Over 26 million consumer complaints and reports were received nationwide in 2025, recovering economic losses exceeding 4 billion yuan.

According to the official WeChat account “Market Says New Words” of the State Administration for Market Regulation, in 2025, the national market regulation departments handled a total of 43.866 million consumer complaints, reports, and inquiries through the 12315 platform, phone calls, and other channels (complaints and reports totaled 26.46 million, a 9.8% increase year-on-year). Among these, complaints numbered 20.366 million, up 9.3%; reports totaled 6.094 million, up 11.4%; inquiries reached 17.406 million. Consumers recovered 4.35 billion yuan in economic losses, effectively protecting their legal rights and interests. The main features are summarized in ten points:

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

In 2025, the market regulation departments received 20.366 million complaints, a 9.3% increase year-on-year, surpassing 20 million for the first time, indicating growing consumer awareness of rights. The main issues include after-sales service (5.347 million), quality problems (3.972 million), food safety issues (2.385 million), and contract issues (2.102 million), accounting for 26.3%, 19.5%, 11.7%, and 10.3% of total complaints respectively. After-sales complaints have ranked first for three consecutive years, highlighting some merchants’ insufficient attention to after-sales guarantees and failure to meet basic consumer service demands. The fastest-growing core issue is contract problems, with a 40.3% increase, mainly involving difficulties in refunds, opaque contract terms, hidden “霸王条款” (abusive clauses) in standard contracts, merchants not fulfilling agreements, and discrepancies between promotional promises and contract content.

2. Reports exceeded 6 million, with a significant decline in trademark violations

In 2025, the departments verified 6.094 million reports, an 11.4% increase. The main reported issues include violations of consumer rights (1.303 million), unfair competition (0.908 million), illegal advertising (0.905 million), food safety violations (0.739 million), and product quality violations (0.498 million), together accounting for 70% of total reports. The growth rates of violations of consumer rights, product quality violations, and online transaction violations are relatively fast, at 31.4%, 25.8%, and 16.4% respectively. Trademark violations (175,000 cases) decreased significantly by 9.4%, reflecting ongoing strengthening of intellectual property enforcement in recent years.

3. Daily consumer goods demands are concentrated, with service complaints leading in growth

In 2025, complaints about goods totaled 13.2 million, an 8.1% increase, representing 64.8% of all complaints; service complaints reached 7.166 million, up 11.7%, accounting for 35.2%. The growth in service-related complaints is notable. Among goods, food (3.446 million), clothing and footwear (1.685 million), household items (1.2 million), transportation tools (713,000), and communication products (708,000) rank highest, making up 26.1%, 12.8%, 9.1%, 5.4%, and 5.4% respectively. Items with over 500,000 complaints include communication products, computers (517,000), transportation tools, household items, and home appliances (671,000), with growth rates of 26.2%, 24.1%, 22.2%, 18.8%, and 13.7%. Service complaints are led by catering and accommodation (1.191 million), sales services (760,000), internet services (697,000), education and training (652,000), and cultural entertainment and sports services (635,000), accounting for 16.6%, 10.6%, 9.7%, 9.1%, and 8.9%. Complaints over 100,000 include leasing services (198,000), intermediary services (122,000), maintenance and repair services (216,000), internet, and sales services, with rapid growth rates of 31.6%, 30.6%, 24%, 24%, and 19.2%.

4. Online shopping demands show new features, 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, accounting for 56.9% of total complaints and reports. Of these, complaints numbered 11.447 million, reports 3.62 million, recovering 1.07 billion yuan in economic losses, representing 24.6% of total recovered losses. The online shopping demands exhibit three characteristics:

(1) New regional distribution of complaints and reports

The main complaint and report regions are Zhejiang (2.466 million), Guangdong (2.371 million), Shanghai (2.286 million), Beijing (1.574 million), and Jiangsu (815,000), together accounting for 63.1% of total online shopping complaints and reports. This correlates with the developed e-commerce industries and active online consumption in these areas, showing a “concentrated in the east, long-tail distribution” pattern. Growth is rapid in Guangxi (124,000), Jilin (120,000), Sichuan (391,000), and Chongqing (150,000), with increases of 35.8%, 29.8%, 28.6%, and 28.6%, indicating a new regional pattern of “eastern concentration, western acceleration.”

(2) Focus on “post-purchase experience” in consumer rights protection

The most common issues are after-sales service (3.486 million) and quality problems (2.886 million), together accounting for 42.3%, far exceeding other categories. Despite improvements in transaction convenience and product variety, post-purchase fulfillment and product quality remain weak points. After-sales issues are concentrated in clothing and footwear, food, cultural entertainment and sports, household items, and internet services, accounting for 41.5% of after-sales complaints. Quality issues mainly involve clothing and footwear, household items, home appliances, communication products, and cosmetics, making up 54.6% of quality complaints. These two problem types are highly interconnected, with many quality disputes eventually leading to after-sales conflicts, such as difficulties in returns/exchanges, inaccurate sizing descriptions, fabric quality, workmanship, fading, and pilling.

(3) Price disputes during e-commerce shopping festivals are prominent

In recent years, to seize market opportunities and extend sales periods, major shopping festivals like “6.18” and “Double Eleven” have adopted “extended cycle” models, starting nearly a month before the traditional one-day event, divided into stages like opening, special sessions, peak, return, and category days. While boosting sales, this long cycle and complex rules lead to frequent price disputes. In 2025, during these festivals, price fluctuations of the same product became a focus. The 12315 platform received 100,000 price complaints during “6.18,” an 11.8% increase from the previous period and 11.9% year-on-year, including 21,000 involving price guarantees, which increased 2.5 times month-on-month and 15.6% year-on-year. During “Double Eleven,” complaints reached 99,000, up 17.4% month-on-month and 9.5% year-on-year, with 22,000 involving price guarantees, tripling month-on-month. The core issues include consumers paying deposits during pre-sale, only to find lower prices during final payment or peak periods. Despite platform price guarantee services, consumers are often denied claims due to link changes or different coupon types.

5. Enterprise clustering effects are significant, with four business sectors showing prominent demands

In 2025, the top 100 enterprises with the most complaints and reports involved 4.679 million cases, accounting for 17.7% of total platform demands, indicating that consumer rights protection is concentrated on large-scale, widely covered companies. The main sectors are comprehensive e-commerce platforms, local life services, content and social entertainment, and consumer electronics and smart hardware, which together account for 90% of complaints among the top 100 enterprises. Other sectors like fintech, payment, retail brands, and logistics have smaller shares but often involve issues related to funds security, transaction credit, and performance guarantees, with high societal impact and attention.

6. Awareness of rights continues to grow, but some categories still face pain points

In 2025, total complaints increased by 9.3%, while the disputed amount decreased by 4.5% to 23.5 billion yuan. This contrast reflects increased consumer rights awareness and smoother channels, but also a rising trend in small-value disputes. Among goods and services with over 10,000 complaints, two issues stand out: high-value traditional categories like transportation, construction materials, jewelry, maintenance, and intermediary services still have high average dispute amounts (e.g., 6,950 yuan, 3,101 yuan, 2,531 yuan, 2,284 yuan, 2,104 yuan), though some decline year-on-year, the costs remain high; meanwhile, disputes in emerging and basic sectors are rising rapidly, such as telecom services (558 yuan), pet and pet supplies (890 yuan), pharmaceuticals (1,080 yuan), transportation services (477 yuan), and internet services (736 yuan), with increases of 2.3 times, 1.6 times, 88.2%, 82.1%, and 51.1% respectively.

7. Fluctuations in takeout demands highlight industry competition needs to be rationalized

As online and offline retail accelerate integration, fierce competition in the instant retail sector has raised social concern. In 2025, complaints about takeout reached 505,000, up 14.1%. 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), together accounting for nearly 80%. During the third quarter, platform subsidies and promotions led to a surge in orders, but service capacity lagged, causing demand to rise sharply—complaints increased by 23.8% year-on-year and 19.2% quarter-on-quarter. In the fourth quarter, as subsidies waned and the market cooled, demands declined by 22.8% quarter-on-quarter. Overall, consumer demands in the takeout industry fluctuate with market conditions, and the industry needs to shift toward more rational and sustainable competition.

8. “Charging anxiety” demands are rising, service experience needs upgrading

With accelerated digital and electrification processes, power endurance has become a fundamental need for mobile lifestyles and green travel. However, “charging anxiety” persists and has extended from mobile phones to vehicles, becoming a pain point in daily consumption and travel. In 2025, complaints about power banks reached 156,000, up 62.5%, mainly involving product quality, returns, shared power bank borrowing and returning difficulties, and abnormal billing. Meanwhile, with rapid growth in new energy vehicle ownership and expanding charging infrastructure, service quality issues are increasingly prominent. Complaints about EV charging facilities totaled 61,000, up 47.8%, involving difficulties in refunding recharge balances, “ghost” operators abandoning stations, opaque charging standards, and unresponsive customer service. Overall, whether small portable chargers or large EV charging stations, the quality and service levels lag behind market expansion, requiring operators to strengthen compliance, optimize service processes, and fundamentally reduce consumer “charging anxiety” to improve experience.

9. Jewelry consumption upgrade, gold and jade become core demand areas

With the booming jewelry market, especially among young consumers seeking personalized, everyday accessories, a large fashion jewelry market has formed. However, this prosperity also brings notable consumer pain points. In 2025, complaints about jewelry totaled 380,000, up 16.4%. Among these, gold jewelry (142,000) and natural jade (102,000) are the core demand areas, accounting for 87.9% of total jewelry complaints. Growth rates show that natural jade (35.6%) and silver jewelry (34.2%) increased fastest, followed by natural gemstones (25.1%). Consumers mainly report issues such as insufficient precious metal purity, substandard jade, harmful substances in accessories, unclear pricing and exchange restrictions in “fixed-price” gold jewelry, and problems with online sales, which account for 60% of jewelry complaints, involving false advertising, product mismatch, and “customization non-return” issues.

10. Rapid rise of smart consumption, with gaps between function promotion and user experience

The market has entered an era of smart consumption, with smart features becoming key marketing points. Many mature, practical smart products provide consumers with convenient, efficient experiences, improving quality of life. However, some products suffer from overhyped “smart” labels, poor user experience, and frequent disputes. In 2025, complaints about smart devices reached 152,000, up 26.6%. Leading categories include smartwatches (50,000), smart home devices (29,000), drones (19,000), smart accessories (18,000), and smart robots (17,000), accounting for 87.5% of total. Growth is notable in drones, smart bands (10,000), and smart glasses (3,235), with increases of 45.5%, 39.4%, and 37.7%. Common issues involve after-sales service (51,000), quality problems (51,000), and violations of consumer rights (12,000). Consumers report that some products overstate “smart” capabilities but only offer basic connectivity or remote control, failing to address real needs; software issues like failed updates, app crashes, compatibility problems, and data sync failures are frequent; and the lack of unified standards and weak after-sales systems lead to high thresholds for returns and exchanges.