Investors are well-advised to track the supply side as carefully as they are tracking the consumer side CoronavirusCovid-19 Marketers and investors are increasingly wondering how consumption will change post covid-19 and the lockdown. The obvious answer is that everyone is going to be less well off, and consumption will shrink. In an earlier column we modelled the amount at risk. People will spend on necessities first (could include replacing a broken phone or refrigerator, not just food and school fees). For getting a piece of the “nice to have but can do without” expenditure, there will be a fierce cross category battle (buy an iPhone now, paint your house next year or downsize the wedding and give the newlyweds a car instead). The Indian consumer toggles seamlessly between ‘stretch’ and ‘settle’ behaviour—in good times, “whatever I can afford plus one price-performance level up” (stretch) and in bad times “let’s stay

The current narrative around WFH does not accommodate diverse income groups and women workers. The bandwagon of opinion that work-from-home is the amrit (nectar of immortality) that the covid manthan (churning) has yielded is growing and speeding down an implementation path that is long on profit-and-loss benefit and short on people-centricity. Corporates love the cost savings, but a fuller analysis will show that it is a double-edged sword to be handled with care, quickly accruing quantifiable savings for companies, but risking slowly accumulating costs for employees and organizations, perhaps not quantifiable early on but not un-measurable. Implement work from home (WFH) by all means, but after data-driven weighing of costs and benefits all around. We would like to see an equivalent level of discussion on the people dimension as we are seeing on cost savings. Decision-makers, likely older, with older children, better paid, hence living in larger houses with better

The so-called middle class, which is actually India’s richest 20% of households, accounts for 36% of consumption expenditure. India’s household consumer demand is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most Low food inflation and protection of urban salaried jobs may make it better, a spoilt agricultural season may make it worse The ongoing discussion on the prognosis for consumer demand is currently based on extrapolations from supply-side data and macro-economic variables. This column aims to supplement it by providing household-level data on consumption, a “people-view” of those who cause this demand to happen. India’s household consumer demand, the jewel in its gross domestic product (GDP) crown, is vulnerable and skittish because of dismal occupation demographics, lowly paid and uncertain livelihoods for most; and because most Indian households have very little “surplus income”, money remaining after covering their routine expenditure, leave alone their