JD.com’s medical beauty stores are set to open in Guomao

The medical beauty business is being eyed by more internet giants.

On July 14, Xinfeng noticed that JD Health (6618.HK) quietly opened its first offline self-operated medical beauty clinic in Yizhuang, Beijing.

This is JD Health's first self-operated offline medical beauty clinic, currently named "JD Medical Beauty (Yizhuang Store)," and it has been integrated into the medical beauty channel of the JD APP.

This marks the first public appearance of an offline store since JD Health established its medical beauty subsidiary in March this year.

Xinfeng learned that JD Health's second offline self-operated beauty clinic, Beijing "Guomao Store," will open on September 30.

This is another round of competition between JD and Meituan in the medical beauty business following food delivery.

However, the operational models of the two still differ significantly, with Meituan focusing on acting as a platform and not engaging in self-operation.

The competition for offline physical channels between platform companies and medical beauty institutions is becoming an important development trend in the medical beauty industry. For example, New Oxygen (SY.O) has also laid out dozens of offline medical beauty institutions.

With the entry of internet giants, the competition for customers among downstream medical beauty institutions is becoming increasingly fierce.

First Store Opens in Yizhuang

More than three months ago, JD Health established a subsidiary, Beijing JD Medical Beauty Clinic Co., Ltd., and applied for the "JD Medical Beauty" trademark.

In June this year, Liu Qiangdong stated that after the supply chains for catering and hotels, JD will also have supply chains for beauty, medical beauty, hospitals, and other scenarios in the future.

Now, JD Health's offline medical beauty store "JD Medical Beauty (Yizhuang Store)" has finally opened to the public.

However, JD Medical Beauty (Yizhuang Store) has not yet opened a new area separately but is located on the first floor of JD Health's comprehensive outpatient department (Yizhuang Store).

The online entrance to the clinic is embedded in the JD APP, requiring users to search for the keyword "medical beauty" to link to the JD Medical Beauty channel and click to enter the JD Medical Beauty self-operated flagship store.

At the same time, JD's self-operated medical beauty has also launched a mini-program on WeChat.

Xinfeng contacted JD Medical Beauty (Yizhuang Store) and learned that the store has been in trial operation for more than two months but has only been open to JD internal employees and not to the public.

However, JD's self-operated medical beauty clinic has not yet launched large-scale promotional efforts.

Xinfeng noticed that the traffic to the JD Medical Beauty self-operated flagship store is limited, with the current number of followers being only over 60.

Moreover, the internal JD system is not very familiar with the store's launch on the JD APP.

Xinfeng conducted interviews with several JD internal employees, all of whom stated that they were unaware that the store had already started operating. Even the staff at the store were uncertain about its integration into the JD APP's JD Medical Beauty self-operated flagship store.

Sales figures also indicate that "JD Medical Beauty (Yizhuang Store)" has not been online for long, with many projects having sales numbers of only a dozen or so.

The Yizhuang Store is just the first step for JD's self-operated offline medical beauty stores.

JD Medical Beauty plans to open its next store at the Beijing Guomao Wantong Center on September 30.

Currently, JD Medical Beauty's offline store offers four major light medical beauty services, including skin whitening and rejuvenation, water light beauty shaping, wrinkle removal and face slimming, and photoelectric anti-aging.

Although JD Medical Beauty currently has a wide range of categories, the specific medical beauty service products offered are still relatively limited For example, currently popular regenerative medical beauty products such as "youthful needle" and restructured collagen injections are not listed on the introduction page of JD.com Medical Beauty (Yizhuang Store).

JD.com Medical Beauty (Yizhuang Store) has also confirmed to Xinfeng that products like "youthful needle" will be gradually launched in the future.

In terms of pricing, except for Thermage, ultrasound devices, and botulinum toxin injections, the overall product prices at JD.com Medical Beauty (Yizhuang Store) are mainly below the thousand yuan level.

The store introduced to Xinfeng that the current page prices are all internal employee prices, and there may be further price increases in the future.

Even so, compared to other medical beauty institutions, the price advantage of several projects at JD.com Medical Beauty (Yizhuang Store) is not obvious at present.

Taking the Black Gold DPL photon facial full mode as an example, the prices at many medical beauty institutions in Beijing are basically around 300 yuan, and can even be as low as around 160 yuan, while the price at JD.com Medical Beauty (Yizhuang Store) is as high as 559 yuan.

Major Companies "Diverting" Red and Black

Medical beauty is also one of Meituan's important businesses.

This means that after JD.com and Meituan previously competed in the takeaway field, the two will also start to compete in the medical beauty field.

However, there are significant differences in their operating models.

Meituan focuses on acting as a traffic entrance for offline institutions and has laid out its strategy earlier. In 2024 alone, it has incorporated nearly 3,000 medical beauty institutions and set up a dedicated entrance on the client interface.

JD Health's layout in the medical beauty field continues its approach of being both a platform and self-operated, focusing on both self-operated offline clinics and introducing third-party clinics.

The advantage of JD Health launching self-operated medical beauty clinics lies in its ability to quickly capture traffic through the JD APP, gaining customer flow in a short period.

This is a scarce resource that many offline institutions are eager for.

For a long time, offline medical beauty institutions have had to engage in fierce price wars to attract new users to consume in-store, and even caused dissatisfaction among upstream medical beauty raw material suppliers due to "products breaking market prices."

Meituan's platform previously launched a "100 billion subsidy," stimulating some offline institutions to lower prices, such as the restructured collagen injection Wei Yimei, which saw a serious price inversion with the manufacturer's guidance price of 6,000 yuan/bottle, dropping to a low price of 1,339 yuan/bottle.

This phenomenon triggered a strong backlash from the producer of Wei Yimei, Jinbo Biotechnology (832982.BJ).

Jinbo Biotechnology once pointed its criticism directly at Meituan, stating that some merchants participating in Meituan's promotional activities were selling Wei Yimei without authorization or had not purchased from authorized channels.

The diversion of high-priced products is a reflection of the "red sea competition" among downstream medical beauty institutions.

In fact, JD.com is not the first internet giant to test the waters of offline medical beauty clinics.

The medical beauty internet platform Xinyang, which also holds traffic entrances, has already joined the battle. Since opening its first offline self-operated medical beauty institution in May 2023, Xinyang has accumulated 30 self-operated medical beauty institutions in two years, covering nine cities nationwide.

Currently, Xinyang is exploring a franchise business model to further expand its market share.

With the entry of internet giants like JD.com and Xinyang, competition among downstream medical beauty institutions will become increasingly fierce. How can small and medium-sized offline medical beauty clinics "survive in the cracks" amid competition from large companies due to a lack of traffic import remains a challenge.

In fact, on the same afternoon that Xinfeng exclusively released the news that JD.com’s offline medical beauty clinics were officially open for business, some medical beauty institutions' management held an emergency meeting to discuss response strategies.

However, JD.com’s entry also faces challenges.

Unlike its e-commerce business, JD.com’s self-operated medical beauty clinics need to explore the path of in-store services, which makes it difficult to leverage JD.com's past logistics advantages to improve operational efficiency; they can only enhance customer coverage by increasing the number of offline store locations.

This means that JD Health needs to continuously invest heavily in offline clinics to increase market share.

At the same time, companies like Meili Tianyuan (2373.HK) and Langzi Co., Ltd. (002612.SZ) are also laying out chain medical beauty institutions through a "merger + self-operated" model, accumulating a stable customer base.

A downstream institution leader in South China told Xinfeng that the core of JD.com’s business model is the supply chain, and JD.com’s entry into the beauty and medical beauty industry is likely aimed at reducing prices through its own supply chain capabilities.

This individual further pointed out that, from an industry-wide perspective, while price optimization in the upstream supply chain of the beauty industry will inevitably become a trend in the future, this does not constitute a moat for JD.com’s involvement in the beauty industry.

"The operational thinking of medical beauty clinics is different from that of the internet supply chain, and the capabilities of the institution's doctors are also very important; it is not entirely a standardized delivery service," said the head of a medical beauty institution in Beijing to Xinfeng