Why do female celebrities take turns becoming the top sales influencer on Xiaohongshu?

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The battle for New Year’s goods during the 2026 Spring Festival is in full swing, and the flames of livestream e-commerce are burning hot. This time, however, the smoke is not in the hustling, noisy livestreaming rooms of Douyin or Kuaishou, but in the “slow” style of Xiaohongshu.

Recently, the long-absent actress Xue Jianning started a livestream themed “literary jewelry and curios” on Xiaohongshu. There was none of the exuberant “3-2-1, put up the link!” nor the co-hosts screaming countdowns. In this Zen-filled, tranquil livestream, the single-session sales quietly exceeded 100 million yuan.

This is not an isolated case. Just a month earlier, actress Karena Ng achieved a single-session GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) of 150 million yuan in a “homey” livestream on Xiaohongshu, setting a new record for the platform’s top seller and earning the title of Xiaohongshu’s “new leading lady.”

From Dong Jie and her “plain water” livestream going viral, to Zhang Xiaohui's “socialite literature” selling spree, and now with Karena Ng, Xue Jianning, Zhao Lusi and others successively breaking the hundred-million mark, the map of female celebrities selling on Xiaohongshu has taken shape.

From Traffic to Aesthetics

Reviewing the hundred-million sales reports of Xue Jianning and Karena Ng, one interesting commonality emerges: neither of them is a traditional “top-tier idol,” but both have highly recognizable lifestyle labels.

In traditional e-commerce logic, GMV = traffic × conversion rate. But on Xiaohongshu, the formula becomes GMV = aesthetics × trust × high average transaction value.

Xue Jianning’s livestream had a core per-customer transaction value of 7,500 yuan, selling non-standard jewelry and crafts. Such items are very difficult to move in bulk on Douyin or Kuaishou because they lack immediate visual impact and price appeal.

However, Xue Jianning’s long-maintained public persona of “cultivating with hair intact” and “living serenely” provides strong credibility for these high-value curios. Users are not just buying beads—they aspire to her “uncompetitive, unhurried” lifestyle.

Similarly, Karena Ng’s 150-million-yuan success was built on her image as a “top socialite trendsetter.” She arranged her livestream room like her own living room, sharing relaxed outfits and home goods as if chatting with girlfriends. This “old money style” selection perfectly addresses the needs of Xiaohongshu’s core users—high-net-worth women in Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities.

This signals that livestream e-commerce is going through its “third iteration.”

The 1.0 era was television-style selling (mainly competing on price); the 2.0 era was show-style selling (competing on entertainment and story); and by the 3.0 era, it is about selling through aesthetics and lifestyle (competing on taste and trust). The female celebrities on Xiaohongshu are the best embodiment of the 3.0 era. Unlike Li Jiaqi’s “all-category supermarket,” they only need to run refined “curated shops.”

Let “Curators” Replace “Hosts”

The collective rise of female celebrities is not accidental but the result of Xiaohongshu’s proactive commercial strategy.

For years, Xiaohongshu’s commercialization was somewhat conflicted—it wanted to make money but feared damaging the community atmosphere. Not until 2023, when it established the “curated e-commerce” strategy, did it truly find a self-consistent path.

The difference between a “curator” and a “host” is: hosts are salespeople, with their core skill being closing deals; curators are pickers, with their core skill being creating desire. Dong Jie, Zhang Xiaohui, Yi Nengjing, and the newer Karena Ng, Xue Jianning—all are officially defined as “curators” by Xiaohongshu.

Their selection logic also differs from that of traditional livestream sellers. They tend to choose items with design, are niche, and have high markup (designer clothing, couture jewelry, niche fragrances), rather than generic, low-priced commodities.

The commercial chain is different too. Livestreaming is just the harvesting step; the real work happens in daily posts. Zhao Lusi was able to quickly establish herself on Xiaohongshu because she consistently shared genuine OOTD (outfit of the day) and life moments on the platform. This long-term community presence gives her much higher conversion than celebrities who parachute in.

By supporting these “high taste” female celebrities, Xiaohongshu sends a clear signal to the market: you won’t find 9.9 yuan, post-paid trash bags here—what’s for sale is a “better life.”

The Double-Edged Sword of Community DNA

While successful reports keep coming, Xiaohongshu’s model may well have a ceiling.

On one hand, scalability is a problem. The success of Karena Ng and Xue Jianning is hard to replicate.

The top hosts on Xiaohongshu rely too heavily on the celebrities’ personal “style” and “persona,” which means they cannot emulate Xinba or Crazy Little Yang brother by taking on apprentices or establishing account matrices for 24/7 assembly line operations. Dong Jie once went offline for long periods due to filming. The irreplaceability of the “person” is both a moat and a constraint on scaling.

At the same time, the community atmosphere is being affected.

With faster commercialization, users have begun to feel that “content planting” is changing flavor. When more celebrity posts carry product links and more livestream entrances crowd the homepage recommendations, Xiaohongshu’s prized atmosphere of “genuine sharing” is inevitably disrupted. Balancing GMV growth and user experience will be Xiaohongshu’s biggest challenge in 2026.

There is also the issue of sustainability.

While sales have topped 100 million yuan, this is still “small but refined” compared to the hundreds-of-millions-per-session scale on Douyin, Kuaishou, and Taobao. High average transaction value means low repeat purchase rate; jewelry, curios, and designer clothing are durable goods—users aren’t going to buy them every week like tissues. Xiaohongshu urgently needs to establish a differentiated edge in standard products, or it may find it hard to support a trillion-yuan e-commerce platform.

But for now, Xiaohongshu’s female celebrities are at the vanguard of its business breakthrough, proving with impressive GMV figures that the “community + e-commerce” closed loop works.

For the industry as a whole, this is a signal too: the era of “traffic is king” is passing, and a “value-driven e-commerce” age, built around content, aesthetics, and trust, is arriving.

Risk warning and disclaimerThe market has risks. Investment should be made cautiously. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the special investment goals, financial situation, or needs of any individual user. Users should consider whether any opinions, viewpoints, or conclusions in this text are suitable to their specific situation. Any investment made accordingly is at their own risk. ```