Short communication: 2021 Vol: 25 Issue: 3
Michael Subramanian, Deemed to be University
There is a significant urban-rural divide, which can be seen in India. Companies today should understand that seventy percent of Indian population is still residing in rural areas. The need of the hour is to emphasis on an inclusive marketing system, where rural marketing is given utmost importance for sustainability of companies and economy. This research is an attempt to understand the behaviour of rural consumers during the purchase of packed food products. An attempt has been made in this study to identify the various factors which are considered by rural consumers for the purchase of packed food. The relation between the brought factors and demographic factors is also studied in this research. The data is collected using a questionnaire. The product used in this study is a FMCG which is sold as a packed food product, in the rural districts of Bengaluru. Multivariate techniques such as Factor Analysis, Anova and post-hoc tests are used for data analysis.
FMCG, Consumer Behaviour, Packed Food, Leadership.
FMCG is an acronym for Fast Moving Consumer Goods, which refer to articles that are brought from local supermarkets on daily basis, the things that have high turnover and are relatively cheaper. The popular name for Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) goods are consumer packaged goods. Goods in this category include all consumables (other than groceries/pulses) people buy at regular intervals. The most common in the list are butter, potato chips, toothpastes, and razors, household care products such as toilet soaps, detergents, shampoos, toothpaste, shaving products, shoe polish, and household accessories and includes certain electronic goods. Indian rural market has evolved in terms of the choices made and products used, thanks to outburst of technology, numerous welfare schemes by the government and increase education. All these factors have contributed in the change in the attitude and purchase behaviours of the rural consumers. There are certain features which always influence the consumer behaviour. These factors include the type, quantity and price of the product. The subjective economic distance for the consumers, the price willingness of the consumers and the size and importance of the central place (Van Leeuwen & Rietveld, 2011).Today the rural consumer is powered with all these crucial factors. The markets have come close to the rural consumers in the forms which are specially designed for the rural consumers. There were times when Indian rural consumer did not believe in purchasing packed food but the changed times and changed marketing strategies of the firms have motivated the rural consumers to purchase such products (Sehrawet & Kundu, 2007). Even in the rural market the women is the buyer and the man of the house is the financer and as an urban family the child is the influencer as found by (Nagaraj, 2004). The marketing to rural women should be done with a completely different perspective. The rural women has some unique characteristics like they are not exposed to high tech media, they do not come out much in the open society when compared to the urban women, the values and ideas of rural women is completely exclusive to the particular village they belong to (Vasavada-Oza et al., 2012). The firms should understand the rural women and design their marketing strategy according to their need and circumstances.