Page 1835 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 June 2021
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customers that redemption rates were high. We also provided up-to-date advice to businesses, including emailing them and sending text messages at 7.30 pm on Friday night, when it was apparent that the funds would be expended by Saturday at the latest.
This was to assist businesses in managing expectations with their customers. We wanted to ensure that any business which had been accepting vouchers and keeping a manual record with a view to processing them at a later time were aware that the program would close at $2 million dollars so that they would redeem those. I am aware of the commentary and comments from the opposition particularly about the times at which vouchers were redeemed.
We are aware that some businesses were redeeming manual vouchers including late at night. This includes if a voucher was submitted to them online, which they then would have needed to process separately. I am also aware of at least one business which was prepared to take online orders late into the night on Friday and publicised this, with a team readily processing them. While this is anecdotal evidence, it points to some of the legitimate business practices that were occurring which saw vouchers claimed at what would otherwise seem to be unusual hours. That said, I am very willing for an evaluation to look closely at these and all transactions.
One of the more common questions I have seen in general commentary is: how could the vouchers have been redeemed so quickly? In addition to the popularity of the scheme and the demand I detailed before, the answer is readily available in the statistics. We are still analysing the data and still have a number of manual transactions to process. So while the numbers I am sharing are not yet final, they paint a clear picture. More than 77,000 customers registered for the scheme and each had access to three vouchers for each day of the scheme being live. More than 30,000 registered customers redeemed at least one voucher, with just under 59,000 vouchers redeemed. More than 800 businesses registered for the scheme, including dozens of businesses on the Friday of the relaunch. Consumers were spoiled for choice when it came to where they could spend their vouchers. These numbers are extraordinary, and they are testament to the enthusiasm of local businesses who embraced the scheme, marketed it, and encouraged old and new customers to come in to spend and to spend more.
With our scheme also requiring customers to spend at least the same amount of the voucher to be able to use the voucher, this meant at least double the $2 million dollars in funds would be injected into the economy, and our early analysis of the data is that this was more than double, being $5.1 million dollars. By value, the sector with the highest voucher redemption was food retailing, including locally owned grocers and markets and fresh meat, fish, and poultry retailing. Following this, cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services was the next most popular sector. Third was recreational goods retailing―local businesses offering products like sport and camping equipment, toys, and books. Fourth was pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and toiletry goods retailing. The fifth was personal services and the sixth was clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing.
Of the 797 businesses whose customers spent with ChooseCBR, the significant majority—619 businesses—redeemed more than 10 vouchers; 267 redeemed more
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