Ayman is a 19-year-old student who was able to buy Xiaomi smartphones at very attractive prices thanks to promotions he patiently created for months through the Mi Store application. He tells us about his technique.
” You have to be determined enough. That’s almost an understatement. Ayman, 19 and a student in Paris, sums up in these terms the state of mind in which he builds brick by brick his bargains on Xiaomi products that interest him. It’s the turn of a conversation on the disagreement Frandroid that this reader explains to us his technique that requires a lot of patience and a good dose of perseverance.
Let’s put some context. On our social networks, we asked a fairly simple question: what was the best deal of your life when buying a tech product? We’ve received several interesting comments on Instagram, Twitter, and Discord – thank you all! Ayman’s comment, “AyRo” as a pseudonym and an image of Professor Layton as a profile picture, especially caught our attention.
You have to go get the Mi Points every day. After a year you can commit real robberies. If there are promotions, I won’t even tell you, you can combine basic discount + discount voucher + Mi Points[…].
Briefly described, the trick seems as ingenious as it is annoying. We have a private conversation with AyRo so that he can describe his working method a little more. The conversation confirms our first impressions: his little ruse is indeed simple and effective, but you have to be very determined to get a good deal and be strict every day for months.
The Xiaomi Mi Points trick
To understand, we must first know what are the Mi points. This is a system introduced by Xiaomi to reward people who drive the brand’s community. You earn Mi Points by downloading the Mi Store app, buying products from the manufacturer, sharing a link or leaving reviews. Mi Points can then be used to obtain price reductions.
What’s the trick in that? “It’s very easy AyRo tells us. In the Account tab of the Mi Store app, there is a Mi Points section. Hereby “each day you must collect a kind of flame that fills a fuel gauge by one notch and earns 2 Mi pointsThe meter in question is used to power a spaceship piloted by Xiaomi’s mascot rabbit.
Xiaomi’s Mi Store App // Source: AyRo (via Frandroid’s Discord)
You must fill the meter to earn 50 Mi Points // Source: AyRo (via Frandroid’s Discord)
“Once the meter is full, you will receive 50 Mi Points in addition to the two Mi Points for that day after seven days“. During certain promotional periods, such as Black Friday, or even during the month in which you have your birthday, it is possible to collect even more points. These Mi Points can then be converted into discount vouchers. When you spend 60 Mi Points, for example, you will receive a voucher of 10 euros You can also spend the points immediately upon purchase: a Mi Point is then worth one cent.
In any case, you have to be very patient if you want to enjoy a hefty discount. And this is where AyRo’s perseverance comes into its own.
533 euros instead of 749
AyRo did this almost daily for a year”,about, maybe a little less“. Then, “for my base Xiaomi Mi 11 it came to 749 euros. A discount of 50 euros was displayed. With a voucher + Mi Points it went up to 533 euros“. He shares a screenshot of his invoice where we see that the only “compensation of Mi points“allowed him to precisely lower the note of 116.36 euros.
There was even”a free case and a Xiaomi t-shirt in the box‘ he says, underlining his sentence with a hilarious emoji. A little later, after stoppingsome time“, he repeats.”My poor brother had another Honor 8X that swelled up so much that the glass on the back came off. Feeling sorry, I started hoarding again [les Mi Points ; NDLR] for 6 or 8 months.»
He also signs a nice promotion there, because that was possibleincrease the price from 399 euros to 307 eurosfor his brother’s Poco F4. “which isn’t badto quote him. We refer again to the determination he himself mentioned. “After that, just go to the application once a day and click on an icon, it’s done quickly‘, he nuances. The opportunity to emphasize that it is not the act itself that determines the originality of AyRo’s testimony, but its repetition to obtain a substantial promotion.
The Xiaomi Community
AyRo’s anecdote also highlights the importance of these little things put in place by Xiaomi to build an active community. The brand knows that it has fans, real fans, which it was able to unite even before its official arrival in France. And not only the aggressive prices she likes to charge explain this enthusiasm. There is also skillful communication – especially through forums -, physical stores (which are closed, however) and smart levers such as Mi Points.
To get Mi Points you need to launch the Mi Store app and be an active member of the community. It’s a way like any other to do what we call tribal marketing. A process by which a brand gets its customers to self-advertise its products. So, of course, in the case of AyRo, we could say that the 19-year-old student is making Xiaomi lose money with his big promotions.
However, we can also look at it from two other angles, more interesting for the manufacturer. On the one hand, AyRo uses a system that gives preference to the purchase of a Xiaomi smartphone over that of a competitor. On the other hand, his testimony may make other people want to emulate him and ultimately allow Xiaomi to gain more customers. Be it through word of mouth or this excellent article fromFrandroidyou are currently reading.
Finally, keep in mind that many people don’t go as far as AyRo and use Mi Points to buy other, cheaper products at very low prices, such as connected light bulbs, for example.
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