Taobao and Tmall, Alibaba‘s core e-commerce business, is joining forces with China‘s popular social commerce platform Xiaohongshu, or Rednote, in an effort to boost online sales amid a structural economic slowdown.
The cross-platform shopping function, which allows users to click on purchase links embedded within Xiaohongshu posts that can then be redirected to the Taobao app, will help bridge content and commerce and offer consumers a seamless path from product discovery to purchase, according to Alibaba.
Xiaohongshu users can click on a link embedded within a post and be redirected to the Taobao app to complete the purchase.
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“This collaboration with Xiaohongshu marks a new chapter in our support for brand growth in 2025,” said Liu Bo, vice president of Alibaba Group and president of Tmall.
According to Alibaba, the partnership also includes the launch of joint merchant accounts and performance dashboards, allowing brands to gain insights into the consumer journey and monitor return on investment in real time.
“To further support merchant success, Taobao and Tmall will invest in amplifying hero products featured in Xiaohongshu posts, providing marketing resources and performance advertising tools to boost product visibility and engagement,” Alibaba added in a statement.
The pilot program, which began late last month, already yielded meaningful outcomes for brands.
According to data from the luxury consulting group Digital Luxury Group, the tool helped boost ROI for beauty brands by as much as 150 percent, while fashion brands reached as much as 250 percent. “Some luxury maisons have achieved spectacular results — Chopard doubled their advertising ROl, while the Chinese cosmetics brand Kans reached an astounding 800 percent ROl,” explained Jacques Roizen, managing director of consulting at DLG.
“For years, the influence of Xiaohongshu on Chinese luxury consumers has been undeniable, yet quantifying its direct impact on sales has remained a persistent challenge for global brands operating in China,” Roizen said.
According to Roizen, the tool will allow brands to better monitor the consumer decision process.
“Monitoring the full 30-day post-campaign window is essential, 40 percent of Tmall conversions happen after seven days [of shoppers seeing the campaign], while JD conversions can take even longer — 40 percent after 15 days,” he added.
By the end of May, which will likely align with the kickoff of this year’s 618, China’s biggest mid-year online shopping festival, the integration tool will expand to include more consumer goods categories, such as health care and sportswear.
For Tom Zhang, associate partner at Prophet Consulting, the new partnership will trigger a major shakeup for the Xiaohongshu influencer ecosystem. “It will become immediately clear who can truly drive sales, who’s good at creating buzz and whether that buzz can actually be converted,” Zhang said.
“At the same time, a new dynamic will offer help brands identify different growth paths. They can choose to compete for traffic through advertising, or double down on strengthening their brand and content,” Zhang added.
The two platforms began working together on content-driven commerce in 2023, focusing on measuring content seeding effectiveness and performance, according to Alibaba. In the past year, the platforms have partnered with industry peers to broaden payment and logistics services.
