Meituan Medical Beauty "Going Out"

Unlike previous industry restrictions, the promotional boundaries of the medical beauty industry are gradually opening up.

From the variety show "Actors, Please Take Your Place 3," sponsored by Meituan Medical Beauty, launching on Tencent in February this year, to the broadcast of the first domestic urban drama "In the Name of Beauty," which deeply focuses on cosmetic surgery and medical beauty, on Beijing Satellite TV and other channels in March, more positive signals are being released.

Many major internet companies are further increasing their investment in the medical beauty business. For example, JD.com is personally establishing offline medical beauty clinics, while Meituan is focusing on platform operations.

After communicating with the person in charge of Meituan's medical beauty business, it was learned that as an important traffic entry point for local life, Meituan's strategy in the medical beauty business has been upgraded.

On one hand, Meituan is selecting quality medical beauty institutions and doctors through the Polaris Medical Beauty List, providing consumers with a more impartial third-party reference when choosing medical beauty institutions;

On the other hand, Meituan Medical Beauty is attracting high-spending medical beauty users through platforms like Xiaohongshu and sponsoring variety shows, marking the first time Meituan Medical Beauty has conducted external brand promotion independently.

Whether Meituan can further expand the growth space of its medical beauty business is under scrutiny.

Reshaping Industry Trust

Affected by the slowdown in consumer demand, the medical beauty industry has not been doing well this year.

The days of "lying down to earn" are over, and a slowdown has become a consensus in the industry. From 2015 to 2024, China's medical beauty industry had a compound annual growth rate of over 18.3%, but it is expected to drop to 13.2% in the next five years.

This raises higher quality service requirements for downstream medical beauty institutions.

"What we have observed is that most beauty seekers have basically maintained their consumption budget for medical beauty. Medical beauty consumption has formed a clear cyclical pattern, such as a frequency of once a quarter, showing sustainability. The change mainly reflects that beauty seekers hope their limited budget is spent on better services, institutions, effects, and products," pointed out a medical beauty industry insider in Beijing. "Especially regarding effects, consumers do not need excessive services; they primarily pay for results."

Data also shows an increase in user consumption frequency; for example, the repurchase cycle for Meituan's medical beauty users has improved from 90 days last year to 64.3 days this year.

To enhance user trust in online medical beauty consumption, Meituan is providing more reliable references for consumers through the Polaris Medical Beauty List.

Recently, Meituan released the 2025 Polaris Medical Beauty List, which includes 152 medical beauty institutions from 39 cities nationwide and 240 doctors from 26 cities.

This is the first time the Polaris Medical Beauty List has combined institutions and doctors, helping users identify quality institutions and doctors based on their needs.

According to information from XinFeng, the list was created by inviting 10 leading professors in the industry to form an expert review panel, establishing key evaluation dimensions and clinical standards for specific subfields, setting 927 assessment points, and forming the list through large-scale user surveys.

During the research process, Meituan also pioneered a mystery visitor mechanism in the industry, helping institutions identify service issues through anonymous visits. In the future, it plans to introduce a daily store visit mechanism to participate in institutional visits more frequently and efficiently For the medical beauty institutions or doctors on the list, this can bring more customers to a certain extent.

As a doctor who has been selected twice for Meituan's "Polaris List," Wang Manji, the deputy chief physician of Shanghai Boman Guanghuan Medical Aesthetic Clinic, stated that since being listed, the order volume at her clinic has increased by approximately 300% year-on-year.

At the same time, Meituan has deployed its self-developed AioT smart verification hardware in nearly 2,000 medical beauty institutions across 104 cities nationwide, which can meet consumers' product verification needs.

This has, to some extent, enhanced users' trust in online medical beauty consumption.

Penetrating into Higher Tiers

As of August this year, nearly 9,500 new medical beauty institutions have opened on the Meituan platform.

Despite this, Meituan's medical beauty business still faces dual pressure from institutions and users.

The uniqueness of the medical beauty industry lies in the concentration of upstream medical beauty material suppliers, while the institution side is highly decentralized. Many small and medium-sized institutions face high product costs due to limited purchasing volumes, which somewhat squeezes their survival space.

According to a medical beauty industry insider from the south, the procurement cost of collagen products for small and medium-sized institutions may be more than 30% higher than that of large medical beauty chain institutions.

To address this, Meituan collaborates with upstream brands to help downstream small and medium-sized institutions solve issues related to product costs and authenticity.

Liu Rong, the head of Meituan's medical beauty industry operations, told Xinfeng that since Meituan's collaboration with upstream brands has just begun, the downstream institutions currently covered are mainly small and medium-sized institutions in first-tier cities, with coverage of about 300 institutions, which greatly helps reduce procurement costs for small and medium-sized institutions.

"Currently, we mainly cover small and medium-sized institutions in first-tier cities. Because these institutions have relatively low purchasing volumes, Meituan is actually helping them gain more price advantages," Liu Rong pointed out. "For small and medium-sized institutions, this can lower their costs and ensure their orderly and healthy development; otherwise, the competitive pressure on small and medium-sized institutions is still quite significant."

On the user side, among Meituan's over 800 million members, medical beauty users are concentrated in the higher spending levels of Lv.3 Gold, Lv.4 Platinum, and Lv.5 Black Gold, while the user base that constitutes Meituan's membership is primarily in the lower spending level of Lv.1 Ordinary, presenting a challenge in the overlap of user profiles between the two groups.

The head of a high-end medical beauty institution in Hangzhou told Xinfeng that there is a matching issue between Meituan users and their customer base, with most of their advertising expenses spent on the Xiaohongshu platform to build doctor IPs and attract customers.

Currently, one of Meituan's targeted strategies is to further penetrate into the high-tier user groups of Platinum and above.

"For Meituan, the users we see at the Platinum level and above actually have a high average annual consumption total, spending levels, and overall requirements for personal refinement, which align closely with the profile of medical beauty users," Liu Rong pointed out.

On the operational level, Meituan has currently designed special rights for users at the Black Gold level and above, offering services such as photon rejuvenation once every six months as part of the free benefits "In terms of internal penetration, we are currently mainly using free trial services to penetrate to a certain extent these high-tier users with strong purchasing power, letting them know that Meituan also offers medical beauty services," Liu Rong stated. "The institutions providing services here are all strictly screened by us, such as having certain service requirements and no serious negative public opinion recently."

However, whether this type of free benefit design constitutes a consideration for high-tier users when selecting medical beauty services on Meituan remains to be observed.

More importantly, Meituan Medical Beauty is further penetrating users with stronger consumption capabilities through external channels.

Xinfeng noted that this year, Meituan Medical Beauty not only sponsored the variety show "Actors Please Take Your Positions 3," but also entered Xiaohongshu, promoting various service products like photon rejuvenation and water light through notes to attract users to purchase corresponding group buying services on Meituan.

"This year, an important goal for Meituan Medical Beauty is to penetrate target users, namely those with medical beauty needs or those who are already undergoing medical beauty but are unaware that Meituan offers such services," Liu Rong stated. "We hope to leverage the power of the brand to reach out, including platforms like Xiaohongshu, variety shows, and some dramas, which are all part of our communication strategy. This is a relatively core strategy for Meituan Medical Beauty this year, as in the past, Meituan Medical Beauty did not conduct separate external brand promotion."

This is also benefited by the relaxation of promotional boundaries in the medical beauty industry this year. The first domestic urban drama focusing deeply on cosmetic surgery and medical beauty, "In the Name of Beauty," aired on major television stations this year. This drama not only broke the ice for the medical beauty genre but was also a key support project by the National Radio and Television Administration, providing broader operational space for Meituan Medical Beauty's penetration strategy.

Whether these measures can further bring Meituan Medical Beauty closer to target users is currently under scrutiny.