Spend trend: Consumption survey to include electronics, online shopping

How much did you spend on hand sanitisers? What did you purchase online?

India will now be keeping tabs on your spending online, electronic products such as mobile phones and Covid management products, as part of the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES), which was launched last week.

The survey has been revamped and for the first time includes questions related to online spending and the expenditure made on electronic goods such as mobile phones. This is being done to capture the shift in spending patterns and to the online space, a government official told ET.

The official said this was needed to get a clearer picture of the emerging consumption patterns.

“Online shopping will get reflected in the survey results because respondents would be asked the amount they spent online out of their total expenditure,” said the official.

As per the official, mobile phones and electronic items have been added to the list of items consumed, taking the total number of products covered to above 400 from around 380 now.

The results of the consumer expenditure survey are used to update the consumption basket and base revision of the Consumer Price Index.

“Covid-related products such as hand sanitisers, disinfectants and fruit and vegetable washes will be covered in the survey,” the official added.

The revamped survey comes after the government junked the findings of the survey done in 2017-18, citing data-quality issues, after leaked reports pointed to a fall in consumer spending for the first time in four decades in that year.

Moreover, the new survey questionnaire has been split into three parts that would be covered in an equal number of visits to the households.

“Earlier, the questionnaire used to take two hours and it led to respondent fatigue that impacted the quality of responses,” the official said, adding that it was decided to split the survey into three sets of questionnaires with each visit lasting around 45 minutes.

These are food and food products, items of daily or regular use, and items not of frequent consumption such as consumer durables. The food category includes the food bought by the households, given by the government through various welfare schemes, and food consumed at charitable institutions like temples.

The survey period is July-June and the results would be out by the end of 2023. “We expect the results to get entered and tabulated in 4-5 months as compared to 8-9 months earlier,” the official added.