashion and beauty players. As of now, Coach, Louis Vuitton and Laneige have all landed on Kuaishou. At the same time, Xiaohongshu is emerging fast among fashion and beauty due to the platform’s increasingly female user base, of which many are high spenders. In 2019, Louis Vuitton became the first luxury brand to launch an account on Xiaohongshu.
However, social media platforms have traditionally lacked the robust e-commerce capabilities of giants like Tmall, making it challenging to directly drive sales conversions. As a result, brands often need to integrate their own marketing strategies to leverage content and boost sales.
That’s changing. Douyin, Xiaohongshu and WeChat have all upgraded their in-app shopping features, rolling out everything from mini stores to buyer-centric live-stream models. This allows brands to increase engagement on these social media platforms while converting content into actual sales within the platform.
WeChat, the most popular messaging and social platform in China, has now transformed into a major e-commerce channel for luxury and fashion and became the first social platform that launched a store feature to allow brands to sell items through the platform directly. Recently, the platform introduced a gifting function to allow users to browse and purchase gifts directly within chats, mini programs or official brand stores.
“For Douyin to perform as an e-commerce platform, live streaming is a key engine for that,” says Mauron. Douyin first kicked off its e-commerce feature in 2018 and then launched the live-streaming feature in 2019. During the pandemic, live-streaming content grew rapidly, drawing Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dior, Zara, Coach and more.
.png)
Xiaohongshu, which was initially positioned as a fashion and beauty shopping guide platform, is now becoming a powerhouse for lifestyle content. It is also increasingly evolving as a full social commerce platform by launching live-streaming features in 2020 and building a buyer e-commerce business model in 2023.
Ahead of a potential US ban, TikTok creators are warming up to Xiaohongshu, known as Red in the West. Is it the right move?
Weibo, on the other hand, serves as a news aggregator for international brands to broadcast “news announcements and capitalise on celebrity outrage”, Mauron explains. “Weibo has been playing [this role] for 10 years, nothing new about it.” However, the platform still lacks effective e-commerce features and has limited competitive advantages compared to its counterparts.
How to leverage their strengths
To any international brand wanting to tap into the Chinese market, social media poses a key window. “Failing to capitalise on informing your loyalists or potential new customers, you will be running the risk of losing awareness,” says Piachaud. The cornerstone of success is recognising each platform’s strength and audience.
Douyin, for example, is a rising super-platform both on social media and e-commerce. With over 786 million average monthly active users in the first 10 months of 2024, Douyin is the second largest social platform after WeChat, according to data agency QuestMobile. “The strategy [for fashion and beauty] to succeed on Douyin is correlated with the impactful short video format,” says Piachaud.
Creative agency Poptag’s co-founder Haoquan Gu notes that brands are increasingly investing in localised short-form video content. As an example, local beauty brand Kans has capitalised on this trend by collaborating with renowned key opinion leader (KOL) Jiang Shiqi to promote its products in mini dramas on Douyin.
Mini dramas, which are online TV series often produced professionally, typically last between three to five minutes. They are then distributed through short video platforms such as Douyin. According to iiMedia Research, the market size of China’s mini dramas is projected to surpass RMB 100 billion ($13.8 billion) in 2027.
Yet Douyin’s scale may not benefit every brand equally. Mauron notes that, for the luxury industry, it is not realistic to use the platform as a commerce channel, as Douyin’s business model is heavily reliant on “transactional live streaming”, which brings a rough-and-ready dynamic that can challenge the aspirational positioning many luxury brands wish to maintain.
Lucrezia Seu, founder of Plush Consulting, a boutique brand strategy and marketing agency based in Shanghai, says that for premium or luxury brands “Xiaohongshu seems to be the focus”. According to QuestMobile, Xiaohongshu has the largest number of high-value users (monthly online spending over RMB 2,000 or $276) among social platforms in China.
According to Re-Hub, the follower growth of luxury brands in Xiaohongshu countered the wider slowdown trend of 2024, with 29 per cent more followers acquired than the same period in 2023. “Brands such as Hermès, Miu Miu and Zegna all doubled their followerships, with a key lever of success being offline events or activations resonating across the platform,” says Piachaud. “Xiaohongshu is rising to become a home for luxury.”
Compared to Douyin and Xiaohongshu, Weibo and WeChat are more traditional, similar to Whatsapp, Facebook and X. WeChat used to be considered a website function for international brands. “To open a WeChat official channel is always a good starting point to give an overall presentation of the brand,” says Seu.
“The reality is that you have to consider the WeChat ecosystem as a whole,” Mauron adds. In addition to the WeChat official channel, there is also a mini programme for brands to serve personalisation features and e-commerce services, as well as a WeCom feature to help manage customer relationships.
WeChat’s focus on the private domain also limits its utility. “WeChat was never an efficient platform to build brand awareness, but it remains the most efficient platform to capture people with a high level of interest in your brand and to maintain and develop that relationship with them,” Mauron adds. In his opinion, Weibo “doesn’t require a lot of strategic thinking or creativity”, as more than 95 per cent of the engagement generated on Weibo is by celebrities — and collaborating with those celebrities presents an opportunity for brands.
Though Kuaishou offers potential opportunities for fashion brands, its presence in the fashion industry has remained limited. Poptag’s Gu explains that luxury brands have made few attempts to engage with Kuaishou over the past two years because their marketing aims to convey a high-end image and create fantasies for consumers. This approach conflicts with Kuaishou’s current platform identity. “Kuaishou’s core is rooted in everyday rural life, and its current positioning is not suitable for high-priced or culturally rich brands,” he states.
Winning the social commerce race: Live streaming and KOL marketing
Despite the nuances of various platforms, certain strategies have emerged across the board. Live streaming, mini dramas and KOL-centric word-of-mouth marketing top the list for both local and international brands looking to convert social engagement into revenue.
Take Kans for an example: the beauty brand saw a 102 per cent year-on-year increase in gross merchandise value (GMV) on Douyin in 2024 thanks to both live streaming and mini dramas. “We are one of the earliest to try live-stream commerce on Douyin,” says a spokesman from Kans.
The company uses mini dramas to “lure the audience in and persuade them to purchase during the live-streaming sessions”. Another cornerstone of Kans’s strategy is concentrating resources on a single blockbuster product. “For all the investments we spent in mini dramas, we just promoted one of our most popular skincare products,” the spokesperson adds.
Aside from beauty brands, Douyin’s head of e-commerce brand marketing Andrea Xu notes that over the past two years, fashion brands on the platform have seen double-digit annual growth in both brand stores and transaction volumes; luxury goods, in particular, experienced triple-digit growth.
“We’ve seen fashion and luxury brands embrace live-streaming innovation, creating immersive, multi-scenario real-time shows that break away from traditional fashion show models in a more interactive and creative way. Collaborating with hit TV shows has also proven an effective marketing strategy for attracting new customers,” says Xu. “Meanwhile, sports brands are teaming up with KOLs and athletes to capitalise on the live-streaming trend, broadcasting real-time outdoor activities.”
Xu further explains that live-streaming commerce is evolving quickly on Douyin. “Brands are now placing more emphasis on integrating marketing and e-commerce, rather than mainly focusing on product selling,” she says.
This shift is evident in the strategies of leading brands like Chinese designer label Zhizhi and Spanish fashion retailer Zara, both pioneers in live streaming. In 2023, Zara made history by hosting a five-hour live show on Douyin, showcasing cinematic-quality visuals and featuring both local and international talents. Zhizhi recently opted for a party-esque live show, providing an immersive and highly interactive experience for its audience.
Both brands are committed to investing in live streaming in 2025. Zara’s parent company Inditex said in a note to Vogue Business that it held over 30 live-streaming shows in the Chinese market last year. It made the first attempt to live stream across all digital channels for its latest collaboration with local designer Ao Yes during a pop-up event in January this year.
Zhizhi founder Li Tao views live streaming as a marketing strategy with huge potential despite its often steep costs. “The return on investment (ROI) shouldn’t be judged by performance, but long-term brand image-building,” he explains. Through a live-streaming show on Douyin, Zhizhi broke its own record by achieving RMB 20 million ($2.8 million) in GMV.
In addition to leveraging the live-streaming trend, Xiaohongshu’s substantial pool of KOLs and KOCs (key opinion consumers) offers significant marketing potential. According to the platform, local beauty brand Komfymed saw a 439 per cent year-on-year increase in search last year. Meanwhile, Japanese luxury beauty brand CPB made millions of sales on Xiaohongshu during last year’s Singles Day.
Chujing, head of international beauty at Xiaohongshu, puts the cases of Komfymed and CPB down to two things: “Good choice of product and good collaboration with Xiaohongshu’s KOLs and buyers.” Xiaohongshu has almost a million KOLs and KOCs. “Other than that, Xiaohongshu, as a content platform, can help brands efficiently capture the needs of users and drive word-of-mouth marketing.”
The platform is also testing a “buyer e-commerce” model, calling celebrities like well-known actor Dong Jie and TV show host Wu Xin to promote products in their live-streaming shows, which opens doors for more niche brands to succeed.
Streamers, known for live-streamed gaming or comedy content, are building huge followings among Gen Alpha and Gen Z. But with their volatile content sometimes resulting in scandal, it’s risky business for brands.
.jpg)
Beyond the status quo
As Chinese consumers shift towards what Zhizhi’s Li Tao describes as “an era of selfcare”, brands are looking for fresh ways to satisfy emotional and experiential needs. “We intend to deliver emotionally engaging experiences through immersive, interactive and visually captivating live-streaming shows, to meet the emotional needs of the audience,” says Sean Wu, founder of creative agency Wild and the planner behind Zhizhi’s highly interactive live-stream show.
New platforms are also vying for market share. Beyond the four major social platforms, emerging players such as Dewu and Bilibili are also gaining traction. “Bilibili, a cultural platform for hobbies and lifestyle consumption, promotes brand concepts. Its long-tail content benefits, but tracking conversions is challenging,” explains Gu. “Dewu, which integrated e-commerce and community in the past two years, offers a seamless ‘content and products’ loop for promoting trendy, moderately priced brands and collections.”
However, their impact on the fashion industry remains limited. Very few brands have officially partnered with Bilibili, and issues related to daigou — traders who take advantage of cross-border price differences to resell luxury goods on the grey market — on Dewu pose significant challenges for brands looking to engage on these platforms.
In response, some brands are diversifying their content strategies. Zara is developing a dedicated content hub for the Chinese market, aiming to deliver more “China-specific” content. “Ultimately, our goal is to provide a seamless omnichannel experience to meet our customers’ fashion desires,” Inditex responded.
Content strategy aside, Xiaohongshu’s Chujing advises that “instead of using a top-down approach to communication, brands should stay close to user needs, tap into trending community topics and shift their mindsets from ‘selling points’ to ‘buying triggers’.” In other words, beyond just showcasing new product launches or hit items, brands should look to Xiaohongshu as an insights hub for future innovation.
In terms of brand strategy, Mauron believes that the entire luxury industry has become overly transactional and short-term oriented. He suggests that brands start investing again to build desire. To innovate, brands must once again strike “the right balance between performance and aspiration and invest in their brand-building, storytelling and showcasing their craftsmanship”.
To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
