In recent years, the medical beauty industry has developed rapidly, the legal awareness of beauty seekers has increased, and the medical beauty consumption complaints have also increased.
Recently, Ning Hai, Deputy Secretary General of Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission, said in an exclusive interview that in 2021, the system of Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission accepted more than 230000 complaints, a year-on-year increase of 39.3%. Among them, the number of complaints from Yimei increased fourfold compared with last year.
Surge in complaints
Under the superposition of beauty economy and online popularity effect, consumers’ demand for medical beauty has been significantly released. At the same time, relevant complaints have also increased significantly. In 2021, Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission accepted a total of 503 complaints related to medical and aesthetic services, a year-on-year increase of 4.1 times. The quality of medical and aesthetic services is difficult to distinguish, the effect is difficult to define, and the application of legal provisions is vague, resulting in an increase in complaints.
For example, the consumer reported that he did eyebrow tattooing service in a store called “Mi craftsman company – qianyimei”. The clerk strongly recommended a freckle removal project. Before the consumer reacted, the clerk directly applied anesthetic, used a laser like instrument to operate on his face, and asked him to pay 40000 yuan. After the completion of the project, consumers obviously felt burning and left many scars on their faces. They negotiated with the store for many times and found that the store did not have the corresponding qualifications and conditions.
Medical and beauty services are highly professional. It is difficult for ordinary consumers to understand the specific contents of the project and are easy to be misled by operators. In the follow-up, they are faced with the dilemma of safeguarding their rights due to the difficulty in distinguishing the service quality of the industry and defining the effect of medical and beauty services. In view of the above problems, Shanghai Consumer Protection Commission suggested that: first, operators should effectively protect consumers’ right to know and provide consumers with detailed contract items, charge list, commitment effect, etc; Second, relevant departments should speed up the construction of an objective and fair rating system in the medical and American field, encourage medical and American institutions to set cooling off period provisions, and protect consumers’ right to choose and regret.
According to the statistics of China Plastic Surgery Association, there are an average of 20000 complaints about disfigurement caused by medical beauty every year.
According to tianyancha data, 8.8% of medical and American related enterprises have had business abnormalities, more than 7700 medical and American related enterprises have been subject to administrative penalties, and more than 400 related enterprises have committed serious violations. According to incomplete statistics, in 2021, Chinese medical and American related enterprises generated more than 1400 pieces of information about the executee and more than 2800 pieces of information about legal proceedings.
According to the enterprise investigation data, the enterprise risk information related to “medical beauty” has increased year by year in the five years since 2016. The number of risk information in 2016 was 71, which increased significantly to 285 in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 132%; It will continue to increase in 2019 and 2020; As of March 11, 2022, there were 3190 keywords containing risks related to “medical beauty”, including nearly 600 administrative penalties, accounting for 18.6%.
According to the content of the 2022 standard operation guide for medical and beauty institutions issued by the public opinion information center of China plastic and Beauty Association, from the perspective of the types of medical institutions, adverse events have occurred in three types of medical and beauty institutions, including specialized hospitals, outpatient departments and clinics. Among them, specialized hospitals accounted for 57.8%, which was the highest.
From the service items of adverse events, cosmetic surgery items accounted for 60%. Among them, nasal surgery accounted for 23%, followed by eye surgery, accounting for 13%.
Medical beauty enterprises plagued by punishment also have art star medical beauty. In 2018, when Yixing Yimei attacked the Hong Kong stock exchange, it disclosed in its prospectus that the company had 30 medical advertising violations, 4 medical accidents and 77 portrait rights disputes, including 72 disputes that had been resolved by paying a total compensation of about 2.6 million yuan. The compensation for the five unresolved portrait disputes was 713500 yuan. In recent years, the expenditure of art star medical beauty on fines and disputes has been rising, while the expenditure in 2017 was 3.31 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 59%.
Affected by the above, Yixing Yimei had to withdraw its listing application one year after submitting the form.
Medical beauty market is expected to exceed 300 billion
With the advent of the face watching era, people pay more and more attention to beauty. The consumption of “face” naturally rises, and the “beauty economy” came into being.
According to the 2021 medical beauty industry white paper released by the new oxygen data research institute, more than 80% of the public have a high acceptance of medical beauty, and the number of respondents who can’t accept medical beauty has decreased significantly. It is expected that the number of medical beauty users will exceed 20 million by 2022 The China Securities Co.Ltd(601066) research report predicts that the scale of China’s medical and American market is expected to exceed 300 billion yuan in 2024. In the medium and long term, there is still more than five times the growth space.
In recent years, with the continuous expansion of the market scale, the unimaginable huge profit space of the medical and beauty industry has been stimulated. According to the data, the operating revenue of “yimeimao” Imeik Technology Development Co.Ltd(300896) 2021 was 1.448 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 104%; The net profit attributable to shares was 958 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 117.81%. The company’s annual performance growth mainly comes from the solution injection with hi body as the core product.
In terms of products, the revenue of injection products (mainly hi body) was 1 billion 50 million yuan, an increase of 133.8% over the same period, and the income of gel products was 385 million yuan, an increase of 52.8% compared with the same period last year. The income of facial implant line was 5 million 300 thousand yuan, an increase of 187.7% over the same period last year, and the income of cosmetics business was 11 million 100 thousand yuan, up 40.7% over the same period.
Bloomage Biotechnology Corporation Limited(688363) , which is also deeply rooted in the field of medicine and beauty, had an operating revenue of 4.948 billion yuan in 2021, with a year-on-year increase of 87.93%; The net profit attributable to shares was 782 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.13%. Bloomage Biotechnology Corporation Limited(688363) attributed the growth of the company’s overall revenue to the driving of functional skin care products. Specifically, the four major brands in the functional skin care products sector contributed the most sales revenue, and the annual sales revenue of seven single products under the company exceeded 100 million.
Among them, Bloomage Biotechnology Corporation Limited(688363) its “run Baiyan” revenue reached 1.229 billion yuan, which is the “top sales” of the business segment, accounting for 37.02%, and the revenue of “BM muscle activity” was 435 million yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 286.21%, which is the brand with the highest growth rate.
Due to the ultra-high profits of medical and American enterprises, more and more enterprises or individuals have transformed and joined the medical and American industry. Enterprise survey data show that as of March 7, 2022, there are 49800 medical and American related enterprises in China.
Over the past three years, the overall registration of Chinese medical and American related enterprises has shown an upward trend. In 2019, 8994 companies were added, with a year-on-year increase of 1.07%. In 2020, 8855 new companies were added, with a year-on-year decrease of 1.55%. In 2021, 11300 new companies were added, with a year-on-year increase of 27.92%. From the perspective of regional distribution, Guangdong ranks first with 6811 medical and beauty related enterprises. Jiangsu and Shandong have 4109 and 3909 respectively, ranking the top three, followed by Sichuan, Zhejiang and other provinces.
Yimei may usher in “the strongest supervision”
On the one hand, the market demand of medical beauty industry is increasing sharply; On the other hand, at the same time, it is full of chaos. Therefore, a large number of regulatory policies for relevant industries have been issued one after another.
On June 10, 2021, the National Health Commission and other eight ministries and commissions jointly issued the work plan for the special rectification of illegal medical and beauty services, and decided to jointly carry out the special rectification of illegal medical and beauty services from June to December; On November 2, the General Administration of Market Supervision issued the guidelines for law enforcement of medical beauty advertising, which focused on the manufacture of “appearance anxiety”; On November 25, the Ministry of Public Security issued a notice demanding to severely crack down on criminal activities such as the illegal manufacture and sale of medical beauty products.
At the beginning of 2022, local health bureaus have been announcing the violations of local medical and cosmetic laws and regulations. Among them, on January 6, 2022, Qingdao announced ten typical cases of violations of medical and beauty laws and regulations. A total of 151 cases were investigated and punished throughout the year, with a fine of 2.4723 million yuan; On January 14, the Shanghai Health Commission also announced 10 typical cases of illegal medical and aesthetic treatment, with a total fine of 8.1347 million yuan and confiscation of 690200 yuan of illegal income.
On February 17, xiaohongshu also launched the strictest special treatment action for medical beauty in history. The first stage mainly starts from two aspects: on the one hand, the professional certification of private medical beauty institutions is cancelled, and the professional certification is only open to medical and aesthetic doctors in public class III hospitals and class III hospitals; On the other hand, the medical beauty notes produced by ordinary users are checked and cleaned up, and the contents and accounts suspected of marketing diversion and illegal medical beauty are removed from the shelf, sealed and degraded.
According to the data disclosed by xiaohongshu, 279000 illegal notes have been disposed of in the first batch, and 168000 illegal accounts have been punished. Among them, 142000 medical beauty notes suspected of marketing drainage in the off shelf station, including but not limited to all medical beauty Marketing contents involving illegal medical beauty projects, medical beauty institutions, plastic surgeons, medical beauty products and so on.
On March 1, the newly revised regulations of Shanghai Municipality on the protection of minors came into force, which added a new provision: “no medical and beauty services shall be provided to minors without the consent of their parents or other guardians”. So far, the “younger age of medical beauty” has been limited from the institutional level.
