Promoting consumption cannot stop at the time of consumption vouchers | consumption | economy

With the rise of summer consumption, a new round of consumption vouchers are being distributed intensively in various regions, with amounts ranging from several million yuan to hundreds of millions of yuan. According to observations, this round of consumption voucher activities is strong and targeted, not only in the fields of catering, retail, cultural and tourism, but also in the consumption of bulk commodities such as automobiles and home appliances, reflecting the characteristics of promoting both physical consumption and service consumption, and emphasizing both high-frequency and durable consumer goods.

From the end of June to August this year, Hainan will hold the second Hainan International Offshore Duty Free Shopping Festival in 2023, during which 20 million yuan of government consumption vouchers for duty-free shopping will be issued; From July to September, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province will issue a total of 200 million yuan of "Passionate Summer" Ningbo consumption vouchers; From June 21st to August 31st, Zhengzhou, Henan Province launched the 2023 "Happy Driving Summer" automobile renewal season, distributing a total of 50 million yuan in automobile consumption vouchers; From June 3rd to July 16th, Beijing issued a new batch of "Jingcai Green Consumption Vouchers", involving over 20000 products in 55 categories such as computers, air conditioners, and robotic vacuum cleaners. According to incomplete statistics from the Ministry of Commerce, in the field of household appliances alone, the planned investment in promoting household appliance consumption in various regions has exceeded 2.5 billion yuan since the beginning of this year.

A small consumption voucher, when applied properly, can exert the multiplier effect of "four liang and a thousand jin". For consumers, consumption vouchers belong to the "unexpected wealth" in the "psychological account", which is equivalent to increasing disposable income for the current period. Some potential consumer demands, such as wanting to buy but reluctant to buy, whether to buy or not, whether to buy now or in the future, may be transformed into real purchasing power through consumption vouchers. For enterprises, as the usage scenario of consumption vouchers is generally full reduction and deduction, it can objectively help enterprises obtain more passenger flow and bring about a larger transaction scale. For the overall consumer market, consumption vouchers can be quickly converted into consumption within a specific period of time, which is an important lever to stimulate consumer vitality and boost consumer confidence.

After so many rounds of activities, are consumer vouchers still popular? Yes. On May 20th, the Chengdu Automobile Consumption Reward Activity officially began to apply. Individual consumers who purchase qualified new energy vehicles will receive a reward of 8000 yuan per person, and 12500 spots will be fully claimed within 48 hours. On June 16, 2023, the first batch of home appliance consumption vouchers for "Huigou Hubei" began to be launched online and offline simultaneously. 71600 vouchers were written off on the same day, with 31 million yuan written off, directly driving a consumption amount of 400 million yuan. Related research shows that the leverage ratio of consumption vouchers reaches 3.4 to 5.8, which means that an effective consumption subsidy of 1 yuan can drive new consumption of 3.4 to 5.8 yuan. For example, in Shenyang, Liaoning, the overall consumption vouchers have achieved a direct driving effect of 3.4 times since the beginning of this year, with consumption scenarios such as star rated hotels and time-honored restaurants reaching 3.7 times. Two 10 yuan travel vouchers for the benefit of the people have been 100% verified and used.

Some argue that consumer vouchers have a certain "crowding out effect". The consumption vouchers may not necessarily bring about new consumption, but may also be early consumption, and consumption behavior only undergoes a shift in time. The money saved through consumption vouchers may not necessarily be used for other expenses, but can be converted into savings. Due to the fact that consumer vouchers are not frequent, stable, and predictable, it is difficult to fundamentally change people's purchasing power and psychological expectations. In addition, how to balance efficiency and fairness, as well as current and long-term considerations in the design of rules for consumer vouchers, such as who will issue them, who will receive them, how much they will be issued, how they will be used, and what they will buy, not only tests the financial capacity and management level of local governments, but also directly affects consumers' sense of gain. Ignoring the actual local situation and the real needs of consumers, blindly following the trend, and hastily investing may have the opposite effect.

Since the beginning of this year, China's consumer market has accelerated its recovery, but compared to contact and cluster consumption, the recovery of bulk consumption such as automobiles and household appliances is relatively lagging behind. The second quarter urban depositor survey report released by the central bank shows that for projects that plan to increase spending in the next three months, the proportion of residents choosing "tourism" has increased by 2 percentage points to 26%, making it the only increase item; The proportion of choosing "high-value products" decreased by 1.2 percentage points to 17.7%, continuing to decline. With the arrival of the summer consumption peak season, residents' demand for travel, leisure shopping and other consumption will be further released. The consumption promotion policies and activities such as consumption vouchers launched in various regions are expected to add another spark to the consumer market.

Objectively speaking, consumer vouchers play a more short-term role and focus on enhancing consumer willingness, serving as a "fuel". It is clearly not enough to rely solely on consumption vouchers to better leverage the driving effect of consumption on economic growth. To activate the "strong engine" of Chinese consumption, it is fundamentally necessary to improve the long-term mechanism, accelerate the introduction of a series of policy measures to support the recovery and expansion of consumption, promote the improvement of residents' employment and income, enhance their consumption ability, and enable more people to consume, dare to consume, and be willing to consume.