IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/esrepo/336211.html

What online prices reveal about inflation in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Mitrovic, Aleksandar
  • Steenkamp, Daan

Abstract

E‐commerce data enable economists to study a range of economic phenomena, ranging from price dynamics, market structure and product entry and innovation, consumer demand and behaviour, and pass‐through of input costs to final retail prices. In this paper we compare developments in e‐commerce prices to official estimates of consumer good inflation in South Africa. We highlight measurement challenges and differences between online list prices and officially surveyed statistics from discounting, product changes and product availability over time. We also evaluate online discounting behaviour for specific products and product categories, especially during Black Friday sales, and quantify online price persistence in South Africa. We show that e‐commerce prices experience changes at a broadly similar frequency as our estimates imply for official measures of consumer prices. Our analysis suggests real‐time alternative data are important, not just for forecasting, but also for understanding the nature of price dynamics in South Africa.

Suggested Citation

  • Mitrovic, Aleksandar & Steenkamp, Daan, 2026. "What online prices reveal about inflation in South Africa," EconStor Research Reports 336211, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:esrepo:336211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/336211/1/Codera_What_online_prices_reveal.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Horn, Aidan J. & Martin, Lisa & Pretorius, Jan H. & Steenkamp, Daan, 2025. "Gaps in the South African Inflation Targeting Debate," MPRA Paper 124010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Byron Botha & Rulof Burger & Kevin Kotzé & Neil Rankin & Daan Steenkamp, 2023. "Big data forecasting of South African inflation," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 149-188, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cleaver, Cynan & Guest, Oliver & Steenkamp, Daan, 2025. "Introducing a new measure of inflation pressure for South Africa," MPRA Paper 126439, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Beck, Günter W. & Carstensen, Kai & Menz, Jan-Oliver & Schnorrenberger, Richard & Wieland, Elisabeth, 2023. "Nowcasting consumer price inflation using high-frequency scanner data: Evidence from Germany," Discussion Papers 34/2023, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    3. Shovon Sengupta & Tanujit Chakraborty & Sunny Kumar Singh, 2023. "Forecasting CPI inflation under economic policy and geopolitical uncertainties," Papers 2401.00249, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2024.
    4. Sengupta, Shovon & Chakraborty, Tanujit & Singh, Sunny Kumar, 2025. "Forecasting CPI inflation under economic policy and geopolitical uncertainties," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 953-981.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:esrepo:336211. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.