How can consumer coupons persuade consumers? Online economy extends offline

Consumption has become one of the core pillars of national economic development.

In 2019, China's final consumption expenditure contributed 57.8% to economic growth. At the same time, the retail, catering and other consumer industries bear the brunt of the spread of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first two months of 2020, the total retail sales of consumer goods was 5,213 billion yuan, a nominal decrease of 20.5% year-on-year. Among them, catering revenue was 419.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 43.1%.

How much do consumer coupons boost consumption?

Everywhere busy pushing consumer coupons

After Zhejiang Province issued the country's first special policy advice to boost consumption issued in the name of the provincial government, Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Ningbo, Huzhou and other places announced the issuance of different forms of consumer coupons. According to incomplete statistics from the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce, various forms of consumer vouchers issued by governments, platforms, and merchants across Zhejiang have reached more than 10 billion yuan.

In order to promote the overall recovery of the service industry, Nanjing has pooled 318 million yuan of funds to issue consumer vouchers to the public, combined with government guidance and merchant promotions to form realistic purchasing power as soon as possible.

The consumption vouchers include seven categories: catering, sports, books, rural tourism, information consumption, people in need, and union members. Among them, the three types of consumer coupons for people in difficulty, trade union members, and rural tourism will be issued according to the relevant requirements of the system; the four types of consumer coupons for catering, sports, books, and information will be registered online, and multiple batches of online lottery will be issued publicly, depending on Types are set at 100 yuan or 50 yuan per copy, and 670,000 are issued.

Taking information consumption coupons as an example, the total amount issued this time was 13 million yuan, and 130,000 (including 50,000 mobile, 30,000 telecommunications, 20,000 Unicom, and 30,000 Suning) were issued, each with a quota of 100 yuan.

Residents can make an appointment online through "Nanjing Local Treasure". The user identity of the website can be verified at the time of registration, and the risk of being taken over is avoided.

"Before the issuance, the Nanjing Municipal Government had communicated with Suning and gave 30,000 coupons in the past. If selected by the lottery, the user will receive a text message and a QR code. When Suning consumes, show the QR code and scan it. Can be exempted. "An insider in Suning told the First Financial Reporter that if they received Suning's consumer coupons, the back-end technology was opened, and the information consumer coupons were mainly for offline.

From April 6th to April 10th for 5 consecutive days, users enter the application entrance through the official WeChat "Siming Express" in Siming District of Xiamen City. 400,000 yuan of coupons are issued daily at 12:30 at noon, limited edition, positioning Local users in Xiamen can receive food and beverage vouchers for department stores, valid for 7 days. Users nationwide can receive hotel vouchers, valid for 10 days. All coupons can only be used offline, not for takeout.

Meituan Dianping ’s consumer voucher activities are mainly catering, while the consumer vouchers issued in Xiamen cover local life services such as catering, department stores and hotels. The distributed coupons are "no threshold" coupons, and the consumption amount on the platform can be used when the amount exceeds the coupon amount. These government-issued vouchers can be used in conjunction with Meituan merchant group purchases or other discounts.

Meituan stated to First Financial that the issuance and receipt of consumer vouchers will be negotiated with the local government, and the method of receipt and use varies from place to place. According to data from Meituan, the second day after the consumption coupons went online, the order transaction volume of participating merchants in Meituan nearly doubled year-on-year; 48 hours after going online, nearly 10,000 citizens have already used consumption coupons for consumption.

Many places have introduced policies to issue consumer vouchers to boost consumption. According to incomplete statistics, 20 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) including Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Anhui have issued coupons to boost consumption and drive economic growth.

WeChat data shows that since March, Hunan, Jiaxing, Qingdao, Chongqing, Shenzhen and other places have successively placed more than 10 billion consumer coupons (including unissued amounts) to citizens through WeChat. After issuing consumer vouchers through WeChat in Hunan Province and Jiaxing City, the proportion of small and micro merchants benefiting reached 80%, and the transaction amount of small and micro merchants increased significantly. Compared with the same period in February, the average growth rate has increased by 53 times. Among them, the effect of pulling small and micro merchants in Jiaxing City is particularly significant, with the average daily transaction amount increasing by more than 200 times.

At the same time, merchants on the platform also took the opportunity to issue a batch of platform-type consumer coupons, the scope of which is not limited to the local area. For example, at the same time as the Nanjing municipal government issued consumer vouchers, on March 14, Suning issued national consumer vouchers with a total face value of 500 yuan to users across the country, covering home appliances, mobile computers, clothing, shoes and hats, jewelry accessories, household appliances, supermarkets and many other commodities And home business category. The total value of consumer vouchers totals 500 million yuan.

Digital new infrastructure is at the time

For local governments, this collaboration with the Internet platform demonstrates the power of the new digital infrastructure.

The issuance of consumer coupons through a digital platform has realized "one city, one policy, customized on demand", "flexible and adjustable", and "fair and traceable". This aspect can stimulate consumption, and on the other hand, can help merchants achieve digital operations. At the same time, it can avoid the problem that the usage of paper consumer coupons is difficult to trace, and adjust the strategy in a timely manner during the issuance of consumer coupons.

On March 26, Hangzhou announced the issuance of a total of 1.68 billion consumer vouchers. People in Hangzhou can enter the "Hangzhou Consumer Voucher Activities" page from the Alipay homepage entrance and click to apply. The opening of the first batch of consumer vouchers allowed for the issuance of 500,000 consumer voucher card packages in two minutes. Hangzhou Lianhua Huashang Supermarket ’s Alipay total transaction volume exceeded 20 million on the weekend of March 28-29, and the average turnover of more than 200 stores in the family convenience store in Hangzhou increased by more than 20%. Yonghui Supermarket has actively promoted weekend special discounts of 4.9%, which can be used in conjunction with consumption vouchers. The Hangzhou store's passenger traffic increased by 70% compared with last week, and even increased by 25% compared with the same period last year. Consumption increased significantly.

Through platforms such as Alipay, consumer coupons have achieved the widest coverage and accurate issuance. Alipay's real-name authentication capability solves the problem of "re-selling" that may occur with traditional paper bills. In addition, Alipay's risk control technology covers the entire process from registration, certification, verification, etc. to ensure the healthy use of consumer coupons.

According to the content of the "Sim Ming Express", the issuance of consumer coupons "is intended to support, while giving benefits to the people, stimulating business recovery as soon as possible, helping businesses to overcome difficulties as soon as possible." Meituan was chosen because it relies on Internet platforms to distribute electronic consumption Coupons can be accurately accessed and recommended based on the geographic location of consumers through big data to ensure that the issuance procedures are open, transparent and traceable, and the effects can be traced.

Asked about the reasons for the cooperation with the Internet platform, Meituan related people told First Financial that during the epidemic, the life service industry that relies on offline scenes suffered the most damage, and it is also a typical industry that can effectively play the multiplier effect. Therefore, the government usually chooses to promote the upstream development of the industrial chain or the categories with more horizontally related industries in the issuance of consumer vouchers. For example, stimulating high-frequency demand for catering will bring merchants to increase the purchase of food materials, which will benefit upstream planting production, transportation and circulation Industry development, etc.

Li Qilin, chief economist of Guangdong Development Securities, told First Financial that consumption is more sustainable than infrastructure. The tertiary industry was hit the hardest this time. The consumer demand and the industries affected by the epidemic were more matched. The heavy debt burden of infrastructure construction had a crowding out effect. In addition, consumption has a more significant effect on employment. Under the background of population aging, the contribution rate of manufacturing and infrastructure to the employment population is declining. The consumption field and related tertiary industries are the main force for absorbing employment.

Consumer vouchers have become a microcosm of the new digital infrastructure, not only a powerful tool to fight the epidemic, but also a new kinetic energy for economic rebound.

Author: Lu Wang Han of ▪ ▪ segment Qianqian