After 3 months of operation, Xiaohongshu’s in-store project suddenly became “obsolete”.
According to the official announcement from Xiaohongshu, the "Xiaohong Card" business will suspend trial operation from January 1, 2026. This is a project launched by Xiaohongshu on a trial basis in September this year. The core purpose is to allow users to enjoy discounts on the "eat, drink, play and play card" when consuming at designated selected stores. The annual card fee is 168 yuan.
The official reason for the closure of Xiaohongshu is that "it is not fully prepared and has not yet been able to meet everyone's needs for the richness and convenience of local life."
Whether it is users or merchants, some people are dissatisfied with the experience of Xiaohongka. The user side believes that the Xiaohong Card’s functions are lacking, which invalidates the rights to open the card, while the merchant side says that they paid for the official certification of the Xiaohong Card, but the official benefits and promises have not been fulfilled. "No service, no after-sales, no connection, very perfunctory and time-consuming." Some merchants were very disappointed with this: "I paid you and didn't care about anything else?"
I paid 600 yuan and waited for "three no services"
The launch of Xiaohong Card can be described as fierce. As Xiaohongshu’s local life membership card, it is positioned as a “selected card for eating, drinking, playing and having fun” and will be launched simultaneously in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Guangzhou in September 2025. Relying on large-scale events such as the Road Life Festival, Xiaohongka has carried out large-scale verification in a short period of time.
The "BUG" column noticed that some Xiaohongshu users had a poor experience after opening the "Xiaohong Card". Some users said in the Black Cat complaint that Xiaohongshu officials did not provide any reminder about the Xiaohong Card’s opening gift rights, nor did it remind them of the expiration date, causing their rights to become invalid. They believe that this is a lack of official functions, which proves that the preparations for the Little Red Card are insufficient.
The complaints from the business side are even worse. Jia Hua (pseudonym), a shop owner in Guangzhou, reported that during the Xiaohongshu Road Life Festival in September this year, he signed up to apply for the professional account qualification certification of Xiaohongshu, hoping to enjoy the exclusive rights and interests of Xiaohongshu as a merchant. At that time, officials stated that “the benefits are only open to the first batch of selected merchants on a first-come, first-served basis.”
"But after paying nearly 600 yuan, the Xiaohongshu official provided no service, no after-sales service, and no connection. It was very perfunctory and delayed." Jiahua gave an example. The official had informed that from September 6 to September 13, the company would visit the site to lay materials and provide training operations. But until September 15th, no one came to provide service. “I don’t have the materials, and I don’t know how to operate it at all. What’s even more annoying is that I asked for a refund of the certification fee, but the other party said that the professional number review fee does not support refund if the certification is successful.”
The "BUG" column asked Xiaohongshu to verify the above information. As of press time, there has been no official response. However, according to the "BUG" column, merchants who apply for Xiaohongka's selected stores can receive privileges including platform traffic blessing, free store visits by leading bloggers, top IP participation rights, and priority selection in city lists/collections. The store owner’s experience shows that Xiaohongshu encountered problems when developing offline businesses and failed to realize its rapid expansion and layout of offline business.
In fact, at the beginning of the launch of "Little Red Card", Leon, the person in charge of Xiaohongshu's transaction products and local products, revealed that "Little Red Card is still being explored and will be optimized and adjusted based on user feedback." It is understood that this suspension only involves Xiaohong Card, and other local life functions and services provided by Xiaohongshu to users and merchants will not be affected.
"The rapid exit of Xiaohongka has exposed Xiaohongshu's misjudgment of the local life track," Yang Huaiyu, a consumer industry analyst, told the "BUG" column. The 168 yuan annual fee is exchanged for a 10% discount on some stores in the three cities. It has neither price advantage nor breadth of coverage. Why should users pay? While Meituan and Douyin are firmly seizing the "instant decision-making" scene with free group purchases and massive choices, Xiaohongshu is trying to force a closed loop with a high-threshold membership system, ignoring that the core of local life is convenience and cost-effectiveness. In his view, the advantage of Xiaohongshu lies in actual planting, rather than transaction fulfillment – allowing users to pay in advance for discounts that "may be useful" goes against the consumption logic of young people who "want both benefits and freedom." Pausing is not failure, but stopping losses in time. Make a decision-making entrance, don’t just stick to the trading platform.
Staged failures, commercialization has been repeatedly frustrated
The "short-lived" ending of the Little Red Card project is not an exception. In recent years, Xiaohongshu has tried many new businesses on the road to commercialization, but has repeatedly encountered setbacks. The most eye-catching one is the gradual closure of its self-operated e-commerce.
It can be traced back to 2014, when Xiaohongshu launched its self-operated cross-border e-commerce platform "Welfare Society". Since then, it has successively launched projects such as its own brand "Youguang" and the fashion community e-commerce "Little Oasis" in an attempt to build a complete e-commerce ecosystem.
After many years of operation, Xiaohongshu announced the closure of "Little Oasis" in September 2023. The official explanation was that it failed to maximize the outdoor needs of users, so it made a prudent decision to cease operations. At almost the same time, the "Welfare Society" self-operated store, which had been operating for nearly nine years, was also closed and stopped selling products in October.
The closure of Xiaohongshu’s self-operated e-commerce marked a staged failure in its “closed-loop” exploration in the field of e-commerce. Some insiders commented that e-commerce business may seem beautiful, but reality, aesthetics, social atmosphere and business efficiency are difficult to reconcile. After users are "planted" on Xiaohongshu, they often jump to Taobao, JD.com and other platforms to purchase. Although Xiaohongshu has gained traffic and reputation, it is difficult to convert these into its own revenue.
Expert: Little red cards can only be "tasteless"
Industry analyst Zhang Shule told the "BUG" column that local life services are originally a way to attract traffic online. When the food delivery war turns to the real-time retail war, the local life service diversion that Xiaohongshu has just pioneered is bound to be "first impacted" by the three powerful platforms, and will be the first to be eliminated. In addition, Alipay's Pengpeng, Pay18VIP business and other similar third-party payment offers have greater advantages in in-store payment channels and wider coverage. This makes membership cards, a form of reward that has long been "expired", still unavailable despite being expanded through Xiaohongshu.
Zhang Shule believes that the Xiaohongshu membership card business is only a small-scale trial and error in first-tier cities. It is also the best solution for consumers to press the pause button under the vote of their wallets. After all, when Xiaohongshu is in the store business, it should divert traffic through planting grass and build treasure stores to achieve verticality, instead of competing with other large manufacturers’ general in-store discounts for coverage. Wrong choices on the track have led to “traffic jams” and “crane tail” in the membership card business, which can only be “tasteless”.
From self-operated e-commerce to local lifestyle projects, Xiaohongshu’s commercial exploration has been difficult. Every launch of a new business is accompanied by high investment and user expectations, but many projects fail or change direction within a short period of time. This experience of repeated setbacks has also caused the market to question Xiaohongshu’s commercial prospects.
