Daily Tech Roundup: Xiaohongshu’s E-Commerce Push

Welcome to the Daily Tech Roundup — a briefing of the top technology news making headlines in China and the rest of Asia.

Xiaohongshu’s push to make users open their wallets

Social sharing app Xiaohongshu has been talking a big game about its ability to transform into an e-commerce platform. Operated by Xingyin Information Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Xiaohongshu has grown into one of China’s most successful tech unicorns, with user demographics that attract brands trying to tap into a high-spending consumer group. The site’s problem has long been that those users do not open their designer wallets — at least not on the app. Instead, after discovering products and services there, they tend to buy them on legacy shopping platforms like Alibaba’s Taobao.