Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has entered a strategic partnership with RedNote, a popular lifestyle and content-sharing platform also known locally as Xiaohongshu, to enable seamless app-to-app shopping for users.

The collaboration will allow RedNote users to directly click product links and shop on Alibaba’s flagship e-commerce platform, Taobao.

The integration formalises a new in-app shopping experience, combining Xiaohongshu’s influence in lifestyle content with the commercial reach of Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall platforms. Liu Bo, Vice President of Alibaba Group and President of Tmall, said the move aims to “help brands reach consumers more effectively” by blending content and commerce.

This development comes amid intense competition in China’s e-commerce sector, where platforms are ramping up efforts to regain consumer trust and drive sales in the face of weakened spending and deflationary pressures.

The focus has recently shifted to the burgeoning “instant retail” space, which extends rapid delivery services—initially popularised by food delivery apps—into new categories like electronics, health products, and apparel.

Alibaba’s own delivery platform, Ele.me, trails behind market leader Meituan (3690.HK) but has been central to the company’s push into one-hour delivery through a dedicated “instant commerce” portal on the Taobao app. In April, Alibaba reported completing 10 million instant retail orders in just five days.

Meanwhile, rival JD.com (9618.HK) has announced it will invest over 10 billion yuan (\$1.38 billion) this year to expand its own instant retail services through JD Takeaway, which recently began incorporating restaurants into its platform.

The Alibaba-RedNote partnership is launching with a pilot phase focused on fast-moving consumer goods and healthcare items—both key growth areas in China’s evolving instant retail landscape.