XHS & Tmall Integration: How to Link Your Xiaohongshu to Your Tmall Store
Date Published
Table Of Contents
• What the XHS & Tmall Integration Actually Is
• A Brief History: Why External Links Were Blocked — and Why They're Back
• The Red Cat Plan: What's New in 2025
• How to Link Your Xiaohongshu Content to Your Tmall Store
• What the Joint Merchant Dashboard Means for Your Brand
• Content Strategy: Making the XHS-to-Tmall Path Work for You
• Key Considerations and Limitations
If you've been running Xiaohongshu content to drive traffic to your Tmall store, you've likely felt the frustration firsthand: a potential buyer discovers your product through a beautifully crafted Note, gets interested — and then the trail goes cold. They have to leave the app, open Taobao, search again, and hope they find the right listing. By that point, many of them simply don't bother.
That friction is exactly what the new XHS & Tmall integration is designed to eliminate. As of May 2025, Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote or Little Red Book) and Taobao/Tmall Group formalized a landmark partnership that allows merchants to embed direct product links from their Tmall stores into Xiaohongshu content posts — creating a seamless, app-to-app path from discovery to checkout.
For international brands already investing in Xiaohongshu marketing, this is a significant development. For those evaluating whether XHS deserves a place in their China strategy, it's a compelling reason to act now. This guide explains how the integration works, what you need to set it up, and how to build a content strategy around it that actually converts.
What the XHS & Tmall Integration Actually Is {#what-the-xhs-tmall-integration-actually-is}
At its core, the XHS & Tmall integration enables a direct, clickable link between social content and e-commerce purchase. When a brand or creator publishes a Note on Xiaohongshu, they can now embed a product link that routes users directly to the corresponding listing on Taobao or Tmall — without asking them to manually switch apps, copy product names, or search from scratch.
The mechanics are straightforward from a user perspective: a shopper sees a recommendation post, taps the embedded product link, and is redirected to the Taobao app to complete the transaction. What makes this powerful is what it eliminates — the drop-off that historically happened between content engagement and purchase intent. Every extra step in a purchase journey costs conversions, and this integration removes the most significant friction point in the XHS-to-Tmall funnel.
This partnership was formalized under a program called the Red Cat Plan (红猫计划) — a portmanteau of "Red" from RedNote and "Cat" from Tmall (天猫, literally "celestial cat"). It connects Xiaohongshu's influential content ecosystem with Taobao and Tmall's robust e-commerce infrastructure, aiming to bridge content and commerce for consumers and merchants alike.
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A Brief History: Why External Links Were Blocked — and Why They're Back {#a-brief-history}
To understand why this integration matters, it helps to understand the history. Xiaohongshu has had a complicated relationship with external linking. In the second half of 2020, the platform briefly allowed external links to Taobao and Tmall — but reversed course in May 2021, cutting off outbound links and launching its "Account-Store Integration" feature as part of a deliberate push to build its own e-commerce closed loop.
The logic at the time made sense: Xiaohongshu wanted to capture the full consumer journey in-platform, from discovery through purchase. For several years, that strategy held. But the reality of China's hypercompetitive e-commerce landscape eventually made pure closed-loop operation harder to sustain. Since 2023, Xiaohongshu has been gradually reopening to outbound links and, in 2024, launched a series of data-sharing initiatives with various e-commerce platforms as part of a broader shift toward ecosystem collaboration.
The Red Cat Plan is the most significant step in that evolution. It doesn't abandon Xiaohongshu's native commerce infrastructure, but it acknowledges what brands have known for years: the platform's greatest strength is discovery and influence, not transaction completion. Tmall is where the checkout happens. Connecting the two is simply good strategy for everyone involved.
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The Red Cat Plan: What's New in 2025 {#the-red-cat-plan}
The Red Cat Plan was officially announced in May 2025, ahead of China's 618 Shopping Festival, and it introduces several features that go beyond a simple link-embedding tool.
Cross-Platform Product Links in Notes
Merchants with active Tmall stores can now embed direct product links within their Xiaohongshu content posts. Users who tap these links are redirected to the Taobao app to complete their purchase — creating what both platforms describe as an app-to-app shopping experience. The program initially launched in select categories including fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), healthcare, and sports and outdoors, with expansion planned to cover more consumer goods categories aligned with the 618 festival timeline.
Joint Merchant Accounts and Performance Dashboards
The partnership also includes joint merchant accounts and performance dashboards, allowing brands to track the full journey — from content exposure on Xiaohongshu all the way through to completed orders on Taobao — in real time. This is a major leap forward. Xiaohongshu is, for the first time, making its full analytics available to merchants: views, comments, likes, saves, shares, and follows. In turn, Tmall is contributing traffic acquisition data, search data, upsell metrics, and transaction records. Together, these two data streams complete the picture of the customer journey from "seeding" to sale.
Amplification Support for Hero Products
To further support merchant success, Taobao and Tmall will invest in amplifying hero products featured in Xiaohongshu posts, providing marketing resources and performance advertising tools to boost product visibility and engagement. For brands running KOL campaigns or seasonal promotions, this additional amplification layer can significantly increase the reach of content that's already performing well.
Proven Results — Even in Early Testing
The program began grey-scale testing in late April 2025 and quickly produced meaningful results. According to data from Digital Luxury Group, the tool helped boost ROI for beauty brands by as much as 150 percent, while fashion brands reached as much as 250 percent. Even before the formal Red Cat launch, the underlying "Little Red Star" program — the precursor initiative between Alibaba and Xiaohongshu that began two years earlier — had driven a 20% increase in click-through rates and 109% growth in engagement rates for participating merchants year-over-year.
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How to Link Your Xiaohongshu Content to Your Tmall Store {#how-to-link}
Accessing the XHS-Tmall product link feature requires a few prerequisites. Here's what brands need to have in place:
Requirements Before You Start
• An active Tmall or Tmall Global store — you need verified merchant status on the Alibaba side of the equation
• A verified Xiaohongshu business account (Blue V) — standard personal accounts do not have access to commercial linking features; only verified business accounts can access the ad link and product tagging tools
• Enrollment in the Red Cat Plan — the feature is currently in a phased rollout and not yet open to all brands; merchants need to apply or be invited to participate
• A Tmall Partner (TP), if applicable — if you operate through a TP for your Tmall store, they will typically need to be involved in the integration setup; if you operate through Tmall Global, your TP can often also facilitate your Xiaohongshu account setup
Practical Setup Steps
1. Verify your Xiaohongshu business account — Submit your business license, trademark documentation, and brand authorization letters through the Xiaohongshu Enterprise Service Platform. Account verification typically takes 5–7 business days; rejections are usually due to incomplete trademark documentation or category mismatches.
1. Confirm your Tmall store eligibility — Make sure your Tmall or Tmall Global store is in good standing and that your product categories fall within the current rollout scope of the Red Cat Plan.
1. Apply for the Red Cat Plan — Work through your Tmall Partner or contact Alibaba directly to apply for inclusion. Given the phased nature of the rollout, brands in eligible categories (FMCG, healthcare, beauty, fashion, sportswear) are prioritized.
1. Set up the joint merchant account — Once enrolled, both your Xiaohongshu business account and your Tmall merchant account need to be linked through the joint account setup process. This is what enables the cross-platform performance dashboard.
1. Embed product links in your Notes — After setup, when publishing a Xiaohongshu Note, you'll have the option to add an ad link directing users to your Tmall product listing. Ensure the product, pricing, and creative content in the Note match what users will find when they arrive on Tmall.
Note: For brands without a Xiaohongshu native store, notes can still link to Tmall Global or other approved third-party platforms, making Xiaohongshu a powerful top-of-funnel and mid-funnel tool even without a fully integrated native commerce setup.
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What the Joint Merchant Dashboard Means for Your Brand {#joint-merchant-dashboard}
For years, one of the most persistent frustrations for global brands marketing on Xiaohongshu was the inability to directly attribute sales to content. You could see engagement metrics — saves, likes, comments — but the leap from a high-performing Note to an actual Tmall conversion was always a gap filled with guesswork.
The joint dashboard introduced under the Red Cat Plan changes this fundamentally. With Xiaohongshu now sharing full content analytics and Tmall contributing transaction data, brands can monitor the complete consumer journey in one unified view. Critically, this includes conversion data across a meaningful post-campaign window — monitoring the full 30-day window is essential, since a significant share of Tmall conversions happen days or even weeks after a consumer first encounters a piece of content.
For brands running KOL campaigns or content seeding programs on Xiaohongshu, this level of attribution represents an entirely new capability. You can now evaluate which Notes drove the most downstream purchases, which creators delivered the best ROI, and which product categories convert most efficiently through the XHS-to-Tmall path. That data can then inform how you allocate your content budget, which hero products to amplify, and how to time your campaigns around key shopping festivals.
Brand merchants can observe the full-link advertising effects from product recommendation to conversion during this process — a capability that goes far beyond what either platform offered independently.
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Content Strategy: Making the XHS-to-Tmall Path Work for You {#content-strategy}
Embedding a product link in a Note is the technical part. The harder — and more important — part is creating content on Xiaohongshu that earns enough trust and engagement to make users want to click through. Xiaohongshu's algorithm and user culture actively penalize overtly promotional content, so the integration works best when the content itself doesn't feel like an ad.
Lead with Authentic Storytelling, Not Product Features
Xiaohongshu's platform culture centers on 真实分享 (zhēnshí fēnxiǎng) — "authentic sharing." Users come to the platform specifically to research products and make informed decisions based on trusted voices in their communities. Content that reads like a product brochure tends to underperform. Content that tells a story — a skincare routine, a lifestyle integration, a real-world use case — earns saves and follows, which in turn drives the kind of sustained engagement that makes the eventual purchase link feel natural rather than forced.
Layer KOLs and KOCs Strategically
The most effective Xiaohongshu campaigns don't rely on a single creator type. The recommended approach combines Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) for scale and brand credibility with Key Opinion Consumers (KOCs) for authenticity and peer-to-peer trust. Use KOLs to build awareness and create the initial content volume around your product; deploy KOCs to generate the kind of grassroots, relatable reviews that Chinese consumers find genuinely persuasive. For brands integrating Tmall links, KOC content is particularly valuable because it tends to read as an honest recommendation — exactly the context in which a product link feels useful rather than commercial.
Align Content with Your Tmall Listings
A note that drives a click-through to a Tmall listing needs to deliver a consistent experience. Make sure:
• The product featured in the Note matches the exact SKU or product page linked on Tmall
• Pricing is consistent or the Tmall listing makes the value proposition immediately clear
• The visual tone and product positioning align between the XHS content and the Tmall store page
• Any promotions or limited-time offers referenced in the Note are live and accessible on Tmall
Time Campaigns Around Shopping Festivals
The Red Cat Plan was designed with 618 in mind, and that timing is instructive. China's major shopping festivals — 618, Double 11, Double 12, Chinese New Year — represent peak windows where consumer intent is at its highest and cross-platform journeys from discovery to purchase compress dramatically. Brands that build their XHS content calendars around these moments, seed content in the weeks prior, and have their Tmall listings optimized and linked before the festival begins will capture disproportionate value from the integration.
Centralize Your Links on Your Brand Profile
Beyond individual Notes, your Xiaohongshu brand page itself can centralize official links, including your Tmall store, to improve navigation and drive direct conversions. Think of your brand profile as the hub that ties together your content strategy and your commerce infrastructure.
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Key Considerations and Limitations {#key-considerations}
The XHS & Tmall integration is a significant step forward, but it's worth understanding where it still has constraints.
• Phased rollout: The Red Cat Plan is not yet universally available. It's in a phased expansion, prioritizing select categories and brand sizes. If your category isn't yet included, monitor updates closely and prepare your account infrastructure in advance.
• Algorithm considerations: Xiaohongshu's algorithm has historically deprioritized content containing external links, which can reduce organic reach. Under the Red Cat Plan, this dynamic may evolve, but brands should still prioritize building high-quality, engagement-first content rather than relying on the link alone to drive results.
• Transaction data gaps: While the joint dashboard is a major improvement, transaction data from purchases completed on Tmall still flows through a different ecosystem. Work with your TP and both platforms to ensure you're capturing attribution data accurately, particularly for conversions that happen outside a single session.
• Content compliance: Both Xiaohongshu and Tmall have strict standards around advertising disclosure, product claims, and category-specific regulations. International brands in categories like beauty, health, and supplements should verify compliance requirements before publishing linked content.
• Account prerequisites: As noted above, the feature requires a verified Blue V business account. Only verified business accounts have access to commercial linking features, and initial setup may require a mainland Chinese business entity or a partner agency.
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Final Thoughts {#final-thoughts}
The XHS & Tmall integration isn't just a feature update — it's a structural change in how social commerce works in China. For years, the gap between Xiaohongshu's extraordinary influence on purchase intent and the actual transaction on Tmall was a real problem for brands trying to quantify and optimize their China marketing spend. The Red Cat Plan closes that gap in a meaningful way, both by enabling direct product links and by providing the cross-platform data infrastructure brands need to measure what's actually working.
For international brands currently on Xiaohongshu, the priority is clear: get your account verified, understand the eligibility requirements for the Red Cat Plan, and start building a content strategy designed to drive click-throughs that convert. For brands not yet on XHS, this integration is one more reason to prioritize the platform — because Xiaohongshu is increasingly where Chinese consumers decide what to buy, and Tmall is where they buy it. Having a presence that connects both is no longer optional for brands that are serious about China.
If you're navigating the setup process, evaluating your content approach, or trying to understand how the XHS-Tmall integration fits into your broader China marketing strategy, the team at AllXHS has the expertise and resources to help. From platform-specific playbooks to expert consultation, we help international brands move faster and make fewer costly mistakes.
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