EqualOcean has learnt that on 11 March 2025, REDnote officially launched its "E-commerce Overseas Pilot Programme", the first phase of which will cover the United States, Hong Kong and Macau markets in China. The first phase covers the US, Hong Kong and Macau markets, marking a key step in its strategic transformation from a content community to a global e-commerce platform. The programme integrates cross-border transactions, payments, logistics and localised operations, and aims to help domestic merchants expand into overseas markets at a lower threshold. Under the programme, contracted merchants can reach overseas users through REDnote's content ecosystem (notes, live broadcasts, shops, etc.) and enjoy support such as intelligent translation and official logistics cooperation.
The launch of this programme is closely related to the traffic dividend of "TikTok refugees"who flooded into REDnote at the beginning of the year 2025, due to concerns about the TikTok ban in the United States, a large number of overseas users flooded into REDnote, and its daily users in the United States once soared to 1.2 million. Despite the loss of users after TikTok resumed service, REDnote took this opportunity to accelerate its international layout, and went online with the translation function to enrich the content ecosystem.
It is reported that REDnote has already begun recruiting the second batch of internal test merchants. Although REDnote with community atmosphere and "grass" mode to form a differentiated advantage, but the cross-border e-commerce market competition is fierce. Industry analyses point out that REDnote needs to benchmark itself against the "Four Little Dragons" (Temu, Shein, etc.) in terms of logistics timeliness and after-sales protection, while at the same time addressing the challenges of cultural adaptation and tariff policies. At present, after determining the development route of e-commerce business, REDnote is trying to find more room for growth in commercialisation. Facing the tough competitive environment of domestic and international e-commerce, it is obvious that REDnote still has a lot of difficulties to overcome.
