The next consumer expenditure survey which comes under the statistics ministry, starts in July and will contin... Read More

NEW DELHI: Shop online? The government of India (GoI) wants to know the details. Starting next month, government surveys on expenditure will, for the first time, ask questions on ecommerce spending habits.

The next consumer expenditure survey, an annual nationwide exercise carried out by the National Sample Survey Organisation , which comes under the statistics ministry, starts in July and will continue till June 2018. The survey provides household level data on spending patterns across commodity and service categories in both urban and rural areas.

Officials involved in the exercise, who spoke off record, said government data managers now reckon ecommerce spend is beginning to hit critical mass and should be part of the national economic data base.

India’s ecommerce sector was estimated to be $14.5 billion in 2016, according a study by Red-Seeer Consulting . This is small compared to India’s total retail spending of $750 billion. But online commerce is expected to grow rapidly.

US-based market research company Forrester expects around one-fifth of total retail sales to take place online by 2021 in Asia Pacific. China is currently the largest online retail market in Asia, but India is the fastestgrowing online retail market globally.

The national expenditure survey will cover almost 1.2 lakh households across 5,000 urban blocks and 7,000 villages. It will provide state level data as well.

Government data managers also want to see whether online prices can impact inflation.

Although the size and scope of online commerce in India is currently not big enough to influence price data economy-wide, a survey now will indicate how price indices may get impacted by online retail’s pricing policies in the future, officials said.

Read this story in Malayalam