{"id":44142,"date":"2025-05-12T09:20:58","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T09:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/daoinsights.com\/?p=44142"},"modified":"2025-07-09T16:12:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T16:12:25","slug":"ultimate-618-festival-why-the-alibaba-and-rednote-team-up-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daoinsights.com\/exclusives\/ultimate-618-festival-why-the-alibaba-and-rednote-team-up-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Walled Gardens: Why Rednote and Alibaba teamed up for “Red Cat”\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 618 Shopping Festival is starting earlier than ever with both Tmall from Alibaba and rival JD.com launching their sales event<\/a> on 13 May, a week earlier than last year\u2019s 20 May date. Ahead of the 618 Shopping Festival this year, Taobao and Tmall Group from Alibaba, and the lifestyle platform Rednote announced that they\u2019ll be teaming up for a new \u201cRed Cat\u201d initiative<\/a> (\u7ea2\u732b\u8ba1\u5212), a portmanteau of the \u201cRed\u201d from Rednote and \u201cCat\u201d from Tmall (\u5929\u732b, lit. celestial cat). Under this initiative, not only can Taobao and Tmall merchants advertise directly on the lifestyle platform and bring in traffic, but they will also be able to access an unprecedented amount of user data from Rednote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image: Rednote\/WeChat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Under the new scheme, a new \u201cad link\u201d feature will be added to notes on Rednote this 618. The direct conversion from content marketing to sales on the e-commerce platforms will complete the chain of \u201cseeding (\u79cd\u8349) \u2013 purchase\u201d that many social commerce platforms have been trying to achieve, including both parties in the \u201cRed Cat\u201d initiative. This enviable \u201cclosed circuit\u201d might give not only the Alibaba platforms but also Rednote an edge this 618 Festival, and could become a standard strategy in the future of e-commerce in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May the circle be unbroken<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Other than the seamless cross-platform shopping experience for users and customers, Rednote, for the first time this 618, has made all analytics available to merchants. The data includes views, comments, likes, collects, shares and follows. In turn, Tmall will also make more analytics available, such as traffic acquisition data, search data, upsells, watches, follows and transactions. The two platforms will then complete the data chain on the customer journey from \u201cseeding\u201d to sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image: Tmall\/Weibo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the \u201cRed Cat\u201d initiative<\/a> is an extension of the existing \u201cLittle Red Star\u201d (\u5c0f\u7ea2\u661f) partnership programme between Alibaba and Rednote that started two years ago. It also provides an analytics system that helps merchants gauge the effectiveness of their \u201cseeding\u201d on Rednote and how that has helped their sales on Taobao and Tmall. In the past year, seeding notes from Taobao and Tmall merchants grew 20% in terms of click-through rate, and engagement rate grew 109%. Participating merchants also grew 335%.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This partnership can help Rednote better monetise its content and community ecosystem while helping Taobao and Tmall to leverage its seeding properties<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As Alibaba claims, \u201cthe collaboration connects Xiaohongshu\u2019s (Rednote\u2019s) influential user-generated content (UGC) ecosystem with Taobao and Tmall\u2019s robust e-commerce infrastructure\u201d. Pundits have noted that this partnership can help Rednote better monetise its content and community ecosystem in the e-commerce arena, while helping conventional e-commerce platforms like Taobao and Tmall to leverage the seeding properties of the lifestyle social platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red Cat on a hot tin roof<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As the competition in the e-commerce space heats up, Alibaba has been shaking things up in recent years, especially since the beginning of 2025. Not only did it upgrade<\/a> its \u201chour delivery\u201d (\u5c0f\u65f6\u8fbe) to \u201cFlash buy\u201d<\/a> (\u95ea\u8d2d) to compete with JD.com and Meituan\u2019s instant delivery services in the \u201clocal life\u201d service<\/a> sector, but it has also been upping its game in the content field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Buyers, founders, lifestyle: what is Xiaohongshu doing with e-commerce?<\/a><\/blockquote>