Summary
India is one of the largest growing markets of the world. Besides urban and semi-urban areas, rural India has a huge potential. Therefore, marketers need to understand the social dynamics and attitude variations. Family has the significant influence over the buying of the consumer. Different family members of the household participate and influence at different stages of the buying. Such influences may differ among different habitants. The influence of different family members within the household such as husband dominance, wife dominance, collective dominance of both husband and wife and equal dominance of all family members had been compared between rural and urban households for different aspects/stages of buying decisions. Three durable goods from three different product categories; Television (entertainment product), Refrigerator (home appliance), and an Automobile (two-wheeler, motorcycle and car/jeep) have been selected for study. A sample of 407 (204 from urban and 207 from rural areas) households across the state have been selected on the basis of non-probability convenience sampling. Majority of the activities are dominated by husbands among maximum number of rural households for all the select products. On the other side, majority of the activities among urban households are either carried out collectively by husband and wife or equally by all members of the family. The marketers while offering their products must position as well as construct appeal in their promotional messages by considering the dominance of family member/s for specific buying factors.
See the full content of this document
Extract
Influences of Family Members On the Household Buying a Comparative Study of Rural and Urban Households
1. Introduction
India is the world's 12th largest consumer market. By 2025, it is projected to be ahead of Germany, the fifth largest, according to a recent McKinsey (2007) survey. Besides urban and semi-urban areas, rural India has a huge potential. Indian corporations have now recognized the importance of rural markets. The reasons are obvious. The competition has tremendously increased in urban areas due to the emergence of more players and they are battling for market share in terms of gaining or regaining by reducing prices. But there have been several flaws in the implementation of such projects. Some products have been dumped in the rural areas, which rural people may not want. The prime reason behind the non-tapping of potential rural markets was the lack of adequate knowledge about rural consumer and consequently failure of the companies to develop sustainable strategies. Rural consumers have also suffered at the hands of less ethical marketers due to their illiteracy.Now rural markets in India are blossoming. There are several reasons to believe that rural markets in India are blossoming. The central government at the center has provided large sums of money at the hands of rural folks. The government decided to hand out compensation in cash. The government has announced National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It resulted into three benefits: building rural infrastructure, plugging pilferage of funds and boosting disposable income at the hands of rural households. Another boost for liquidity among farmers has come from loan waiver of Rs. 65318 Crore (1 crore = 10 millions). The government has also steadily raised the minimum support price (MSP) of the key crops like wheat and paddy. The farmers have enjoyed copious harvests during the past couple of years. The increase in MSP has protected the farmers from the possibility of price crashing during the recession period. In the recessionary phase, the increase in crop prices are way ahead the input costs as water and power are highly subsidized by most of the state governments and the increase in fertilizer cost consequent to rise in the price of crude oil has also been absorbed by the government by increasing fertilizer subsidy (Kar and Iyer, 2009). So, while the urban consumers are tottering under the cash crunch, their rural counterparts are ...See the full content of this document
(Copyright 2011)
Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Content not included in vLex Global Academic product.
Sponsored links
