NIO cookies "fishing"

There is a Taizhou cuisine restaurant downstairs of my house. Its grade is comparable to that of Xinrongji. Recently, it has started selling breakfast. At first, I couldn't figure out the logic behind its breakfast business. For 50 yuan per person, one can have a full and good meal. After a busy morning, the revenue is not even comparable to that of one private dining room.

It wasn't until I found that it had become extremely difficult to reserve a table during lunch and dinner that I couldn't help but admire the boss's shrewdness.

The best way to persuade people to buy expensive things is to start with something cheap. Hermès scarves and Chanel earrings are probably all "bait".

The more difficult situation is probably for products whose unit price cannot be lowered, such as cars. You can't just remove the seats and sell them separately.

But if you think like that, it means your thinking is still too narrow.

Who says a car - selling company must only sell cars?

On Xiaohongshu, NIO has become very popular because of its online supermarket (NIOLife). Relying on popular products like cookies, thin crackers, waffles, and pork jerky in the supermarket, it has even attracted some non - car owners to download the NIO APP for shopping.

Data released by NIOLife shows that in 2025, Belgian - style chocolate thin crackers, crispy thin cookies, and air - dried beef crisps from Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia became the three most popular snacks among car owners. Among them, 570,000 boxes of Belgian - style chocolate thin crackers were sold in one year.

As NIO's lifestyle brand, NIOLife supports point redemption. So the sales of snacks in the mall mainly rely on NIO car owners' "free purchases with points". A car owner left a message on Xiaohongshu saying that he "used up so many points that he was in debt".

NIOLife also supports cash purchases. So more and more non - NIO car owners are starting to regard it as an alternative to Sam's Club. This term may not be very accurate because NIOLife was originally designed to help car owners use up their points, so the products in NIOLife are actually not cheap.

Take NIOLife's butter egg rolls as an example. The net weight is only 454 grams, but the price is 88 yuan. While Sam's Club's butter egg rolls with a net weight of 608 grams are priced at only 60 yuan. Note that both types of egg rolls are from the same contract manufacturer.

The high - pricing strategy has helped NIOLife break away from the cost - unit positioning, which is almost the fate of the membership operation system of car companies. But the benefits are not limited to this.

It should also help NIO screen customers. Except for the Firefly, most of NIO's models do not focus on cost - effectiveness as a selling point. And those customers who are not sensitive to the price of cookies should fit the bill.

Indeed, some non - NIO car owners have shared that they start to look at cars after shopping at NIOLife.

01

Turning the APP into a lifestyle community is not uncommon in the automotive industry. The basic logic for car companies to activate the lifestyle community is to earn points through community check - ins, posting, and commenting, and then consume the points in the mall.

However, compared with NIO, the products in traditional car company malls are mainly automotive peripherals, such as floor mats and other accessories, or car ornaments, air fresheners, etc. At most, they may add some products more suitable for daily life scenarios, such as thermos cups and coffee machines. But NIO's NIOLife added categories such as clothing and snacks a long time ago.

For example, at the end of 2020, NIO limitedly released a polar adventurer down jacket. Many NIO car owners waited online to snap it up. This down jacket priced at 1,699 yuan was sold out within one minute. In 2024, a thin cracker cookie priced at 188 yuan in NIOLife was out of stock, making NIO popular again because of its supermarket side business.

In February 2024, NIOLife released a set of data. It launched 3,342 high - quality products in six years. From 2021 to 2023, NIOLife accelerated the R & D of new products. In 2021, it developed 594 new products, and in 2023, it developed 827 new products. The cumulative sales volume tripled, soaring from 5 million to 15 million pieces.

You know, because Sam's Club pursues a minimalist product system, it only has about 4,000 SKUs. It can be seen that for NIO, the supermarket business is not just a channel for point consumption. It can be regarded as a well - managed side business and even a new growth curve.

In recent years, although NIOLife has not released sales volume data, the categories in the mall have expanded to 13 major categories, covering almost all categories from clothing to trendy toys. There is even a special "Weilai Second - Generation Zone" for selling children's products. NIO uses this way to deeply penetrate into the lives of car owners.

Buying a car is a low - frequency behavior, but buying clothing and snacks is a high - frequency behavior. Every point redemption will deepen the car owners' sense of identity.

This also encourages car owners to become free promoters. The notes of these car owners sharing snacks have received good traffic on social networks such as Xiaohongshu, and have also brought many non - car owners to NIO Life.

The person in charge of the NIO APP mentioned in an interview with the media before 2021 that at that time, the daily active users of the NIO APP were stable at around 200,000, and half of the active users were not NIO car owners, shared car users, or deposit - paying car owners, but fans who hadn't bought a car at all.

By 2023, it was reported that the NIO APP had more than 5 million registered users, and the daily active users had exceeded 500,000. It is the car company with the largest number of APP users and the highest user activity in China.

Among new car - making forces, NIO's advantage lies in having absolutely loyal car owners, and there is even a trend of a fan - club - like community. The source of the strong sense of belonging of these car owners is that NIO has always attached great importance to user operation, and even Li Bin personally takes charge of user operation.

According to previous reports, every day Li Bin sends point red envelopes in nearly 200 communities, and this is also the most active time for NIO car - owner communities.

NIO's user operation is not only online. There is also the NIO House offline, where car owners can use points to exchange for a cup of coffee and taste popular NIOLife snacks at any time. They can also participate in handicraft activities and spend an afternoon there. Now the NIO House is also open to non - NIO car owners, which has also created more new topics for NIO on social networks.

Building a brand through social fission and dissemination is not uncommon among new car - making forces. For example, Li Auto has reaped benefits from the "dad" market through this method. And NIO is also using this method to attract more potential consumers.

02

In the fourth quarter of last year, NIO achieved its first single - quarter profit. Although it has not achieved annual profit yet, it has released some positive signals. NIO's single - quarter profit is mainly due to the record - high vehicle delivery volume in a single quarter. Effective cost control has also reduced its "blood loss".

Realizing the fourth - quarter profit was actually an annual goal set by Li Bin after the release of the 2024 financial report. The reason why Li Bin was confident in setting such a goal is that he visited many entrepreneurs to learn about "cost reduction" and launched a project called Cost Mining within the company.

According to the data released in the financial report, in the fourth quarter of 2025, NIO not only reduced costs but also increased efficiency.

The financial report shows that both R & D expenses and sales and management expenses of NIO in the fourth quarter decreased significantly. Among them, sales and management expenses dropped to 3.537 billion yuan, a year - on - year decrease of 27.5%. In the same quarter, the total delivery volume of new cars under NIO's three major brands exceeded 120,000, a year - on - year increase of 71.7%.

Although the cost - reduction strategy has achieved initial results in the fourth quarter of last year, NIO still followed the path of traditional car companies in marketing in the past. The high sales (marketing) expenses were one of the reasons for its consecutive years of losses.

According to the financial data of the past three years, NIO's sales and management expenses have been in the tens of billions. The growth rate in 2023 and 2024 was about 22%. In 2025, the growth rate slowed down, but it still reached 16.088 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 2.2%. Considering NIO's annual revenue of 87.488 billion yuan in 2025, the proportion of sales and management expenses was as high as 18.39%.

For car companies, marketing expenses are somewhat rigid. Although Li Bin said he doesn't like large - scale events, as a car company, such events are inevitable.

For example, in terms of user operation, NIO holds an event called NIO DAY, which is also one of the most expensive events for NIO. For example, the first NIO DAY in 2017 cost more than 90 million yuan. NIO chartered planes and high - speed train carriages for car owners and rented the entire Wukesong Stadium for the event.

In previous years, NIO DAY was held in late December. Last year, NIO advanced NIO DAY to September. NIO DAY is not only a gathering for NIO car owners but also a new product launch event for NIO.

This change last year directly transferred the sales expenses originally belonging to the fourth quarter to the third quarter, resulting in a year - on - year decrease of more than 700 million yuan in sales and management expenses in the fourth quarter. Correspondingly, the sales and management expenses in the third quarter increased by 1.8% year - on - year and 5.5% quarter - on - quarter. It is not difficult to see how much NIO has invested in new - product marketing in the past.

It is worth mentioning that the service and community business based on the vehicle ownership has generated revenue of over 10 billion yuan last year, accounting for 12% of the total revenue. This business includes NIOLife.

Of course, NIO Life can also create some values that cannot be quantified in the financial statements. For example, the social fission and dissemination created by popular products can bring a certain amount of traffic, thus helping NIO achieve more "cost - effective" marketing.

03

The fact that NIO's NIO Life can become a topic on social media is not accidental. The change in the structure of NIO car owners has also gradually given it a voice on social media.

In the past, NIO was positioned in the high - end market. Now, through the LeDao and Firefly brands, NIO has covered a wider range of consumers. Especially the Firefly, with its small and cute appearance, has helped NIO reach more female car owners.

On April 10th, the Yiche Research Institute released the "Insight Report on the Young Women's Car Market". From 2020 to 2025, most automobile brands strengthened their youth - oriented strategies, with the core goal of attracting young men with stronger consumption intentions.

However, currently, the Chinese young people's car market is shrinking rapidly, while the penetration rate of women has quickly increased from 36% to 50%, becoming the new main force in the Chinese young people's car market.

The report also analyzed multiple automobile brands and found that in 2025, the penetration rate of young women for the Firefly was as high as 41.3%, making it the brand with the highest penetration rate among mainstream brands. Although the Firefly was launched in 2025, its sales volume exceeded 5,000 units in December.

The increase in female car owners has also made the snack products of NIO Life more and more popular.

In 2023, the product with the highest repurchase rate in NIO Life was the folding storage box. The products at the top of the list were basically men's T - shirts, jackets, running shoes, backpacks and other products favored by male consumers. Now, more and more snacks have been discovered and become new topics on various social media.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that female car owners (consumers) are more willing to share. Social media with a large proportion of female users, such as Xiaohongshu, have naturally developed an atmosphere of "recommendation". Letting more consumers understand NIO through the quality of "a piece of cookie" is a more cost - effective way of dissemination found by NIO.

Actually, it is not new for car companies to engage in side businesses, and the forms of side businesses are no longer limited to automotive peripherals. For example, Tesla already has its own "general store", which includes not only IP - related peripheral products such as car models but also products like candies, hats, blowtorches, and children's walkers. Last year, Tesla even opened a theme restaurant selling hamburgers and fries.

Compared with Tesla's unexpected product development ideas, NIOLife is more cautious in product selection. Its original intention is that the products should not be like free gifts, and they should have better quality than competitors in the same category.

But it is not easy to do this well. For example, NIOLife once launched a sofa stool priced at over 23,000 yuan and a dry red wine priced at 2,199 yuan, which were criticized for "ripping off" NIO car owners.

Although the prices of NIOLife snacks are not very affordable, for example, the products from the same source as Sam's Club are more expensive. But compared with cars worth hundreds of thousands of yuan, snacks worth dozens of yuan are more likely to become an entry point for potential consumers to understand NIO.

Behind NIO's profit in the fourth quarter of last year, it can actually be seen that NIO has recognized the reality. The three models that support sales revenue are covering consumers at a gradually lower - end level. Even the high sales volume of the NIO ES8 is closely related to the price cut.

This also sends a signal to NIO. Only when fishing in the sea can you use a straight hook. Now the car market is crowded, and the competition space is as narrow as a small river. If you want to "fish", you have to use bait and give people a little taste.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Most Talk FunTalk" (ID: iFuntalker), author: Wei Xia, editor: Wang Fangjie, published by 36Kr with authorization.