On December 10, the Xiaohongshu Global Furniture Forum took place in China, a key event dedicated to one of the fastest‑growing verticals on REDnote: home & furniture.
Value China attended the forum at Xiaohongshu’s invitation, together with its clients, as an agency supporting some of the most prominent Italian furniture brands in building and developing their presence on REDnote. REDnote has in fact become the go‑to platform for furniture brands aiming to position themselves in the Chinese market.
The sessions offered in‑depth insights into emerging trends, consumer behaviors, and new approaches to enhance performance on REDnote, concrete takeaways that will help us fine‑tune brand strategies for 2026.
In the article below, we share the most relevant points that emerged during the forum.
The Evolution of Furniture in China: From Functional to Emotional
In recent years, the home & furniture sector has been undergoing a profound transformation, driven by new consumer needs and broader social changes. Three main phases can be identified:
Between 2013 and 2020, the home was portrayed primarily as “everyday life” and as a problem to be solved. Furniture choices were therefore still guided by functionality, seen as tools to make domestic life work more efficiently.
Between 2021 and 2024, the narrative shifts and the home becomes a project to be “taken care of.” Recognizable aesthetic codes and micro‑trends emerge, blending personal taste and well‑being—from the essential “salt” kitchen style to a growing focus on color, all the way to content that connects design with self‑care rituals. This is when the segmentation of needs becomes more defined: demand fragments into lifestyles and micro‑communities, and each way of living becomes a precise language made of aesthetics, habits, and purchasing choices.
From 2025 to today, the home increasingly takes shape as an emotional and identity‑driven space. In this phase, purchasing becomes less rational and more connected to balance, comfort, and personal expression. This is also why systemic design and personalization matter more than ever: people no longer buy a single object, but a coherent piece of an environment conceived as experience, aesthetics, and well‑being. For brands, this means communicating less through isolated product features and much more through usage scenarios, lifestyles, and the values the product brings into the home.
In summary, the key trends currently shaping Chinese consumers’ purchasing decisions in the sector are:
The emotionalization of the home: the domestic environment is perceived as a space to nurture the soul, relieve stress, and restore balance.
The segmentation of needs: demand is no longer homogeneous. Needs are increasingly specific and tied to micro‑lifestyles such as independent workers, families, and young singles.
Systemic design and personalization: consumption of non‑standardized products is growing, with strong attention to aesthetics and health, without losing sight of functionality.
How is the furniture market growing? Insights from REDnote
To understand how the home & furniture segment is growing on REDnote, we can look at the platform’s expansion across three dimensions: user base, products, and industry content, the true engine of the RED ecosystem.
On the demand side, the platform attracts a highly qualified audience: users with a high level of education, strong spending power, and high online activity. They are primarily residents of China’s most developed urban areas: 52% live in second‑tier cities or above, with a significant presence in first‑tier, new first‑tier, and second‑tier cities. The average daily time spent on REDnote (1.2 hours per day) also confirms intentional usage, driven by the search for inspiration, comparisons, ideas, and new trends. It is therefore no surprise that, when it comes to home‑related decisions, the platform becomes a key reference point: 89% of users consider REDnote their primary source when navigating home‑product purchases.
On the supply side, this attention translates into concrete results. The performance of the Top SPUs (Standard Product Units)—the system RED uses to classify and make products searchable—shows particularly strong growth in the home decoration segment, outperforming the market average. The presence of home and furniture items has increased by 176.3%, making it the fastest‑growing category and a clear indicator that the sector is steadily capturing both budget and interest.
Completing the picture is the core engine of the REDnote ecosystem: content. In the first eleven months of 2025, the home decoration vertical recorded +132% new content and +20% post views. These numbers reflect a rapidly expanding segment, fueled not only by rising demand but also by a significant increase in UGC (user‑generated content) and “how‑to” posts that help users reduce doubts or uncertainties around furniture‑related purchases.
At the same time, the sales‑creator community continues to grow, reaching 1.6 million creators (+53% YoY), with a +30% increase in creators specializing in furniture and home lifestyle. This dynamic is enriching the ecosystem with more authentic content, real experiences, and inspirational purchase journeys, making Xiaohongshu an essential touchpoint for furniture brands.
O2O Strategies: how to turn REDnote traffic into in‑store visits
After seeing how rapidly the home & furniture segment is growing on REDnote, the key question becomes: how can this attention be converted into qualified traffic to physical stores—and, consequently, into appointments, visits, and sales?
O2O (Online‑to‑Offline) strategies address exactly this need
In the furniture sector, the in‑store experience still plays a crucial role, and REDnote is fully aware of this. For this reason, the “digitalization of the store” and the creation of a more human, service‑oriented approach that guides people from the feed to the showroom has become essential. To achieve this, the platform activates a set of levers that must work in a coordinated way throughout the entire user journey.
Store List and In‑Store Appointment Features
The first lever is reducing distance, making the store visit immediate. The Store List feature, which gathers all retail locations directly on the brand’s page, turns curiosity into a concrete action: “Where can I go see it?” This is complemented by the In‑Store Appointment function, available in private chat, which facilitates booking a visit to the nearest store—making the path from discovery to physical trial much faster.
The KOB + KOS Model
The second lever is relationship‑building, and this is where the KOB + KOS model comes into play—one of RED’s most effective systems for integrating institutional communication with real, recognizable human interaction.
KOB (Key Opinion Business) represents the brand’s official voice through institutional content, coherent storytelling, and clear positioning.
KOS (Key Opinion Seller) brings this narrative into the field. These are hybrid sales‑creator figures who combine commercial expertise with content‑creation skills. Through KOS, the brand’s story feels closer and more relatable, fostering dialogue and interaction with potential customers.
The offline events: from cobranding to KOL partnerships
In the furniture sector, offline events are essential to bring products to life and turn online curiosity into real‑world store visits. Trade fairs, exhibitions, festivals, and design‑focused events become true visibility accelerators when amplified on REDnote: they attract audiences into stores and continue to generate value through the UGC (user generated content) created by participants, which keeps the conversation alive even after the event.
Cobranding further amplifies this effect. Collaborating with Chinese artists or designers to create special installations—whether tied to a cultural festival or a product launch—allows brands to build immersive, fully localized experiences. These activations bring the brand closer to Chinese culture and consumer language, making it more familiar and relevant. When these experiences are shared on REDnote, the synergy between physical touchpoints and digital content strengthens brand storytelling and boosts engagement.
Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) also play a decisive role. Their presence at offline events generates spikes in attention and qualified traffic: they share reviews, visit the store, recount the experience, and immediately activate their communities. Their participation becomes a signal of credibility that encourages users to “see for themselves” what they discovered online, increasing both brand awareness and conversions.
The REDnote IP events
IP events on REDnote are proprietary formats designed to spark trends, conversations, and participation. They function as true “narrative universes,” with recognizable themes and visual codes that users learn to follow.
Their strength lies in transforming a simple concept—from the “ideal home” to “winter comfort”—into a collective movement that encourages content creation, experience‑sharing, and often in‑store visits to experience the initiative firsthand. They become catalysts that activate the community, generate spontaneous UGC, and keep attention high over time.
These formats are also a decisive lever for offline engagement. What begins online as a conversation turns into concrete opportunities for visits: themed events, installations, pop‑ups, community moments, and showroom appointments that represent the physical continuation of the digital narrative. Promotion on REDnote amplifies the event’s reach, but the real value emerges afterward: participants produce UGC, reviews, and recommendations that continue to circulate, fueling word‑of‑mouth and new visits.
In this way, IP events become a natural bridge between digital and physical, strengthening the relationship with the audience and generating a steady flow of qualified traffic to stores.
The case study Flokk
These strategies have already been adopted by several international brands, demonstrating how an integrated approach on REDnote can generate concrete results. Among the most significant cases presented at the forum was Flokk, a European brand specializing in ergonomic seating.
Flokk showed how it succeeded in:
Building a value‑driven narrative focused on well‑being and health in the context of working from home.
Successfully launching new products on RED by leveraging visual storytelling and authentic reviews.
Using experiential content generated by users and professionals, increasing both brand awareness and conversion.
Flokk’s journey clearly illustrates that a community‑centered strategy, combined with cultural adaptation to the Chinese audience, can deliver tangible results, even for niche product categories.
Watch the webinar dedicated to REDnote!
Featuring Jake Li, Head of Global Agency Partners at Xiaohongshu.
Why REDnote has become essential for furniture brands today
For international furniture brands, REDnote has become much more than a simple social platform: it is an ecosystem where branding, storytelling, community, and conversion intersect. This is where discovery, trust, and purchase intent are formed, turning the platform into a true launchpad for the home & furniture world.
Here’s why furniture brands can’t afford to ignore it:
A continuous discovery engine: in the “home” category, a new product is introduced every 0.9 days, keeping attention high and fueling a constant flow of newness.
A truly omnichannel purchasing behavior: REDnote is the first touchpoint for exploring and evaluating brands, even when the final purchase happens elsewhere, online or offline.
A trust‑building environment: authentic reviews, UGC, and personal narratives create a credible and lasting relationship between brand and consumer, reinforced by IP initiatives and long‑lifecycle content.
Next‑generation targeting: the platform allows brands to segment audiences by lifestyle, values, and goals, offering a level of precision that is difficult to replicate elsewhere.
Within this framework, REDnote is not just a visibility channel, it is the space where brands shape their story, activate their community, and turn interest into purchase, supported by an ecosystem that continues to generate value over time.
The Xiaohongshu forum confirmed that the furniture sector on REDnote is experiencing strong growth and is driven by deep consumer interest, but it will require targeted digital strategies. In this context, REDnote has become an essential tool for brands aiming to enter the Chinese market effectively.