How to stimulate market vitality by returning consumer coupons
Li Hualin, reporter of Economic Daily and China Economic Net
The new wave of consumer vouchers returned to the market, and the method of issuance was significantly improved, and the recipients were more targeted, focusing on industries such as sports, tourism, and movies that were more affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic.
Experts said that in order to tap the long-term consumption potential from the short-term stimulus brought by consumer vouchers, and truly promote the development and growth of the consumer market, it should also be effective in terms of optimizing the business environment, improving the quality of goods and services, improving market order, and increasing residents’ income. Measures.
In order to further promote consumption, invigorate the market, and promote the steady recovery of the economy, consumer coupons have been restarted or continued in many places recently.
What are the new features of the new wave of consumer coupons?
Can consumer vouchers become a conventional tool to promote consumption?
How to tap the long-term consumption potential from the short-term stimulus brought by consumer coupons?
Issuance of coupons is more targeted
The new wave of consumer vouchers returned to the market, and the method of issuance was significantly improved, and the recipients were more targeted, focusing on industries such as sports, tourism, and movies that were more affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic.
In terms of sports consumption, a few days ago, Fujian Province launched the "fitness consumption season" and will issue 16 million sports coupons on the eve of National Day.
Changsha City, Hunan Province launched the "You Fitness, I Pay the Bill" activity, from the end of August to October 15th, to issue sports coupons to Changsha citizens.
Shanghai plans to issue approximately 20 million yuan in sports coupons to citizens from September 9th to the end of the year.
Many places said that this move aims to promote sports consumption and encourage sports companies to overcome the impact of the epidemic and rise to difficulties.
In terms of tourism consumption, Wuhan, Hubei recently announced that it will issue 80 million yuan in cultural and tourism consumption coupons to guide and drive the cultural and tourism consumption in Wuhan.
Chifeng City in Inner Mongolia decided to issue 100,000 “Chifeng Tourist Vouchers” with a face value of 100 yuan and a total of 10 million yuan on September 16.
Harbin, Heilongjiang, issued 5 million yuan in cultural and tourism coupons on September 15 to help the tourism industry recover.
In addition, in order to promote the resumption of work and production in the film market, Beijing, Zhejiang, Hubei and other places have recently issued "movie vouchers" to subsidize citizens' film consumption.
In addition to focusing on specific industries, localities also seize key time points and issue consumer vouchers in conjunction with local consumption seasons, shopping festivals and statutory holidays, striving for accurate and efficient use of consumer vouchers.
For example, around the consumption promotion month, Beijing recently issued 1.4 million consumer vouchers.
In conjunction with the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, Chengdu, Sichuan, plans to issue more than 200 million yuan in consumer coupons from September 14 to November 8, involving tourism, catering, cultural and creative industries.
The way to receive coupons is also more convenient and faster.
In addition to grabbing coupons on platforms such as Alipay and Ele.me, consumers can also scan the QR code of the merchant to participate in the coupon collection.
In order to eliminate the "digital divide" and achieve greater inclusiveness, some places have also launched coupon collection activities for specific groups.
For example, Shanxi Jincheng City issued paper consumer vouchers of 350,000 yuan in multiple supermarkets specifically for the elderly and other special groups, solving the problem that some elderly people could not get consumer vouchers because they were not good at using smart phones.
Make the best use of consumer coupons
Issuing consumer vouchers not only brings benefits to consumers, but also provides sufficient impetus for the sustained development of the domestic economy.
So, can consumer vouchers become a conventional tool to promote consumption?
In this regard, many experts said that while consumer vouchers play a positive role, they must also pay attention to potential negative factors.
"Consumer vouchers are essentially created by relevant departments and institutions within a certain period of time. They are mainly used for consumption purposes and can be used as a voucher to promote consumption. Consumer vouchers can release consumer demand in advance." Zhongnan University of Economics and Law Pan Helin, executive director of the Institute of Digital Economy, said that people's consumption behavior mainly depends on permanent income, rather than accidental "temporary income". As a kind of "temporary income", consumer vouchers can release consumers in advance. The purchasing power is mainly used for the necessary consumption that would otherwise be produced. The short-term effect is obvious, but in the long-term, consumer demand has not increased significantly.
Fu Yifu, a senior researcher at the Suning Financial Research Institute, said that although the issuance of consumer vouchers can improve consumers’ ability to pay at one time, it does not fundamentally improve consumers’ expectations of future income growth. Out of the instinct to avoid risks, ordinary people People tend to stay on the sidelines, which means that once the coupons are used up, if there are no good development expectations, consumers' willingness to spend may fall.
However, some experts believe that consumer coupons can directly stimulate demand, quickly stimulate immediate consumption, and effectively boost the economy through leverage.
Moreover, as the government-led, platform-operated, and multi-party participation model matures, consumer vouchers will continue to appear as a long-term leverage to stimulate consumption.
In short, issuing and managing consumer vouchers is a technical task. To make the best use of consumer vouchers, local governments should also pay attention to the method of issuing and do what they can.
It is necessary to target the most urgent groups and industries with the most urgent needs, rather than "helicopter money". Otherwise, it will not only be difficult to stimulate consumption and stimulate the economy, but will put a burden on local finances, and it will be easy. This leads to dependence on enterprises and consumers, which is not conducive to the sustained improvement of corporate competitiveness and residents' income.
Multi-pronged approach to promote consumption
Experts said that in order to tap the long-term consumption potential from the short-term stimulus brought by consumer coupons and truly promote the development and growth of the consumer market, effective measures should be introduced in terms of optimizing the business environment, improving the quality of goods and services, improving market order, and increasing residents’ income. .
Fu Yifu believes that in the long run, boosting consumption requires efforts in the following aspects.
On the demand side, efforts should be made to effectively increase the income level of residents, improve the social security system, and improve infrastructure construction in cities and rural areas below the third tier; on the supply side, we should enrich the commodity categories in the consumer market, improve the quality of goods and services, and mobilize mass consumption. Enthusiasm; in terms of the consumer environment, government departments still need to focus on building a fair and competitive business environment, promote the benchmarking of domestic consumer products with international standards, implement policies in supporting enterprises to cultivate new brands, strengthen supervision, improve intellectual property protection measures, and strictly Fight against counterfeiting, etc.
The follow-up effects of consumer coupons are also worthy of attention.
Relevant experts said that the issuance and use of consumer vouchers has promoted more small and medium-sized enterprises to transform to digitalization and achieve a win-win situation for offline and online connectivity.
At present, the digital construction of different industries is quite different. In the future, consumer coupons should be used as an opportunity to further promote the development of the digital economy, create more new formats and models, generate more new jobs, and provide strong support for driving long-term consumption.
"Issuing consumer vouchers and other subsidies can boost consumption in a short period of time. In order to continue to release consumption potential and vitality, a series of measures such as structural adjustment, employment stabilization, and growth must be adopted to fundamentally boost the economy and stabilize expectations. "Pan Helin said.