Since the beginning of this year, various new activities and ways of promoting consumption, such as digital renminbi coupons, shopping coupons, credit card and debit card payment full discounts, have emerged in an endless stream.
At present, my country is focusing on enhancing consumption capacity, improving consumption conditions, and innovating consumption scenarios. Against this background, can a series of new ways to promote consumption further tap consumption potential and stimulate new vitality in consumption?
The digital renminbi has strong gravity
Convenience, benefits, and money-saving consumption with digital renminbi have become the common feelings of many digital renminbi consumers during the Spring Festival.
Meituan data shows that from January 21 to January 27 this year, the number of digital renminbi transaction orders on the platform increased by nearly 4 times compared with last year's Spring Festival, the number of digital renminbi transaction users increased by more than 5 times year-on-year, and the digital renminbi transaction amount increased by 6.2% year-on-year. times.
A series of preferential activities such as consumer coupons and consumer red envelopes have become the "gravity" for consumers to try digital renminbi payments.
During the Spring Festival, many local governments cooperated with Meituan to issue digital RMB consumption coupons.
For example, Hangzhou City recently issued digital RMB consumption coupons through platforms such as Meituan, and citizens can receive coupons for catering consumption.
On January 17, the day when Hangzhou digital RMB consumer coupons were issued, citizens were enthusiastic about receiving coupons, and the coupons were sold out within 9 seconds.
Financial institutions are also actively joining forces with the platform to attract consumers to participate in various digital RMB payment activities.
Recently, Meituan, together with Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, and Postal Savings Bank of China, launched the "Reunion Lucky Tou" digital RMB New Year gift package for consumers in pilot areas across the country, covering consumer red envelopes, 1 yuan digital RMB purchases for the New Year, digital Multiple activities including RMB hardware wallet gift box, payment instant discount coupon package, etc.
With the recent update of the digital renminbi application such as the cash red envelope function, Meituan has also launched a digital renminbi Spring Festival gift package.
Li Zhiyuan, head of Meituan's digital renminbi business, said that these activities will help promote the integration of digital renminbi into people's lives in a more personalized and folk-custom way, enhance user stickiness, and help further stimulate digital renminbi to boost consumption. , The value of serving the people's livelihood.
Since 2022, the digital renminbi pilot has been expanded twice, from the original "10+1" pilot area to 23 areas in 15 provinces and cities, and then further expanded to the four provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Hebei, and Sichuan. Added Jinan City, Nanning City, Fangchenggang City, Kunming City, and Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture as new pilot areas.
By the end of 2022, the stock of digital renminbi in circulation will reach 13.61 billion yuan.
In the process of orderly expanding the scope of the pilot, the consumption-promoting value of the digital renminbi is gradually becoming prominent.
Since 2022, the governments of Shenzhen, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Hangzhou and other places have joined forces with Meituan to carry out digital RMB consumption promotion activities, and have issued more than 80 million yuan in red envelopes and consumer coupons.
These activities have contributed to the recovery of consumption everywhere.
For example, after Shenzhen issued digital renminbi red envelopes through Meituan in May 2022, consumers used digital renminbi to spend at more than 52,000 local Meituan merchants in Shenzhen. They increased by 58.9% and 64.6% respectively over the same period.
After Chengdu issued digital renminbi coupons through the Meituan platform in June 2022, consumers used digital renminbi to consume at about 37,000 local Meituan merchants in Chengdu. The same period last year increased by 41.6% and 35.6% respectively.
Industry experts believe that special functions such as digital RMB smart contracts should be further utilized to play an active role in protecting people's livelihood, promoting consumption, expanding domestic demand, and stabilizing growth.
"The combination of digital renminbi with consumer vouchers, e-commerce platforms and other scenarios will help the promotion of digital renminbi and accelerate the recovery of the consumer market." Zhou Maohua, a macro researcher at the Financial Market Department of Everbright Bank, said that next, the participants should be further stimulated. Enthusiastic and creative, further guide large Internet platforms to participate in the pilot, and help the digital renminbi play a greater role in protecting people's livelihood and promoting consumption.
The platform helps to get off to a good start
"I didn't expect the business to be so hot during the Spring Festival." Mai Zicai, the head of the brand operation of Meng Da Da Coconut Chicken, told reporters a few days ago.
On the afternoon of January 26, before the meal time, there was already a long queue at the entrance of Meng Da Da Coconut Chicken Shop in Sanya Bay, Sanya City, Hainan Province.
During the Spring Festival, Meng Da Da Coconut Chicken's five stores in Sanya achieved a record high revenue.
"Gourmet coupons" have become a new method for the platform to attract consumers to the store experience.
"Meituan's gourmet coupons have similar effects to consumer coupons, which can lower the threshold for consumption in the store, attracting many customers, and the effect is very powerful." Mai Zicai said.
"In our store, Alipay scans the QR code to order and you can get a coupon. The coupon of two or three yuan is suitable for a small shop like ours with a low unit price." Ruan Mingjie, the owner of Hongfu Noodle Restaurant in Kexiang, Qinhuai District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, is Guide customers to "scan", and coupons of two or three yuan can attract many repeat customers.
During the Spring Festival, Meituan Pay also cooperated with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China CITIC Bank and other institutions to launch a variety of payment promotion activities such as debit card full discount and credit card full discount to help consumers in the "food, drink, housing and transportation" "Saving money in China will help speed up the recovery of consumption in the Spring Festival.
With the implementation of a series of consumer promotion measures such as the issuance of consumer vouchers in various places, the consumer market has ushered in a "good start".
On January 27, the consumption data for the 2023 Spring Festival released by Meituan showed that from January 21 to 26, the average daily consumption scale of the life service industry increased by 66% compared with the 2019 Spring Festival.
The data shows that during the Spring Festival, through the issuance of consumption vouchers, the transaction volume of dine-in meals in Hangzhou, Ningbo and other cities increased significantly during the holidays, and the sales rate of tickets, accommodation and other cultural tourism consumption vouchers issued in many places was high within the holiday period, which is a lever to stimulate consumption The effect is obvious.
The data shows that after Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shaoxing, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan and other cities issued consumer vouchers through Meituan, their catering consumption during the Spring Festival grew by double digits year-on-year.
Taking Hangzhou as an example, during the Spring Festival voucher issuance period, the city's dine-in orders increased by 71% year-on-year, and the transaction volume increased by 80% year-on-year.
The model of "government consumption coupons + platform subsidies" can accurately match supply, effectively stimulate consumption enthusiasm, and drive regional consumption upgrades.
For industries such as catering that require fast cash turnover to maintain operations, the targeted issuance of catering consumption vouchers can maximize the multiplier effect of consumption vouchers.
Guided by the consumption-promoting idea of "enterprises pay more, platforms give more, and the government pays more", in the past year, Alipay and tens of millions of merchants across the country held two consumer festivals, investing capital resources, using red envelope codes, coupons, live broadcasts, etc. Carrying goods and other forms to stimulate consumption has cumulatively stimulated consumption by nearly 65 billion yuan.
Industry experts believe that these data show that giving full play to the role of the platform, empowering the digitalization of the real economy, and innovating consumption patterns will help to activate online consumption and revive offline popularity.
The Central Economic Work Conference proposed to support platform companies in leading development, creating jobs, and demonstrating their talents in international competition.
Li Yongjian, a researcher at the Institute of Financial Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that for platform companies, they should give full play to the driving role of digital empowerment and life service capabilities and other advantages, resonate with social development at the same frequency, and fulfill the synergistic value of platforms in the digital economy , to serve the real economy more efficiently.
Consumption potential needs to be tapped
On the basis of trying new ways to promote consumption in some regions in the early stage, this year, more regions have introduced policies and measures to further tap the consumption potential through the new way of "playing".
Recently, Hunan Province has issued a series of policy measures to stabilize the economy, among which it is clear to increase consumption promotion activities and consumption subsidies.
Encourage all localities to cooperate with financial institutions and platform companies to issue consumer coupons, and encourage Changsha and other qualified areas to issue digital RMB red envelopes.
The "Jiangsu Province Digital RMB Pilot Work Plan" clearly promotes the incremental expansion of digital RMB applications, continuous innovation of scenarios, and continuous improvement of the ecology.
This means that the digital renminbi will be piloted globally in Jiangsu.
Among them, it is clear that by the end of 2025, a digital RMB operation and management system with convenient and efficient services, wide application coverage and a relatively complete ecology will be basically formed.
Orderly expand the application coverage of digital renminbi in key areas such as wholesale and retail, catering, cultural tourism, education, medical care, and public services to meet the multi-level and diversified payment needs of the public. Indicators such as the number of wallets, application scenarios, and transaction scale rank among the forefront of pilot provinces.
Su Xiaorui, a senior consultant in the financial industry at Analysys Analysis, said that the steady progress of the digital renminbi pilot and its integration into local shopping festivals and other activities according to local conditions can not only further expand the user scale, make more users familiar with digital renminbi, but also provide users with more payments. Choose, effectively promote local consumption, and provide more support for merchants and the real economy.
Some experts believe that the positive role of the platform in leading the digital transformation of merchants should be fully utilized, and more consumption should be stimulated by improving the level of digital services.
"According to the recovery of consumption during the Spring Festival, the recovery of the consumer market in 2023 is an inevitable trend." Li Jiwei, vice president of the Meituan Research Institute, said that from the perspective of international experience, most countries and regions will experience consumption recovery after the optimization of epidemic policies. The process of "rapid rebound-repeated fluctuations-return to normal".
Recently, domestic contact-type, aggregate-type, and flow-type consumption have resumed in an orderly manner.
Consumer demand for cross-city tourism and gathering leisure and entertainment has been released, and cross-provincial and inter-regional travel has fully recovered.
At the same time, the vitality of online consumption continues to flourish.
my country's strong digital ecology and foundation enable merchants to continuously improve their online service capabilities through digital transformation, and residents' online consumption habits and ever-increasing demands for convenient life continue to thrive.
Li Jiwei suggested that in order to promote the subsequent economic recovery, we should continue to support the digital development of the consumer field.
In the past two years, the demand for online consumption has continued to increase, and more and more catering businesses have chosen to open "dual home venues" for dine-in and takeaway. This online and offline complementary model has also accelerated the recovery of catering.
Next, the platform can launch more marketing activities based on the advantages of consumer trend insight to help merchants grow.
At the same time, the overall expansion of the consumer market should be further promoted.
Issuing consumer vouchers through the "government + platform" model can effectively release the consumption needs of users in all fields such as "food, accommodation, travel, shopping and entertainment", directly benefit small, medium and micro merchants, and accelerate the comprehensive recovery of the consumption field of life services.
In addition, we should also encourage the strengthening of online and offline integration to promote consumption models, and encourage the development and promotion of digital infrastructure supporting facilities in the life service industry to improve service quality and further tap consumption potential.
Chen Guojing