NEW DELHI: The ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI) is considering launching a new inflation index, which would track retail prices of items being sold on e-commerce platforms. The new index will not be part of the consumer price index (CPI), but will be released along with the CPI data, once unveiled.
According to official sources, the ministry is in talks with more than 15 e-commerce platforms in the country, including the major ones like Flipkart, Amazon and Meesho to get access to the prices of items being listed on their platforms.
The new index is being planned in view of the rising share of e-commerce in the overall transaction volume and values registered in the country. The prices of items sold on these platforms are increasingly becoming a key determinant of how price pressures are being experienced by vast sections of consumers.
The new index is likely to track the prices of those items that will be listed by the sellers on the e-commerce platforms, and not those that are shown on the website to consumers. This would ensure that fair assessment of price movements is done on a monthly basis, and discounts being offered are not accounted for, explained the sources.
“The framework for the new index is still being worked out, as we need to have all the e-commerce platforms on board,” an official told FE. “If the talks succeed, the new index may be released along with the new CPI series,” the person added.
The ministry is expected to launch the new CPI series, with base year 2024, on February 12, 2026. The current CPI series’ base year is 2012.
Sources say the e-commerce companies, however, are unwilling to share the listing price of items by sellers on their platforms, as they feel it will affect their business strategy.
The CPI tracks retail prices of items from physical markets. The ministry undertook a “market survey” in 2024 to select the markets from where the prices of items in the new CPI series will be tracked.
FE had reported earlier that the ministry held the market survey in as many as 2,860 representative physical markets, up from under 2,000 in the last exercise conducted in 2011-12. The new CPI index is likely to comprise around 380 items, compared with 299 in the extant one.
PC Mohanan, former member, National Statistical Commission, said: “For the e-commerce index, weights of items have to be identified first. The ministry should first check what percentage of items are bought through these platforms from a household’s monthly consumption expenditure.”
“If the share of e-commerce expenditure by households (in a month) is less than 5%, there is no need to constitute a separate index for that,” added Mohanan.
Paras Jasrai, senior analyst at India Ratings and Research, said: “The e-commerce index will help in identifying consumption patterns of urban and semi-urban areas. It will also lead to better capturing private consumption data, which will improve GDP estimates.”
Source: The Financial Express
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