Local life competition runs into the market segment, Meituan Medical Beauty builds a "moat"

Reporter Li Li reports from Shanghai

With Douyin and Kuaishou entering the battlefield of local life, the local life market war has further entered the subdivided field.

In the battlefield of local life, in addition to the traditional fields of catering, in-store, and wine and tourism, some new battlefields are being formed, such as medical cosmetology, which has a high unit price and high growth. The reporter of "China Business Daily" noticed that veteran players like Meituan not only stick to the old battlefield, but also actively build moats in the new battlefield.

According to the data of ""Assured Beauty" Annual Consumer Insights" recently released by Meituan, in 2023, medical aesthetic consumers will "scan the code to verify the truth" nearly 50,000 times through Meituan's intelligent authenticity verification equipment, and gold superphoton, picosecond, Thermage, and Peninsula ultrasound guns have become popular for authenticity verification, and "assured, intelligent, and guaranteed" are the three popular keywords for consumers to choose "assured beauty" services.

According to Meituan, in response to the issues that consumers are most concerned about such as safety and fidelity, Meituan Medical Beauty is working with the China Plastic Surgery Association to lay intelligent authenticity inspection equipment. It is expected that in 2024, 5,000 intelligent authenticity inspection devices will be stationed in 1,500 medical aesthetic institutions to ensure that the drugs and instruments used by consumers to experience in stores are genuine.

The scale of users and the frequency of consumption have "doubled"

According to the 2023 China Medical Aesthetic Industry Insight Report released by Deloitte and Allergan Aesthetics, medical aesthetics, as a typical representative of new consumption, is expected to grow by about 20% in 2023, and the market will maintain a compound annual growth rate of about 15% in the next four years.

"The scale of users and the frequency of consumption of medical cosmetology are both on the rise. Liu Rong, head of Meituan's medical aesthetic industry, said in an interview with reporters that in terms of user scale, the annual growth rate of new customers in the industry is about 25%, and secondly, whether it is an old customer or a new customer in the industry, the annual consumption frequency is higher than before.

According to Meituan's data, the average consumption frequency of users who have just started to experience medical aesthetics can reach 2.7 times within 12 months after they come into contact with medical aesthetics, and the average annual consumption frequency of consumers with less than 5 years of medical aesthetic experience is 5.5-6 times. In terms of consumer unit price, the average unit value of medical aesthetic consumers on Meituan increased by 47% year-on-year.

"The increase in the scale, frequency of consumption and consumption amount of medical cosmetology users on the one hand represents that consumers' basic trust in the medical cosmetology industry is improving, and on the other hand, it represents that consumers' recognition of medical cosmetology as a way of becoming beautiful is improving. Liu Rong thinks.

Chen Guojing, the founder of BR Optoelectronics Maintenance, felt this wave of growth. "Previously, it opened 5 stores in Shanghai Xintiandi and Lujiazui, and may open 4 more in Suzhou in the future. Chen Guojing revealed that the growth rate in the first quarter of this year was faster, and compared with traditional marketing and customer acquisition channels, the online user reach path was shorter.

In addition, it has become a growth point that cannot be ignored in the male users and sinking markets. Chen Guojing found that the proportion of male medical aesthetic consumers has reached 10%, which is growing very fast. "In the past, men's medical aesthetic consumption was mainly hair transplantation, but now the demand for maintenance medical aesthetics is growing. When Liu Rong was conducting a user survey in Chengdu, she met a 51-year-old male consumer who "planted" medical beauty, mainly doing wrinkle removal, eye bag removal and other projects, spending about 10,000 yuan or 20,000 yuan a year.

In addition, user demand in the sinking market is growing vigorously and is transforming to standardization. Taking a city of 11 million people like Linyi as an example, Liu Rong told reporters that there were 75 medical aesthetic institutions in the city before, and only 5 were directly operated institutions. The so-called channel hospital is one person one price, that is, each person has inconsistent pricing on the same project, but since last year, the entire channel market in Linyi has begun to transform, with the sinking of the Internet, medical beauty information is more transparent and the price is more open.

Meituan's "Authenticity"

However, behind the rapid development of the medical aesthetic market, problems such as parallel imports and fakes have also spread further due to the "price war". As a consumer product with medical attributes, the service experience and consumer safety of medical cosmetology have encountered new challenges, and consumers' attention to authentic products has increased significantly. Previously, a set of data released by Meituan Medical Aesthetics showed that in 2023, the number of complaints related to drug or device compliance from offline institutions will increase by 39% compared with 2022, and the number of related negative reviews will increase by 6%.

"The platform survey found that 85% of users know that there are fakes and parallel goods in the medical beauty industry, and consumers' demands for the authenticity of drugs, as well as the authenticity of drugs, as well as the use of third parties to test the authenticity of the fake are very strong. Liu Rong revealed.

Based on a market with high growth potential and an urgent need for regulation, Meituan's strategy is to help the industry standardize first, solve consumer trust, and build its own moat.

In December 2023, Meituan Medical Aesthetics, together with the China Plastic Surgery Association and upstream brands of medical aesthetics, upgraded the "Assured Beauty and Authenticity Guarantee" service, and is expected to station 5,000 intelligent authenticity verification devices in 1,500 medical aesthetic institutions in 2024, and upgrade the product authenticity capability to product traceability services to ensure that the drugs and instruments used by consumers to experience in stores are genuine.

"When you touch the drug on the smart device, the screen will directly display the verification results, which is clear at a glance, convenient and reliable. Wang Lu, a user in Shanghai, tried using Meituan's "authenticity" device. According to Meituan's data, in 2023 alone, medical aesthetic consumers will complete nearly 50,000 QR code scanning and verification services through Meituan's intelligent authenticity verification equipment, covering two categories: injection product verification and photoelectric instrument authenticity verification.

"The problem that arises in medical aesthetics now is more of a compliance issue. When it comes to medical aesthetics, if your friends say not to go, the risk is too great, then this growth itself is unsustainable. If a regulated market has a certain level of trust, this order of magnitude of growth will be very fast. Jing Xuan, deputy secretary general of the China Plastic Surgery Association, said.

According to reports, Meituan's intelligent authenticity inspection equipment has completed the data exchange with the China Medical Aesthetic Information Publicity Platform, and it is expected that more than 200 verifiable product types will be added in the future. On the other hand, improve the construction of the traceability system of genuine pharmaceutical and medical devices, realize the traceability of one thing and one code, and expand the key information of traceability to the manufacturer's production process, and present the real performance experience process through the visual authenticity dispensing intelligent machine.

Why does Meituan spend money to launch such hardware offline, Liu Rong said: "Because the instrument has a more sense of ritual, users will have a stronger mental and cognitive impact due to this sense of ritual and third-party hardware, which is incomparable with online software." In his view, Meituan hopes to help users continue to build a verifiable understanding of the industry. The authenticity and parallel import issues in the medical cosmetology industry are supported by official data and verifiable, and Meituan provides such a channel for authenticity, which partly plays the role of platform supervision.

In addition, according to Jing Xuan, the China Plastic Surgery Association will build a traceability system for the medical beauty industry in 2024 to provide more data support for the interconnection of upstream manufacturers, institutions and platforms, help upgrade from "scanning code verification" to "authentic traceability", provide more comprehensive consumer protection for beauty seekers, and promote the formation of a benign and healthy medical beauty ecology.

(Editor: Wu Qing Review: Li Zhenghao Proofreader: Zhai Jun)