(Yicai) Sept. 8 -- Chinese lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu will close its outdoor products platform at the end of next month, as the site failed to attract a big enough customer base amid stiff competition from more well-known e-retailers such as Alibaba Group Holding’s Tmall and JD.Com.

Little Oasis will stop selling merchandise on Oct. 1 and shut on Oct. 31, Shanghai-based Xiaohongshu, known as Little Red Book in English, said on Sept. 2. The e-store, which sells camping, cycling, skiing, surfing and other open air gear, did not achieve the expected goal of maximizing consumers’ outdoor needs, it said.

Little Oasis has sold only 89,000 items since opening in early 2022, according to its homepage. Across its product categories, only eight have logged sales of more than 1,000. By comparison, sales of popular items on Tmall can top more than 100,000 units a year. 

Outdoor camping enthusiasts prefer to buy from large and familiar e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD.com, and it is difficult to get them to change their shopping habits, Zhang Yi, chief executive of think tank iiMedia Research, told Yicai.

Xiaohongshu is also a major platform, with more than 200 million monthly active users, but it is not experienced in promoting camping gear, Zhang added. Even though outdoor sports and camping are very popular activities, related product sales are erratic, he said.

Lovers of the great outdoors tend to be families and their decision makers tend to be loyal customers of Tmall and JD.com, so it is hard to get them to shop elsewhere, Zhang said.

The Chinese market for camping goods surged 52 percent last year to CNY113.5 billion (USD15.5 billion) and it is expected to reach CNY248.3 billion by 2025, swelling the size of related markets to CNY1.4 trillion (USD196 billion), according to iiMedia Research.

The sector will continue to grow for at least another two to three years, mostly driven by consumers living in the first- and second-tier cities, although outdoor activities are starting to make inroads in third- and fourth-tier cities, said Zhang Bing, a camping gear e-commerce veteran.

Editor: Kim Taylor