Is online shopping a watershed or blip? Let's look at HCES data

E-commerce penetration is deepening but this doesn't herald a new retail landscape with no space left for physical stores

- ASHISH KUMAR & SAKSHI ABROL

Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) data has been making headlines for its deep dive into India's standard of living and evolving consumption patterns. The latest HCES 2023-24 fact-sheet, released hot on the heels of the 2022-23 micro-data, offers a treasure trove of insights into shifting consumption over the past year. But the HCES offers more than just an update on spending habits. It gives us a ring-side view of how India shops, eats and lives. An intriguing subplot within the larger data-set is the rise of e-commerce. Data that sheds light on a crucial question: How deeply has e-commerce penetrated India? Is e-commerce the new face of shopping or just a blip? While the HCES is not explicitly designed to map this, its data offers valuable insights on how online shopping is or isn't reshaping consumption. We delved into the available 2022-23 numbers to unravel this.