Voucher Schemes

The coronavirus outbreak is causing a global economic slowdown.  The most vulnerable are small businesses. They feel the effect of lockdown across all regions. Vouchers seem like a great solution. 

The digital voucher program allows shoppers to buy through vouchers products or services in their favorite restaurants and shops that can be redeemable at a later time. 

Example from Germany

Germany's largest neighborhood network nebenan.de called on its users to support their favorite shops with donations and vouchers on a newly launched platform called kaufnebenan.de. Thanks to the doubling of Visa, Deutsche Bank and Postbank, over 1 million euros were collected in 72 hours.

Website: www.kaufnebenan.de 

Example from Slovenia

Voucher Scheme called “Najdibon.si” (in ENG: “Find a voucher”), link to the portal : https://najdibon.si/

Due to the Covid 19 situation, a lot of small companies had to close their business for at least 2 months, which affected their income flow and economic situation. To help these companies, a web portal was set-up, so people can support Slovenian small businesses and entrepreneurs by buying their vouchers for a service or product that will be provided to buyers when SMEs will reopen their doors.

The use for SMEs is free, so far 340 companies offered their vouchers, mostly from the food sector, beauty and health services and  tourism services.16.400 people supported them by buying the voucher.

The najdibon.si project is set up and managed by entrepreneurs Janko and Sara Tomšič in cooperation with two companies  “27Collective team”, who donated their webpage theme without any problems and big discussions,and “Positive design s.p." helped with volunteer work.

Example from Austria

As soon as the lockdown caused by Covid-19 in Austria happened, the idea of “zusammen leiwand” was born. It is a website that allows customers to get coupons for stores that were forced to close during the lockdown. After short briefings and search for partners that could operate the webpage, it went online only a few days after the lockdown was announced in Austria. The main goal was to relieve the stress on Austrian sole traders and medium-sized companies. As a customer, you now were able to buy a coupon for e.g. a haircut on the website of “zusammen leiwand”. This way, a hair salon gets some much-needed money to help it through the corona lockdown, and the customer can turn in the previously bought voucher when the saloon reopens after the lockdown. The project, therefore, is a social company itself, since it is organized as a non-profit organization and its main goal is to help others out and tackle problems caused by the coronavirus outbreak. However, the voucher system is of course not only meant for social enterprises, but for every business that is threatened by the crisis.

Link: https://www.zusammen-leiwand.at/

Example from Poland

BonyJutra.pl - a platform that helps companies survive hard times. Entrepreneurs offer vouchers, which customers can redeem at a later time with an additional bonus. In this way, companies at risk of bankruptcy can generate additional revenue and survive the worst hole associated with a sudden slump in a given industry. As soon as the lockdown caused by Covid-19 in Austria happened, 

Website: https://bonyjutra.pl/