Local consumption, because it has a rich enough scene, which determines that local consumption under the leadership of consumption vouchers is not just a one-time consumption. After the consumption vouchers are written off, the promotion effect is still not over, and it can create a tenfold or even hundredfold consumption "snowball".
Author |Yang Zhichao, Xiaokui.
Edit|Field.
The snowball effect is a magical force in the business world.
*There is one word that investors must be familiar with: compound interest. The annual income of 10% can be doubled in more than 7 years, and it can be doubled in 50 years by 100 times. The most famous investor, Warren Buffett's title of "God of Stocks", does not come from the myth of doubling, but from the perennial compound interest of 20%. Even Warren Buffett's first official biography was titled "Snowball". At the beginning of the book, he tells the story of snowballing in the yard in his childhood, which also hints at his lifelong investment philosophy.
This is the story on the investment side. On the consumption side, especially at the stage when consumption is taking on the responsibility of economic recovery, all localities are trying to find ways to encourage residents to consume, so that consumption becomes the snowball that was initially grouped up, and then it is getting bigger and bigger.
One of the most important tools is consumption vouchers.
For most people, familiarity with it begins during the pandemic. As one of the most direct means of boosting consumption, various types of consumption vouchers have been issued in various places, and in the following years, the distribution methods have been continuously iterated and improved to maximize the value of consumption vouchers.
For example, the diversification of distribution media. From *** to e-commerce platforms, banking apps, and even payment apps. One trend is that now, the local consumption service platform represented by Meituan and others is becoming a more important platform for the issuance of consumption vouchers, and the essence of this change lies in the precision of the issuance of consumption vouchers. Compared with the previous relatively single promotion of commodity consumption, the core of the consumption vouchers issued through the local consumption service platform has become "local".
The advantage of local consumption is the product effect. Because it covers more of a service-based economy that is rooted in the brick-and-mortar sector. In the local scene, people often don't just make a single purchase. Watching a movie is often accompanied by a large meal, and going skiing often incurs consumer expenses such as taxis, meals, and even accommodation. In the local scenario, a consumption voucher with a face value of 30 yuan may leverage the consumption of several hundred yuan.
The snowball story has begun.
Heavy snow may drown out much of the vibrancy of commerce, but it can also bring new life.
In Tohoku, a large number of tourists flock to snow and snow sports such as ski resorts, and there is an endless stream of ice and snow festivals in various places. In Chengdu, hot pot restaurants are full of business, and sports enthusiasts who are unable to participate in outdoor activities are flocking to indoor gymnasiums.
It's the cyclical boom that comes with the seasons. But another man-made policy force also plays a key role in this: consumption vouchers.
It is usually organized by ** and then distributed through Internet platforms such as Meituan, Alipay, and JD.com. This situation is especially obvious this winter, and almost every consumption hotspot is supported by local consumption vouchers. This is true from the ice and snow festivals in Northeast China to the food and beverage consumption in Chengdu.
Consumption vouchers are available from time to time, but they are always changing.
The earliest memory of consumption vouchers among the younger generation of Chinese may date back to 2008. During the global financial crisis, a total of 21 provinces and cities across the country issued more than 2 billion yuan in consumption vouchers. More people are familiar with it since the epidemic, and the issuance of consumption vouchers has become a regular situation in various places. According to the statistics of China UnionPay, the consumption vouchers issued in 2022 drove the transaction scale of nearly 50 billion yuan.
In the early days, the issuance of consumption vouchers was mostly concentrated in the field of commodity consumption. For example, the new energy vehicle consumption coupons that have been issued in various places are almost in the form of direct subsidies, paid by the first generation, so that consumers can buy new cars with a more suitable one. The effect is immediate, but it's also a one-off – as the transaction is completed, the voucher's mission is accomplished.
Today's consumption vouchers are increasingly tilted towards local retail scenarios and diversified new types of consumption.
One is because of the objective changes in consumer trends. During the epidemic, offline consumption scenarios were hindered, and transactional consumption, including e-commerce shopping, became the theme of stimulating consumption. When the restrictions are lifted, offline prosperity has once again become the focus of economic development, and people are more willing to spend and get more diversified pleasures.
The second is because of the subjective iteration of ** coupon issuance. On the macro level, the growth trend of service retail sales has exceeded that of commodity retail, and the pull on consumption has been continuously strengthenedNew types of consumption such as ice and snow consumption, cultural tourism, and sports events are constantly emerging. In response to the situation, various localities have moved to promote consumption vouchers to cover more new areas. In the process of issuing consumption vouchers, local ** departments have also accumulated a lot of experience, and then continue to improve the issuance rules. The ultimate goal is to make consumption vouchers more of a boost to the local economy, so that small money can be spent to do big things, rather than just one-off consumption.
Take Zhangjiakou, for example. From December 18, 2023 to January 1, 2024, under the guidance of the Zhangjiakou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, Meituan will issue more than one million yuan of "Ice and Snow Season" accommodation vouchers to tourists coming to Zhangjiakou. After receiving the coupon, users can enjoy full discount consumption when booking popular hotels such as "skiing" and "hot springs" in Zhangjiakou. Through accommodation, local and foreign tourists will generate more offline consumption, such as dining, shopping, etc. In other words, through consumption vouchers, Zhangjiakou has attracted more money and transactions to the local area.
Photo: Consumption vouchers are issued with hot local consumption in Zhangjiakou. (The picture shows Chongli Taiwu Town, from Dianping netizens.) ）
Recently, the issuance of consumption vouchers in Chengdu High-tech Zone has been innovating around the word "local" in terms of distribution mode and distribution category. Meituan, a coupon issuing platform, has launched a "Consumption Voucher Map" to facilitate consumers to find local physical stores near them where consumption vouchers can be usedIn terms of categories, in the near future, Chengdu High-tech Zone will choose books as a cultural consumption as the entry point, and issue book consumption coupons through Meituan to promote cultural consumption while leaving more orders in local physical bookstores.
If the local economy is compared to a pond, it is like the continuous influx of living water and living creatures, which will promote ecological prosperity and health.
On the other hand, compared with retail consumption, retail consumption of services, which is more closely connected with the local economy and physical merchants, can have a snowball effect. Only when more people go to ski resorts, fitness venues, restaurants and restaurants, will the offline real economy be active. In this year's consumption field, many successful cases have emerged, from the popular Zibo barbecue to the Guizhou village supermarket, and then to the Northeast morning market, behind every hot spot is the local economy that has been stimulated.
According to the opinion of relevant researchers, the role of consumption vouchers is similar to a lever. Through the policy of full reduction, with less money, leverage larger-scale consumption.
Qilu Evening News recently interviewed Wang Qing, deputy director of the Market Economy Research Institute of the Development Research Center, Wang Qing revealed that the leverage effect of consumption vouchers is generally more than three times. In other words, a consumption coupon of 1 yuan can probably drive the consumption of 3 yuan.
However, this is only interpreted from the perspective of the face value of the consumption voucher itself: for example, if you are full of 100 minus 30, the 30 yuan consumption voucher can naturally leverage about three times. But in the local economy, there is also a magical effect beyond leverage, which can create a tenfold or even hundredfold "snowball" of consumption.
Standing in the scene of local consumption, it is easy to understand the process of snowball rolling.
The ideal scenario for a snowball is to find thick wet snow and a long hillside, so that the snowball only needs external force in the initial stage, and the subsequent growth can be achieved by self-growth.
Local consumption is becoming such a snowball. Because it is rich enough in the scene, this determines that local consumption under the leadership of consumption vouchers is not just a one-time consumption, a typical scenario is: consumers come to Zhangjiakou with a Meituan accommodation voucher of 1000 minus 300, which will inevitably bring other associated consumption, such as visiting ski resort projects, spending in restaurants, and visiting other attractions in Zhangjiakou.
Just as there is "afterburning" in exercise, there is still some fat burning after the exercise is over. After the vouchers are cancelled, the boosting effect is still not over, with hungry moviegoers looking for restaurants, young couples dating at restaurants looking for the cinema to spend the next time, and snowy tourists looking for other attractions.
The effect of the consumption vouchers recently issued by Dongguan City is a concretization of the above scenario. Since November 17, Dongguan City has issued 2.5 million yuan of consumption vouchers through Meituan, which are divided into two types: on-site catering and hotels. At the same time, it also expands the influence of consumption vouchers through new models such as Meituan's local life live broadcast, and connects consumers and brick-and-mortar merchants more directly.
The issuance of consumption vouchers in Dongguan City is like a lever to leverage a large number of consumers to come to the local area for consumption. According to data from Meituan, a coupon issuing platform, as of December 25, the transaction volume and transaction orders of dine-in, catering and hotel accommodation in Dongguan during the coupon issuance period increased by 156% and 227% compared with the same period in 2019.
Although the consumption voucher of 2.5 million is not a particularly large number given the huge economic scale of Dongguan City. However, these consumption vouchers bring a precious amount, like a small snowball, it will grow on its own and roll bigger and bigger.
Pictured: Dongguan citizens received coupons through Meituan Live and shared a pleasant consumption experience on social platforms.
Of course, most of the time, the subject matter of the consumption voucher is not a rigid need. The premise for a snowball to roll is that the snowball will roll spontaneously and consumers will use it. However, this is also the advantage of local consumption that is "familiar to people". Take the two rounds of consumption vouchers issued by Hubei Province through platforms such as Meituan as an example. 800 million yuan of consumption vouchers, with a cumulative write-off rate of 9713%, which directly drove nearly 6 billion consumption.
In the local economy, the fact that consumers are allowed to go out and spend is more valuable than the denomination of the voucher itself. After all, the snowball is already rolling the moment the consumer leaves the door.
In the narrative of consumption vouchers, the consumer is a thick layer of snow, and the local scene is a long slope.
There is no need to go into detail about the charm of the local area. Whether it is the Internet giant's bet on local life, or the return of ordinary people to local life in 2023 - citywalk, hitchhiker, tourist special forces, night school, these popular keywords have all grown around "local".
* The department is also stepping up guidance and assistance.
Under the main line of the "2023 Consumption Boost Year", measures are being introduced in various places to promote the continuous recovery and expansion of consumption. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first 11 months of this year, the total retail sales of consumer goods in the country reached 428 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 72%。
Locally-focused service retail is playing an increasingly important role in the recovery and expansion of consumption. In the first 11 months of this year, retail sales of services increased by 19 percent year-on-year5%。Among them, the national catering revenue exceeded 4 trillion yuan in the first 11 months, which has exceeded the annual income in 2022. The box office of movies doubled year-on-year, and the total cost of travel doubled.
Source: China Cuisine Association.
The charm of the local area lies in the vitality.
A mom-and-pop shop at the door of a community may be in business for more than 20 years, or even passed on to the next generation;The food stalls in a vegetable market may become a must-have for the surrounding residents, and even become the taste of many people's hometown, so that they will never forget it after being away from home for many years, and they must go to consume it whenever they return home. Because of this, young people who are forced to live in big cities will feel and miss the "disappearing neighborhood".
One of the roots of life force is flow. When people go out of their homes and interact with people in a more real life, many of them are not planned, but they often bring surprises and greater pleasures, and the vitality of the economy is born naturally in the fireworks.
Emotional value is another vitality of local consumption. Years later, people will remember the excitement and excitement of the first time they stood on the slopes, and the taste of the bucket of popcorn they ate in the cinema with their lovers for the first time. The dopamine that comes with these consumption will become the existence of lighting up memories.
The urbanization process that Chinese cities have experienced over the past years is, to a large extent, a reconstruction of the local scene.
In the past two decades, almost all cities have had a similar story: a large shopping mall has sprung up, and the outlying area has gradually gathered office buildings, apartments, shopping malls, pedestrian streets and other consumption scenes, and turned into a bustling new urban center. This is where economic growth comes in.
Compared with point-to-point pure shopping consumption, local consumption scenarios based on spatial linkage can obviously create greater imagination space. Nowadays, consumption is continuing to bear the heavy responsibility of boosting the economy, and the local scene is also becoming an existence that is valued by many parties. The fact that local governments are increasingly oriented towards stimulating local consumption when choosing the scenario of issuing consumption vouchers is a clear example of this emphasis. It is natural to choose a locally-rooted consumer service platform to issue coupons.
Taking this year's large-scale consumption voucher issuance as an example, Sichuan, Hubei, Beijing, Shenzhen and other places** have successively chosen the Meituan platform to issue coupons. This may be due to the "local" nature of Meituan's retail business. Retail is a "long slope and thick snow" business, with the characteristics of high frequency, low gross profit and long cycle. For the local brick-and-mortar merchants involved, this is a "long slope" that can operate stably and for a long timeFor all localities**, the characteristics of "long slopes and thick snow" of local retail coincide with the characteristics of the "snowball" of consumption vouchers. Choosing a rooted retail consumption platform to issue coupons will help amplify the advantages of consumption coupons in promoting the "snowball" of consumption.
The in-depth cultivation of the "local" by the voucher issuing platform has created a better environment for the issuance of consumption vouchers. Meituan has continued to increase its investment in local retail-related resources for many years, and has so far established real-time logistics systems and community warehousing and fulfillment facilities in more than 2,000 cities and counties across the country, and has helped local brick-and-mortar merchants improve their digital level and keep more orders in the local area.
2023 is drawing to a close. Many organizations and individuals have endured severe challenges this year, but they have also been working hard and maintaining hope. At the end of the year, it is the traditional peak consumption season for Chinese, and many people who have worked hard for a year are only willing to spare some time and money to treat themselves and take care of their families.
Consumption has never been just a combination of data. It has a temperature. Consumption vouchers are also about the multi-party participation from the society to the society, and more importantly, the belief and determination of the whole country to overcome the difficulties and create hope.