Recovering losses of 4.35 billion yuan! State Administration for Market Regulation releases 2025 consumer rights protection data

Special Topic: Improving Consumer Quality — Focus on the 2026 “315 Evening Gala”

Today (15th), the State Administration for Market Regulation announced that in 2025, market regulation departments across the country handled a total of 43.866 million consumer complaints, reports, and inquiries through the 12315 platform, phone calls, and other channels, recovering 4.35 billion yuan in economic losses for consumers and effectively protecting their legal rights and interests.

The State Administration for Market Regulation highlighted the following characteristics of consumer complaints and reports in 2025:

• Consumer complaints exceeded 20 million for the first time, with after-sales service and contract issues being particularly prominent.

• In 2025, the total number of complaints handled nationwide reached 20.366 million, a 9.3% increase year-on-year, surpassing 20 million for the first time, indicating a continued rise in consumer awareness of rights. Complaints about after-sales service have ranked first for three consecutive years, highlighting some merchants’ insufficient attention to after-sales guarantees and their failure to meet basic service demands. Contract issues grew by 40.3% year-on-year, making them the fastest-growing core problem, mainly involving difficulties in refunds, opaque contract terms, hidden “霸王条款” (abusive clauses) in standard contracts, merchants not fulfilling their commitments, and discrepancies between promotional promises and contract content.

• Online shopping demands show new characteristics, with economic losses recovered exceeding 1 billion yuan

• In 2025, the 12315 platform received 15.067 million online shopping complaints and reports, a 14.3% increase year-on-year, accounting for 56.9% of total complaints and reports. Among these, complaints numbered 11.447 million and reports 3.62 million, recovering 1.07 billion yuan in economic losses for consumers, representing 24.6% of total recovered losses.

• Regarding issues, after-sales service and quality problems are the two most reported areas in online shopping, with complaints and reports totaling 3.486 million and 2.886 million respectively, accounting for 42.3% combined.

• Additionally, price disputes during e-commerce shopping festivals are prominent, with core conflicts centered on: consumers paying deposits during pre-sale periods discovering lower prices during final payment or promotional peaks. Despite platform price protection services, consumers often face rejection when applying for price protection due to reasons like link changes or different coupon types.

• Delivery service demands fluctuate significantly, and industry competition needs to return to rationality

• In 2025, platforms received 505,000 complaints and reports about food delivery, a 14.1% increase. The main issues include food safety (262,000), after-sales service (63,000), contract issues (24,000), unfair competition (23,000), and quality problems (19,000), accounting for nearly 80% combined.

• In the third quarter, major platforms engaged in subsidy wars to attract traffic, leading to a surge in orders but insufficient service guarantees, resulting in increased demands. Complaints and reports increased by 23.8% year-on-year and 19.2% quarter-on-quarter, marking the period with the largest annual increase.

• In the fourth quarter, as subsidy policies receded and the market cooled, demand decreased by 22.8% quarter-on-quarter. The State Administration for Market Regulation stated that overall, consumer demands in the food delivery industry fluctuate with market conditions, and industry competition should shift toward more rational and sustainable development.

• “Charging anxiety” demands are rising, and service experience needs upgrading

• In 2025, the platform received 156,000 complaints and reports related to power banks, a 62.5% increase. Issues mainly involve product quality, return disputes, shared power banks being difficult to borrow or return, and abnormal billing. Meanwhile, with the rapid increase in new energy vehicle ownership and expanding charging infrastructure, the quality of charging services is increasingly highlighted.

• In 2025, complaints and reports related to EV charging infrastructure reached 61,000, a 47.8% increase. Problems include difficulty in refunding recharge balances, some charging station operators disappearing or going offline, opaque charging standards, and unresponsive customer service.

• Jewelry consumption upgrades, with gold and jade becoming core complaint areas

• In 2025, the platform received 380,000 jewelry complaints and reports, a 16.4% increase. Among these, gold jewelry (142,000) and natural jade (102,000) are the main focus areas, accounting for 87.9% of total jewelry complaints and reports, along with silver jewelry (45,000), alloy jewelry (28,000), and natural gemstones (17,000).

• Consumer issues mainly focus on three aspects:

  • Some products have insufficient purity of precious metals, substandard jade, or harmful substances exceeding safety limits;
  • “One-price” gold jewelry does not clearly indicate weight, with actual unit prices far above market gold prices, and hidden exchange restrictions;
  • Problems with online sales account for 60% of jewelry complaints, involving false advertising, product mismatch, and “customization non-return” issues.

• Rapid rise of smart consumption, with a disconnect between function promotion and user perception

• In 2025, the platform received 152,000 complaints and reports about smart devices, a 26.6% increase. Leading categories include smartwatches (50,000), smart home devices (29,000), drones (19,000), smart accessories (18,000), and smart robots (17,000), collectively accounting for 87.5%. Drones, smart bands (10,000), and smart glasses (3,235) saw significant growth, with increases of 45.5%, 39.4%, and 37.7% respectively.

• Consumer complaints mainly focus on:

  • Overhyped “smart” labels with actual functions limited to basic networking or remote control, failing to address real needs, leading to large expectation gaps;
  • Software issues such as system upgrade failures, app crashes, poor compatibility, and data synchronization problems, combined with hardware faults;
  • Lack of unified technical standards and quality benchmarks in emerging smart device fields, incomplete after-sales systems, and high thresholds for returns and exchanges.

(Reported by CCTV Reporter Wang Jing)