The Rise of Health Consumption Era: Online Healthcare Services Become the New Norm

“Health” has quietly become the main driving force behind consumption upgrades.

According to the report “Ten-Year Insights into Tmall’s Double 11: The Arrival of the New Consumption Era,” released by CBNData and DT Finance, with transaction value as the benchmark,The pharmaceutical and healthcare industry has experienced the fastest growth over the past five years., with the medical services sector—encompassing health screenings, medical aesthetics, and dental care—remaining highly vibrant, and transaction volumes showing a year-on-year upward trend.

Taking the 2019 “Double 11” shopping festival as an example, while the total transaction volume for the day once again broke consumption records, the healthcare industry’s gross merchandise value surpassed RMB 100 million within just 145 seconds of the event’s launch, demonstrating the enormous potential of the medical market.

Industry changes are always closely tied to data. As record-breaking becomes the norm, we have begun to realize that, riding the fast train of the internet,A brand-new consumer trend is rapidly emerging in the healthcare sector.

With the rapid development of the internet economy, efficient, convenient, and intelligent “Internet+” shopping and consumption systems based on big data have begun to permeate the healthcare sector extensively. While serving as a new avenue for profit growth, they have also subtly transformed consumer habits.

On the one hand, internet technology has broken down the barriers of time and space, enabling people to engage in health-related consumption more conveniently, which has significantly improved user accessibility to medical and health products. On the other hand, e-commerce platforms offer a diverse product portfolio, providing consumers with greater choice and further stimulating their capacity for health-related spending.

Technological convenience is only one aspect; the “endorsement” of national policies is the key driver stimulating health consumption.

China has proposed advancing the construction of a "Healthy China." From this perspective, "health consumption" has gained greater potential and been elevated to a more prominent position. Health consumption, underpinned by the continuous upgrading of the health industry, has emerged as a new growth driver for overall social consumption.

According to estimates by the Health Development Research Center of the National Health Commission,In 2018, the value-added of China's health industry reached RMB 6.4 trillion, a year-on-year increase of approximately 12.4%, accounting for 7.08% of GDP. By 2030, the total scale of the health service industry is projected to reach RMB 16 trillion.

At the level of “online shopping” for medical services, the medical aesthetics industry is undoubtedly the first to “rush” out.

This is not difficult to understand. On one hand, medical aesthetic institutions have primarily focused their market efforts on building online channels, with marketing channel costs accounting for more than 50% of total costs. This clearly demonstrates the high level of investment these institutions make in online promotion.

On the other hand, professional medical aesthetics service platforms have demonstrated a significant promotional effect. Data shows that during the 2020 Double 11 Shopping Festival, So-Young, a medical aesthetics app, achieved a 213% year-on-year increase in its total online transaction volume, while Gengmei App recorded a 280% year-on-year growth in its on-platform transaction amount, both exhibiting strong market promotion capabilities.

However, the successive emergence of “illegal aesthetic medicine” practices and natural market elimination are likely to cause online sales in the medical aesthetics industry to “stop growing” in the future. According to data on China’s medical aesthetics services market released by Frost & Sullivan, the industry’s growth rate in 2020 was only 5.7%, far below the 18% growth rate recorded in 2019, indicating an increasingly pronounced slowdown in the growth of market size.

Following the rise of medical aesthetics, online health testing services have emerged as a new trendsetter.

In recent years, with the shift in the medical model toward prevention-oriented health management and the wake-up call provided by the COVID-19 pandemic, society has placed increasing emphasis on proactive prevention of highly contagious diseases and early screening for chronic disease risk factors. There is a growing societal recognition of the critical importance of preventive healthcare.

According to data from iiMedia Research,Since 2014, the number of health checkup and diagnostic visits in China has been continuously increasing. In 2020, the number reached 640 million, and it is projected to reach 680 million in 2021.

It is evident that health screening services are gradually becoming a new growth pole for “online shopping” of medical services.

With the meteoric rise of live-streaming e-commerce, healthcare companies have also seized this opportunity to accelerate their online marketing efforts.Data from the live-streaming channel of Viya, a top-tier influencer on Taobao, revealed that a single leading health checkup provider set a new consumption record with order values exceeding RMB 65 million during just three hours of broadcasting at the “Viya Lifestyle Festival.” By closely integrating their operations with internet technologies, online sales have become a key breakthrough for top medical institutions in market promotion.

Taking Ping An Health (Testing) Center (hereinafter referred to as “Ping An Good Doctor”) as an example. As a key member of Ping An Group’s healthcare sector, Ping An Good Doctor has begun to focus heavily on online sales in recent years,This September, in collaboration with other medical subsidiaries under Ping An, we will jointly launch the “9.9 Health Festival,” known as the “Double 11” of the healthcare industry. The festival will prominently feature a range of health screening packages, aiming to provide users with a comprehensive “all-in-one” healthcare service solution that covers the entire health management journey.

In the face of a massive market size, how to precisely “reach” users has become a critical challenge for health testing institutions at this stage. “Precision Checkups” have carved out a unique niche in the health testing market by offering premium services and delivering authoritative test results comparable to those of public Grade 3A hospitals, thereby emerging as a new growth point in the high-end market.

The consumer profile for health-related spending is becoming increasingly younger.

Behind the trend of younger consumers driving health-related spending lies Generation Y and Z’s heightened emphasis on personal health management, reflecting a shift and upgrade in consumption concepts. According to the “2021 Insights into Chinese Consumers’ ‘Holistic Health’ Needs,” the health perspectives of those born in the 1980s and 1990s differ significantly from those of the previous generation: while the older generation focused on “treatment and supplementation,” the younger generation prioritizes “nurturing and prevention.”

Regular health check-ups, vaccinations, stockpiling supplements, preventing hair loss, and keeping up with fitness routines—young people today are going further and further down the path of health consumption. The “punk-style” wellness approach of “staying up the latest nights while taking the most expensive health supplements” is gradually becoming outdated, and “wellness together with parents” has emerged as a new trend.

From this perspective, healthcare institutions have begun to gain deep insights into consumer voices and keep pace with market development trends, creating personalized health screening services for users. It is reported that during this “9.9 Health Festival,”Ping An Good Doctor deeply focuses on user needs, carefully selecting from its 20 launched products a diverse range of series—including comprehensive packages, demographic-specific packages, specialized packages, and advanced equipment packages—to meet customers’ varying scenario-based needs while offering unprecedented exclusive discounts.

Taking the comprehensive package as an example, this is a series of products specifically designed for customers who "prefer convenience." The packages are divided into five types: Exclusive, Premium, Superior, Elite, and Wellness. Users at higher tiers enjoy a more diverse experience during their health check-ups, includingTumors, Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases, Chest CT, Breast CancerIn addition to screening for currently prevalent diseases, individuals can also access comprehensive and precise health assessments provided by professional specialists, including dietitians, psychological counselors, and exercise management specialists.

Since the services are designed for “young people,” the accessibility and convenience of healthcare are paramount.To further enhance user experience, Ping An Good Doctor has established flagship centers in multiple core cities, fully leveraging local geographic, service, and equipment advantages to tailor health checkup packages with distinct regional features. Additionally, Ping An Good Doctor has specially created a “Green Channel” to ensure that efficiency and convenience permeate the entire health examination process, bringing the service closer to users.

Of course, there is also diagnostic quality, which is the “lifeline” of medical institutions.First, in terms of service model, as a professional third-party medical institution in China, Ping An Good Doctor pioneered an innovative “trinity” business model integrating imaging diagnosis, medical laboratory testing, and precision examinations;Secondly, in terms of medical staff strength, Ping An Good Doctor has established a dedicated medical and nursing team composed of authoritative experts from tertiary Grade A hospitals and core young and middle-aged professionals.

Finally, on medical devices.Although Ping An Good Doctor is a private medical institution, its hardware facilities are directly comparable to those of public Grade 3A hospitals, and it has now made significant investments to introduce256-slice low-dose spiral CT, 3.0T MRI, PET/CT, PET/MR...and other top-tier medical equipment to build a solid foundation for medical quality. It is worth mentioning that Ping An Good Doctor isThe Only Third-Party Health Checkup Institution in China Certified for PET-MR, will reach new heights in the diagnosis and treatment of critical and complex diseases, support regional research on tumors, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and enable the public to access medical services powered by the world’s most advanced imaging equipment right at their doorstep.

The deep integration of the internet has unlocked greater possibilities in the healthcare sector, expanding the horizons for innovation. However, its core mission remains to provide users with efficient and convenient medical services under the premise of safety. Currently, the healthcare industry is undergoing rapid development, and its convergence with the internet will undoubtedly propel it into a new stage of growth, gradually unleashing significant market potential.