How Aesthetic Medical Enterprises Are Navigating the Darkest Hour Before Dawn: Digital Transformation and Strategic Partnerships Lead the Way

Several weeks have passed since the official resumption of work, and while the market is gradually recovering, the medical aesthetics industry has yet to fully resume large-scale offline operations. Confronted with the “black swan” event of the pandemic, the entire industry faces pressing questions: How can businesses resume operations effectively? How can they retain top talent? And how can they ensure their survival during this brief period of adversity?

On February 27, Li Jiaen tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Throughout February, the more than ten clinics under Heli Medical Aesthetics, which she founded, were operating at a loss, with total deficits reaching RMB 20 million.

In 2013, Li Jiaen resigned from Jianghan University, giving up a stable teaching position to found Heli Medical Aesthetics. Over the next six years, Heli Medical Aesthetics grew into a large medical aesthetics group with operations in more than ten cities, including Wuhan and Changsha. Amid the pandemic, stores were unable to operate normally, rent remained high, and wages for numerous employees had to be paid—Li Jiaen’s carefully nurtured “child” was facing a major test.

“There is indeed significant financial pressure. But what worries me most are our employees; I am deeply concerned that our team of over 2,000 people might lose their sense of purpose,” said Li Jia’en. During the pandemic, the majority of Helix’s team members were from Hubei Province. They complied with government policies by isolating at home and were unable to return to work. “If a professional medical aesthetics team remains detached from the industry for an extended period with nothing to do, it will not only face loss of income but also rapidly erode its cohesion and competitiveness.” Li Jia’en was eager to get her employees back in action as soon as possible, yet she found herself at a loss for effective solutions.

On February 28, Li Jia’en received a call from the AliHealth operations team: During the pandemic, AliHealth would waive basic information service fees and other related charges for medical aesthetics providers on its platform to help reduce their operating costs. Additionally, in response to the difficulties faced by Heli Medical Aesthetics, AliHealth would provide a suite of internet-based tools, including Taobao Alliance and Taobao Live, to address the company’s inability to resume normal operations.

By leveraging these tools, Heli Medical Aesthetics can fully replicate its offline sales mechanism, honed over many years, within the online Taobao Affiliate ecosystem. Promoting products via Taobao Alliance links to earn commissions not only helps maintain core customer relationships but also enables rapid acquisition of new customers and conversion of existing ones. Furthermore, the “Cloud Clinic” model, which organizes in-house experts to conduct online consultations through live streaming, allows the pent-up demand for aesthetic improvements—suppressed during pandemic-related isolation—to be released once again in the online space.

This aligned perfectly with Li Jia’en’s original intention to get her employees “moving.” She immediately decided on two measures: First, all company staff would join the Taobao Ke affiliate marketing system, leveraging their professional expertise to promote beauty industry products such as cosmetics and skincare. Second, doctors, consultants, and customer service representatives would launch live-streaming accounts to answer questions, conduct follow-up consultations, promote the brand, and attract new customers.

(Heli Medical Aesthetics staff educating users on relevant knowledge; photo provided by the company)

With the support of AliHealth, Heli Medical Aesthetics rapidly established its Taobao Affiliate system, completed preliminary training, and assembled a dedicated Taobao Affiliate team. Through this channel, Heli’s employees can promote products from home, generating substantial income in a short period.

Li Jia’en told VCBeat, “Our Taobao affiliate team achieved over 1,200 transactions on the first day online. Leveraging our mature sales network, our online team has expanded to 25,000 members in just five days.”

In addition, with the assistance of AliHealth’s operations team, Heli Medical Aesthetics is planning to launch 500 live-streaming accounts, enabling doctors and consultants to participate in online customer acquisition and brand promotion.

Like Heli Medical Aesthetics, Malo Clinic is also one of the businesses most severely affected by the pandemic.

Maló Clinic operates 24 dental clinics and two denture processing centers across 13 cities in China. Amid the pandemic, Maló Clinic, like other companies in the healthcare sector, will face a significantly delayed resumption of operations due to the specialized nature of its diagnostic and treatment services.

Yang Zhiyu, CEO of Malo Dental, stated, “A complete suspension of clinical services means no revenue, while daily expenses such as rent, water, and electricity constantly test the company’s cash flow resilience. This pandemic has dealt a severe blow not only to Malo Dental but to the entire dental industry.”

(Yang Zhiyu, CEO of Malong Dental; photo provided by the company)

Starting in March, Malong Dental’s clinics gradually reopened, but most services remained suspended; only procedures that do not generate aerosolized droplets, such as orthodontics, were permitted. Yang Zhiyu remarked, “After the outbreak began, I had assumed our revenue for those two months would drop to zero. Fortunately, amid such challenging circumstances, AliHealth helped us open up a new frontier.”

To help merchants navigate the initial challenges of resuming operations and provide more localized access to medical services, AliHealth’s medical aesthetics business began launching on Alipay and Koubei’s local lifestyle platform in February. This initiative has opened up new avenues for thousands of industry merchants, while also enabling local users to directly book medical aesthetic services through Alipay and Koubei.

Thanks to AliHealth’s series of fee waivers and enabling tools, Malo Clinic was able to complete a range of tasks within one week, including onboarding as an institution on Alipay’s Koubei platform, migrating product listings, revamping its flagship store, and launching store operations.

“We are making intensive preparations for the Alipay Koubei 318 City Life Week mega-promotion, with all eight of our clinics nationwide participating to provide high-quality dental services to local users. Meanwhile, Dr. Hu Qilei and Dr. Shi Zhengwen, two expert dentists from Malo Dental, will offer additional dental consultations and diagnostic services through live streaming and interactive sessions.” Yang Zhiyu, with his keen business acumen, quickly capitalized on the new customer acquisition channels that AliHealth had opened up free of charge.

“Alipay, Koubei, Taobao Live, Tmall, and more—AliHealth has helped us secure visibility across various traffic hubs within the Alibaba ecosystem. Our store’s follower count has increased tenfold since we first opened, delivering significant results,” said Yang Zhiyu.

According to Wang Yajun, Senior Director of the Consumer Healthcare Division at AliHealth: “In addition to enabling tools such as Cloud Clinics, Taobao Ke, and Taobao ecosystem resources, we have gradually opened up channels on Alipay and Koubei since February. In March, we increased the frequency of marketing campaigns on Taobao and Tmall, offering free access to a range of precise customer acquisition channels. To support business resumption, we partnered with Alipay to provide business interruption insurance for enterprises returning to work; if any confirmed cases of infection occur after resumption, eligible companies can receive compensation of up to RMB 800 per day for 14 consecutive days. Furthermore, we offer additional resumption safeguards, including hospitalization allowances and pneumonia insurance.”

In many cases, the resilience of an industry’s growth and development is more evident in times of adversity. This holds true for Heli Medical Aesthetics and Malo Clinic, as well as for the psychological counseling platform Yi Dian Ling.

On February 21, AliHealth and Taobao Live jointly hosted the “Glimmer Action” public welfare livestream for psychological support in the fight against the epidemic. More than 14,400 viewers tuned into the livestream that day. After the broadcast ended, 484 users placed orders for online consultations. Most of the psychological counselors providing assistance through the livestream were from Yidianling.

Yidianling has over 15,000 contracted psychological counselors and operates offline psychological counseling clinics in Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai. During the pandemic, its offline business was severely impacted, yet its online psychological counseling live streams were flooded with users.

Wang Ding, Vice President of Yi Dian Ling, stated, “The advantage of psychological counseling is that it can be conducted remotely via video calls. Currently, there are over 3,000 volunteer psychological counselors handling hundreds of phone consultations daily. These volunteers, located across China, are contributing to the fight against the epidemic through live streaming services.”

(Wang Ding, Vice President of Yidianling; photo provided by the company)

Following the “Glimmer Action” campaign, Yi Dian Ling has hosted multiple live-streamed psychological counseling sessions, moving its counseling clinic online through a “live streaming + counseling + services” model. Thanks to AliHealth’s vigorous promotion of its cloud-based psychological counseling clinic, Yi Dian Ling’s business volume has increased by 1.6 times to date.

In fact, since the onset of the pandemic, the AliHealth team has helped nearly 1,000 enterprises activate live-streaming accounts, resulting in an approximately threefold increase in traffic to their stores via live streams. Wang Yajun from AliHealth stated, “Live streaming not only enhances brand exposure for enterprises but also provides science-based health education to users, thereby nurturing customers and building a client base for future business operations.”

Moving forward, AliHealth will focus on helping institutions build online content matrices, providing better empowerment tools and systematic training to help them establish exclusive physician IPs and optimize interactive products for online consultations. Meanwhile, it will increase marketing investment to assist institutions in acquiring customers more effectively, accelerating the layout and integration of the medical aesthetics industry within the entire Alibaba ecosystem, including local life services and Alipay’s Koubei platform, thereby creating more market segments and strategic positions for the industry.

To help medical aesthetics enterprises safely navigate the window period for resuming operations, AliHealth has introduced a range of support policies. For instance, AliHealth stipulates that merchants on Tmall, O2O platforms, and flagship stores will have their basic information service fees waived for one month, with merchants in Wuhan receiving a two-month waiver. Flagship store merchants will also have their platform service fees waived for the first half of the year and will be granted free access to store decoration tools. Meanwhile, merchants on Koubei can join the platform free of charge and will have their commissions waived for the entire month of March. It is reported that as of March 11, AliHealth had waived over RMB 20 million in fees for merchants, and these relief measures will continue to be implemented in the future.

Move toward the light, and you will eventually emerge from the fleeting darkness. As stated in AliHealth’s “A Letter to Ali Medical Aesthetics Merchants” released on March 9: “Stand together in solidarity and patiently await the arrival of spring.” We firmly believe that difficult times will pass, and we will ultimately break through the encirclement to usher in new vitality.