NIO Kekse "fangen Fische"
There is a restaurant with Taiwanese cuisine downstairs from my place. The quality is comparable to that of Xinrongji. Recently, it has started serving breakfast. At first, I couldn't understand the logic behind offering breakfast. You can get a full meal for 50 yuan per person. But the income from an entire morning isn't even enough to cover the cost of a private room.
It was only when I realized that it had become almost impossible to reserve a table for lunch or dinner that I admired the business acumen of the owner.
If you want someone to buy expensive things, it's best to start with cheap ones. Hermès scarves and Chanel earrings are probably like “bait.”
It's probably more difficult for products whose prices can't be lowered, like cars. You can't just take the seats out of a car and sell them individually.
But if you think like that, it shows that your thinking isn't broad enough.
Who says a car dealer has to sell only cars?
On Xiaohongshu, NIO has become famous for its online supermarket (NIOLife). Thanks to successful products like cookies, crackers, waffles, and dried pork, it has even convinced non - drivers to download the NIO app and shop.
The data released by NIOLife shows that in 2025, Belgian chocolate crackers, crispy cookies, and dried beef from Hulunbuir in Inner Mongolia were the three most popular treats among drivers. Alone, 570,000 boxes of Belgian chocolate crackers were sold that year.
As NIO's lifestyle brand, NIOLife supports points redemption. So, the sales of treats in the shop mainly depend on the “free purchases” of NIO drivers. A driver wrote on Xiaohongshu that he “had even gone into negative points.”
NIOLife also accepts cash payments. So, more and more non - NIO drivers see it as an alternative to Sam's Club. This comparison may not be entirely accurate, because originally, NIOLife was designed to help drivers use up their points. So, the products in NIOLife aren't actually cheap.
Take NIOLife's butter egg tarts as an example. They only weigh 454 grams, but the price is 88 yuan. In comparison, Sam's Club's butter egg tarts, which weigh 608 grams, only cost 60 yuan. Note that both egg tarts are from the same contract manufacturer.
The high - price strategy helps NIOLife break away from the cost - unit orientation, which is almost the fate of automakers with membership systems. But the benefits go beyond that.
It should also help filter NIO's customers. Except for the Firefly model, most of NIO's vehicles aren't promoted for their good value for money. And customers who aren't sensitive to cookie prices should be the right ones.
Actually, some non - NIO drivers have reported that they became interested in NIO cars while shopping at NIOLife.
01
It's not unusual in the automotive industry to turn the app into a community. By checking in, writing posts, and commenting in the community, you can collect points and then use them in the shop. This is the basic logic to activate the automaker's community.
Compared to NIO, the products in traditional automotive shops mainly relate to car accessories, like chargers or trailers. At most, some daily - use products like thermos flasks or coffee machines are added. But NIO's NIOLife added clothing and treats early on.
For example, in late 2020, NIO sold a limited - edition Polarmax jacket. Many NIO drivers waited for the release and snapped them up. The 1,699 - yuan jackets were sold out within a minute. In 2024, an 188 - yuan cookie from NIOLife was also sold out, making NIO famous again for its supermarket.
In February 2024, NIOLife released a statistic. Within six years, 3,342 products were introduced. Between 2021 and 2023, NIOLife accelerated the development of new products. In 2021, 594 new products were developed, and in 2023, it was 827. The total sales volume even tripled, from 5 million to 15 million pieces.
You have to consider that Sam's Club, which focuses on a minimalist product offering, only has about 4,000 SKUs. This shows that NIO's supermarket isn't just a way to redeem points, but rather a carefully run side business and even a new growth curve.
In recent years, although NIOLife hasn't released sales figures, the product categories in the shop have expanded to 13 categories, covering almost all categories from clothing to trendy toys. There's even a special “Weilai 2nd Generation Section” for children's items. In this way, NIO has been able to penetrate deeply into the lives of drivers.
Car purchases are rare, but clothing and snack purchases are frequent. Each points redemption strengthens the drivers' sense of identity.
This has led to drivers voluntarily promoting NIO. Their posts about treats on social networks like Xiaohongshu have attracted a lot of attention and also brought many non - drivers to NIOLife.
The head of the NIO app mentioned in an interview with the media in 2021 that the daily activity of the NIO app was then about 200,000. And half of the active users were not NIO drivers, passengers, or customers who had already signed a purchase contract, but simply fans who hadn't bought a car yet.
In 2023, it was reported that the NIO app had over 5 million registered users and the daily activity was over 500,000. Thus, NIO is the automaker with the largest number of users and the highest user activity in China.
NIO's strength among new automakers lies in its absolutely loyal driver base. There's even a trend towards a fan community. The reason for the strong sense of belonging among drivers is that NIO has always paid attention to user care. Even Li Bin has taken over user care.
According to previous reports, Li Bin distributes integral points in almost 200 community groups every day. This is also the time when the NIO driver community is the most active.
NIO's user care doesn't only happen online, but also offline in NIO Houses. There, drivers can exchange their points for a coffee and the popular treats from NIOLife at any time and spend time on handicrafts. Now, NIO Houses are also open to non - NIO drivers, which leads to new discussions about NIO on social networks.
Brand building through social segmentation and dissemination is not unusual among new automakers. For example, Li Auto has benefited from the “father bonus.” NIO also tries to attract more potential customers in this way.
02
In the last quarter of last year, NIO achieved a quarterly profit for the first time. Although it's not an annual profit yet, it's still a positive sign. NIO's quarterly profit is, of course, mainly due to the record - high vehicle delivery volume, but effective cost control has also helped reduce losses.
The quarterly profit was actually the annual goal that Li Bin set after the release of the 2024 annual report. Li Bin was confident of achieving this goal because he visited many entrepreneurs to learn about “cost reduction” and launched an internal project called “Cost Mining.”
According to the data released in the annual report, in the fourth quarter of 2025, NIO not only reduced costs but also increased efficiency.
The annual report shows that research and development expenses as well as sales and administrative costs decreased significantly in the fourth quarter. The sales and administrative costs dropped to 35.37 billion yuan, a decrease of 27.5% compared to the previous year. In the same quarter, NIO delivered a total of over 120,000 vehicles of the three brands, an increase of 71.7% compared to the previous year.
Although the cost - reduction strategy showed initial results in the last quarter of last year, NIO has still followed the traditional path of automakers in marketing. The high sales (marketing) costs were also one of the reasons for the annual losses in the past.
According to the financial data of the last three years, NIO's sales and administrative costs are still in the range of 10 billion yuan. Especially in 2023 and 2024, the increase was around 22%. In 2025, the increase slowed down, but it still reached 160.88 billion yuan, an increase of 2.2% compared to the previous year. Compared with the annual sales revenue of 874.88 billion yuan in 2025, the proportion of sales and administrative costs is even 18.39%.
For automakers, marketing costs have a certain degree of rigidity. Although Li Bin says he doesn't like events, it's inevitable for automakers to organize events.
For example, NIO set up an event called “NIO DAY,” which is also one of NIO's most expensive events. For example, the first NIO DAY in 2017 cost a total of over 90 million yuan. NIO booked planes and train carriages for the drivers and also reserved the entire Wukesong Stadium for the event.
In previous years, NIO DAY always took place at the end of December. Last year, NIO moved NIO DAY to September. NIO DAY is not only a gathering for NIO drivers but also a product presentation of NIO.
This change last year also directly shifted the sales costs, which originally fell in the fourth quarter, to the third quarter, causing the sales and administrative costs in the fourth quarter to decrease by more than 700 million yuan compared to the previous year. In contrast, the sales and administrative costs in the third quarter increased by 1.8% compared to the previous year and by 5.5% compared to the previous quarter. This shows how high NIO's investments in marketing campaigns for new products were in the past.
It's worth mentioning that the revenue from service and community services based on the vehicle inventory exceeded 10 billion yuan for the first time last year and accounts for 12% of the total revenue. This area also includes NIOLife.
Of course, NIOLife can also create some values that can't be quantified in the financial statement. For example, the social segmentation and dissemination created by successful products can generate a certain amount of traffic and thus help NIO carry out more cost - effective marketing.
03
It's actually no coincidence that NIO's NIOLife leads to discussions on social media. The change in NIO's driver base has contributed to it getting more and more attention on social media.
In the past, NIO focused on the high - end market. Now, through the two brands LeDao and Firefly, NIO covers a wider range of consumers. Especially the Firefly has enabled NIO to reach more female drivers thanks to its small and cute shape.
On April 10, the Yiche Research Institute released the “Report on the Analysis of the Market for Young Women.” Between 2020 and 2025, most automotive brands strengthened their youth - oriented strategies, mainly to attract young men with strong purchasing intentions.
But currently, the Chinese market for young car drivers is shrinking rapidly, while the proportion of women has risen from 36% to 50%, and they have thus become the new main force in the Chinese market for young car drivers.
The report also analyzes several automotive brands and shows that the proportion of young women for the Firefly in 2025 was 41.3%, which is the highest proportion among the main brands. Although the Firefly only entered the market in 2025, it had sold more than 5,000 units by December.
The increase in female drivers has also led to the treats from NIOLife becoming more and more popular.
In 2023, the product with the highest repeat - purchase rate in NIOLife was a foldable trunk organizer. The products at the top of the list were mainly men's T - shirts, jackets, running shoes, and backpacks, which are preferred by male consumers. Now, more and more small snacks are being discovered and are becoming new topics on social media.
Of course, this also has to do with the fact that female drivers (consumers) are more willing to share. Social media like Xiaohongshu, where female users make up a large proportion, have naturally created a “recommendation atmosphere.” It's a more cost - effective way of dissemination for NIO that consumers get to know NIO through the quality of a “cookie.”
Actually, it's not new for automakers to run side businesses. The forms of side businesses are also no longer limited to car accessories. For example, Tesla already has its own “special store,” which contains not only car models and other IP - related accessories but also sweets, hats, lighters, and strollers. Last year, Tesla even opened a theme restaurant and sold hamburgers and fries.
Compared to Tesla's surprising product development concept, NIOLife is more cautious in product selection. The goal is to select products that don't look like gifts and have better quality than the competitors.
But it's not easy to achieve this. For example, products like a sofa - stool for over 23,000 yuan and a bottle of red wine for 2,199 yuan were criticized.