Ma Kejia Frequently given and received "New Year gifts" are now re-entering the market through a special channel, forming a "grey industrial chain" of acquisition, distribution, and resale. This has even "upgraded" to e-commerce with online and offline联动businesses booming.
How much money do Chinese people spend on gifts every year? There are no authoritative statistics because it is a market that spans multiple industries, is complex, and relatively hidden. It includes all kinds of festival gifts, such as tobacco, alcohol, shopping vouchers, expensive health supplements, digital electronic products, etc.
The China Gift Industry Research Institute used data from the National Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Commerce, and industry statistics to individually and collectively categorize and estimate the gift industry. The resulting data shows that the annual individual gift demand in China is 505.5 billion yuan, while the annual group gift demand is 262.9 billion yuan. Adding these together gives an estimated total annual domestic gift market demand of about 768.4 billion yuan.
As the gift industry expands, so does the gift recycling market, gradually forming a complete industrial chain.
Gift Card Industry Chain
A front desk staff member at a Beijing-based internet company, Sun Meng (pseudonym), recently made a small deal: selling the shopping cards given to employees as pre-festival welfare at a 95% discount to a card buyer. Sun Meng told the First Financial Daily (Weibo): "Now there are many companies buying various shopping cards. The more cards you sell at once, the higher price the buyer will offer."
Following the phone number provided by Sun Meng, the reporter contacted Mr. Zhang, the card buyer. Mr. Zhang said that the consumption cards he acquires mainly include four types: one is the Sinopec and PetroChina fuel cards; the second type is various mall and dining consumption cards such as Shangtong cards; the third type is single supermarket or brand-provided shopping cards like Walmart and Carrefour shopping cards; the fourth type is online mall shopping cards such as Dangdang (Weibo) and Amazon (Weibo) website shopping cards. Different shopping cards have different purchase prices ranging from 40% to 95% discounts. For example, Haagen-Dazs gift certificates are purchased at 50% of their face value, while Sinopec fuel cards can be bought at 96% of their face value.
Subsequently, the reporter found that there were a large number of websites for recovering gift cards, with fierce competition. A site named "Xiaoming Shopping Card Recovery" categorized the shopping cards by use and type. On this website, each card had a detailed recovery number, indicating a substantial volume of transactions.
In terms of reselling shopping cards, Taobao and scalpers both hold significant positions. In a certain Taobao store, 138 pieces of Carrefour shopping cards worth 500 yuan were sold within the last month.
In malls, scalpers also have clever sales methods. Outside a mall on the north side of the Third Ring Road in Beijing, there were quite a few scalpers asking consumers if they wanted to buy or sell their shopping cards. Some scalpers could even buy them at a 50% discount and sell them at a 95% discount. A few scalpers waited near the checkout counters. As soon as a consumer went to pay, they would say they had too many shopping cards and hoped the consumer could help out. If the consumer was willing to use the scalper's shopping card, the consumer could get a 95% discount. Some scalpers even directly arranged with the mall to recover the shopping cards and earn the difference.
Gift Recycling Conceals Corruption
Of course, gift cards are just one of many gifts during the Spring Festival. The range of recycled gifts is much broader.
Outside a small shop on Youth Road in Chaoyang District, Beijing, the glass door had a sign saying "Recycling high-end tobacco and alcohol." The shop owner said they recycle Lafite, Louis XIII, Maotai, Wuliangye, Zhonghua cigarettes, and other high-end tobacco and alcohol products.
In many online stores, the range of recycled gifts is even wider, including Cordyceps sinensis, bird's nest, sea cucumber, Apple series products, Brain White Gold, jade and emerald, gold products, etc. Store owners even promise confidentiality for sellers and won't disclose their identities.
In fact, buyers clearly know that those who receive high-end gifts are often people of high rank and power. A responsible person from a Beijing-based company who wished to remain anonymous told the reporter that every year around the "year-end," they must bribe up and down, especially departments such as public security, procuratorate, and court. The company's annual gift-giving expenses exceed 1 million yuan.
Regarding these criticisms, relevant state departments have never ceased efforts to ban "shopping vouchers" and "shopping cards." As early as 1991, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Notice on Prohibiting the Issuance and Use of Various Substitute Shopping Vouchers." In 1993, 1998, and 2001, relevant regulatory authorities issued notices for rectification, but the results were not ideal. Not until the implementation of the real-name system for shopping cards did the regulation of shopping cards reach its 20th year.
Moreover, recycled gifts cannot be sold arbitrarily. For instance, tobacco and alcohol. According to the provisions of the Implementation Regulations of the Tobacco Monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China: enterprises or individuals obtaining tobacco monopoly retail rights shall purchase goods from local tobacco monopoly wholesale enterprises and accept the supervision and management of the tobacco monopoly license issuing authority. Enterprises or individuals obtaining tobacco monopoly retail licenses who do not purchase goods from local tobacco monopoly wholesale enterprises shall have their illegal gains confiscated by the tobacco monopoly administrative department, and may be fined between 5% and 10% of the total purchase amount.
Share to:
Related Reports:
- E-commerce for Gift Recycling
- Urgent Need for Regulation of the Grey Industry
- Upgrading Gift Recycling to "E-commerce"
- Low Cost Becomes Catalyst for Online Gift Transactions
- Post-Festival Boom in Gift Recycling Business Including Cameras and Computers
Weibo Recommendation | Sina Technology Official Weibo