Market observation after issuing consumer coupons in many places across the country
Consumer coupons effectively boost market vitality
Beijing issued "green energy-saving consumption coupons" with a total value of 1,500 yuan per coupon package, which can purchase 21 types of green energy-saving products that meet the conditions; Chengdu issued digital RMB online consumption coupons with a total amount of 160 million yuan; Taiyuan City released 5 There are 22 types of digital consumer coupons, with a total financial investment of 420 million yuan... Recently, consumer coupons have been issued in many places across the country to boost the vitality of the consumer market.
"Xinhua Viewpoint" reporters found that consumer coupons can boost consumption, but in order to better play their role, the issuance and use process of consumer coupons should be further optimized and improved.
Text/Xinhua reporters Hu Linguo, Wu Wenxu, Yang Wenxi
Consumption vouchers strive to promote consumption recovery
On April 25, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Further Unleashing Consumption Potential and Promoting Continued Recovery of Consumption", which requires comprehensive measures to release consumption potential and promote the continuous recovery of consumption, and proposes 20 policy measures in 5 areas.
Issuing consumer coupons is one of the means of promoting consumption introduced by various places.From the perspective of the categories involved, in addition to the catering, cultural tourism, entertainment and other industries affected by the epidemic, many provinces and cities have begun to issue auto consumption coupons. For example, Shandong plans to invest 500 million yuan to issue 150,000 auto consumption coupons. Others are related to local pillar industries, such as Foshan, Guangdong, which issues consumer coupons for home appliances.
"Government funding, platform support, and merchant cooperation." Sun Yacheng, a professor at the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University, said that consumer coupons are generally funded by the government, and then cooperate with Internet companies or e-commerce platforms for online distribution, and some platforms will also give supporting subsidies.
The reporter combed and found that consumer coupons in various places this year are mainly issued through WeChat public accounts, WeChat mini-programs and various Internet apps.The cooperative third-party commercial platforms mainly include WeChat, Alipay, JD.com and Meituan.Zeng Fu'e, a professor at the School of Economics and Management of Wuhan University, said that payment platforms represented by Alipay and WeChat are characterized by wider coverage on the consumer side; while Meituan, as a local life service platform, is more closely connected with offline brick-and-mortar merchants.
A report jointly released by the Guanghua School of Management of Peking University and the Ant Financial Research Institute shows that a government subsidy of 1 yuan can drive an average of more than 3.5 yuan in new consumption.In many places and payment platforms, the leverage effect can reach 5 times or even 10 times.
Data from the WeChat platform shows that from 2020 to 2021, WeChat Pay will actually write off 22.9 billion yuan in various discounts, leveraging social consumption of 520 billion yuan.Taking Yinchuan, Ningxia as an example, from the beginning of March to June 6 this year, 13 rounds of government consumption coupons have been issued, with 2.6 million participants, more than 557,000 online write-offs, a direct transaction volume of 150 million yuan, and an indirect consumption of 1.9 billion yuan. .
Cao Zhongxiong, executive director of the Institute of Digital Strategy and Economics of the China (Shenzhen) Comprehensive Development Research Institute, believes that issuing consumer coupons in different categories such as catering, accommodation, tourism, and automobiles can not only achieve the effect of targeted assistance to specific industries, but also attract businesses. and enterprises to launch more personalized profit concessions, thereby driving the recovery of upstream and downstream, promoting enterprises to expand production and investment, and realizing a virtuous circle of economy and industry.
The distribution and use rules need to be further improved
The reporter's investigation found that there are some problems worthy of attention in the process of issuing and using consumer coupons in some places.
——Online distribution, some older consumers are difficult to grab.Some older consumers reported that although there are many “red envelopes” for consumer coupons, they can get very few because the current consumer coupons are generally issued online, and they are sold out in a few seconds with high value; Young people are not familiar with using it, and it is difficult to pay attention to the information pushed by various mobile apps in a timely manner.
——The rules for using some consumer coupons are not perfect.A netizen in Shenzhen purchased a mobile phone worth 2,899 yuan on a shopping platform and used a consumer coupon. After that, he applied for a refund for personal reasons and wanted to buy it again, but the consumer coupon platform will not refund the refund after the refund."The consumer coupons that were hard-earned are considered a waste." On the black cat complaint platform, many people reported the same problem.
"I grabbed the food coupons to consume, but when I checked out the hot pot restaurant, the waiter said that the cost of the bottom of the pot, the cost of the tea table, and the cost of the beverage could not be counted." Ms. Liu from Guangzhou told reporters that it was just right to be 400 yuan. Vouchers are available, but it was discovered during the settlement that the part of the fee that could not be used was 70 or 80 yuan. The merchant said that they had the right to explain themselves.
- Some consumer coupons were traded and resold.The reporter's investigation found that some people used plug-in programs to grab consumer coupons, and some people used virtual positioning to grab coupons in other cities, and then resell them.There is a phenomenon of selling consumer coupons on a second-hand platform, and some people sell the consumer coupons they have grabbed at a discount to customers who actually consume by means of "payment".
The reporter saw a local restaurant in the Beijing Road business district of Guangzhou City where consumption was booming. Some citizens who were waiting for a table told the reporter that the store could use consumer coupons, "It doesn't matter if you don't grab the consumer coupon, you can use WeChat after taking the seat number. Send it to the 'scalpers', and they will check out." And paying 10 yuan more through the "scalper" checkout than directly using the coupons.
Shen Yan, a professor at the National Development Institute of Peking University, believes that the transfer, transaction or even cash out of consumer coupons may be due to loopholes in the design mechanism itself, and the problem can be solved through technical means; if it is a large-scale, gang-style resale, it will not only destroy the The market order will also lead to a greatly reduced policy effect, which can be dealt with by administrative and legal means.
Accurate efforts to amplify the utility of consumer coupons
Experts interviewed said that the key to boosting consumption with consumer coupons is to turn government subsidies into "accelerators", stimulate the growth of consumption scale in a short period of time, and ultimately transmit it to the production and supply side, driving the recovery of the entire economic chain.How to play the role of consumer coupons requires precise efforts from multiple dimensions.
Zeng Fu'e believes that in order to stimulate the growth of consumption in a short period of time, the target group of the government should be those consumers who are low-income or affected by the epidemic."It can be issued in batches on multiple platforms, and the issuance of the next batch of consumption coupons can be dynamically determined according to the write-off rate, so as to improve the efficiency of issuance and use of consumption coupons; digital technology can also be used to track the issuance effect in real time and continuously improve the delivery method, thereby More accurate delivery of consumer coupons to those in need.”
"The issuance of consumer coupons may be mainly online and supplemented by offline." Sun Yacheng suggested that some paper consumer coupons could be issued as a supplement, such as in conjunction with some local shopping malls, supermarkets, convenience stores and other offline venues to target specific groups. some coupons.
Shen Yan believes that the central bank's digital renminbi can be matched with consumer coupons to ensure that funds can be used on a regular basis.In order to promote the continuous recovery and upgrading of consumption, it is necessary to accelerate the development of emerging consumption and green consumption, which is conducive to leading and creating new demand with high-quality supply and promoting the formation of a strong domestic market.At present, Beijing, Zhengzhou and other places have successively issued green energy-saving consumption coupons to encourage consumers to purchase green energy-saving products.
Zeng Fu'e suggested that the government can limit the amount and frequency of use of consumer coupons, strengthen big data analysis, strengthen the screening of abnormal transaction records, and try to avoid fraudulent transactions through technical means, so as to truly make consumer coupons drive the whole chain. The "accelerator" of consumption recovery.
In addition, the reporter learned that the recent phenomenon of reselling and cashing out consumer coupons has attracted the attention of the public security organs. It is believed that measures will be taken one after another to crack down on the illegal use of consumer coupons such as subjective malignancy, speculative profit-making, and large-scale malicious cashing out.
【Editor: Wang Yu】
