“Consumer Behavior Towards New Products in Rural

Markets”

ABSTRACT
A consumer is one who buys any goods or services, by paying its price, either for his own
consumption or for his livelihood. Therefore, everybody here is a consumer in one way or the other
way as they pretend in the markets. Philosophers and thinkers have then regarded consumers as
the base of every business trends. But it is still a common practice that the businessmen exploit the
consumer with regard to quality, quantity, weight, price and the related factor involved in the daily
business transaction. Unawareness is one of the prominent factors contributing in the misuse and
most prevalent among the rural mass nowadays. Hence, keeping in view the vital goal of consumer
welfare, grass origin level survey has initiated to observed, understand and analyze the behavior
of the rural consumers.

Key Words- consumer behavior, penetration, demographic factors, market penetration,

psychographic factors.

INTRODUCTION
The term consumer behavior denotes to the behavior that consumer display in searching, for
purchasing, using, appraising and positioning of product and service that they expect will satisfy
their needs and demands. The study of the consumer behavior is the study of how the individual
make decision to spend their available resource (time, money, effort) on intake related items. It
includes the study what they buy, why they buy, when they buy, where they buy, how often they
buy and how often they use it. One of the most important constant among all of us, despite the
difference is that the consumer use or consume on regular basis food, clothing, shelter,
transportation, Education, equipment, vacation, necessities luxuries service. Consumer plays a
vital role in the health of the economy – local, national and international. The purchase decision,
consumer makes effect the demand for the basic raw materials for transportation, for production,
for banking, that effect the employment of the worker and the deployment of the resource, the
success of some industries and the failure of others. In order to success in any business, and
especially in today dynamic and rapidly evolving marketplace, marketers need to know everything
they can about consumers- what they want, what they think, how they work, how they spend their
rest time. They need to understand the personal and group influences that effect consumer
decisions and how these decisions are made. The term consumer behavior defines two different
kinds of consuming entities: the personal consumer and the organizational consumer. The
individual consumer buys goods and services for his or her use, for the use of the household, use
by individuals, who are referred to end users or ultimate consumers in rural markets which have
different perceptions. The secondary category of consumer- the organizational consumer- includes
profit and not for-profit business, government interventions (local, state and national), and
institutions (e.g. schools, hospitals and prisons), all of which must buy products, equipment, and
services in order to run organizations. Despite the importance of both categories of consumer-
individual consumer – individuals and organization.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Several authors, organizations, commissions, economists and government agencies have express
their view regarding the suffering of ordinary citizen who bore the burns of man-made economic
crisis in Manipur. Some of the reviews of the related literature with the topic of research are as
follows: Nagaraja B (2004), presented that rural consumer is totally different to the other market
consumer, in the rural market scenario being it is influence by reasonableness, personal experience.
The level of utility that is derives from the consumption which is being influence by the changing
taste and preference of the younger generation. Their buying behavior is very much influence by
experience of their own and of neighbor consumer and his own family and involvement of his own
members are exerting maximum influence of his purchases. The quality of the product and its easy
availabilities are also primary and vital causes of his buying behaviors. If the increase participation
of rural consumer is the objective of the rural marketing emergence of radical shift is the need of
the hour management thinking. Turner and Krizek (2006), mentioned that the organization,
individual behavioral decision can be made by depending on those satisfaction or dissatisfaction,
positive or negative experience or better treatment offer by the doctor can be effected not only the
level of satisfactions also longer connectivity with customer. An individual ability to achieve
satisfaction was mitigated by those service dimensions that created dissatisfaction as well as the
order in which the individual service dimension. Taking a meaning – center approach to
customers‟ satisfaction or any other organization construct, place the lived experience and
meaning that hold above the experiment at the center that comes to understands what construct
such a satisfaction means rather than what we have reified them by acknowledging the act of
meaning creation. Kumar D N S (2008), stated that consumer spending their time during leisure,
traveling, entertainment etc. have not only positively affected the marketing of a product but the
maker to exhibit the product in and around the outlet employ more number to serve the customers,
when the consumer controlled more information about a product the more likely that they are to
form either a positive or negative attitude. To win over this kind of neutrality among the consumer
in the areas, marketers are engage in practice like cut-off coupon, free sample, direct marketing
etc. He further added that consumer behavior in the area is also positively influence by the
physicals, social and temporal factors surrounding the stimulus object. This sort of influence has
made the marketers to create different situations with music, air training, curtaining, close rooms,
playing equipment’s and other value added-services.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
1. To study the consumer buying behavior of essential commodities.
2. To analyze the consumer buying behavior of essential commodities during economic
blockades.
3. To examine consumer awareness on consumer rights in the rural market.
4. To extent appropriate suggestion based on the findings of the study.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The proposed study is categorized under exploratory research. The main purpose of exploratory
research study is that of expressing a problem for more precise study. The major emphasis in such
studies is on the discovering of ideas and insights. the research plan feel that this particular study
would understand the consumer behavior of rural consumers and reveal lot of new ideas and
insights on the various promotional strategies that can be applied by the organizations to knock
the remaining possible available sources for the products. Moreover, even after this study, this
kind of study can continue to remain elastic so that many different facts of problem may be careful
as and when they arise and come to the notice of any researcher who wants to proceed further on
the same lines. Hence, this exploratory research design has been selected. Statistical tools &
techniques would be used for examining & accepting data.

Research Hypotheses

• There is no substantial relationship between the education of the consumers and brand likings
for FMCGs.

• There is no significant relationship between the monthly incomes of the consumers and ingesting
of non-durables.

• FMCG sales are directly related with advertising and demographic factors.

RESEARCH AND FINDINGS

The research is done on the basis of the above circumstances and the perception of the rural
markets. The research is done on the basis of the market size the availability of the resources and
the other demographic factors that contribute towards the market growth and demand. According
to the present study the nature of rural market is volatile and it has no new acceptance level in the
market where there is demand but products are not available in that level and the products are also
not that much known to the customers. The rural market penetration level is bit less and has low
level of acceptance for any product where any new product comes into the market, the people are
not that much aware where the adoption curve for that particular product goes down.

Also the research has found that the customers for a particular product becomes loyal when the
product becomes the family brand or the brand has acceptability when it has its monetary worth.

The analysis shows the factors that influences the consumer perception towards any new product
which are-

1. Consumer attitude for a particular brand.

2. Availability for any brand that is demanded.
3. Packaging and labelling also affects the buying habits of the products.
 4. Rural market knowledge is very narrow that has limited products and no new things are
brought so early.
5. The demographic and regional factors like income, area, family background also affects
the buying for the fmcg products.

CONCLUSION

The research concludes that the perception of a rural consumer is not as equal as the perception of
an urban consumer. They are now able to realize the need of the product, wide awareness of the
product, and suitable information sources of the product. They derive features through their
experience of the product and make careful study on the negative effect and quality of product.
They also approach the product of FMCG and make suitable purchase decision but that depends
on the factors stated above. They are able to collect information of the product through Television
advertisements that adds to the penetration of new brands in the rural markets. Consumer prefers
the product, making the purchasing decision and expressing the satisfaction level themselves. The
self-governing background of the rural consumer plays a vigorous role in defining the behavioral
aspect as well as the royalty of brand. It will be important that companies and brand continue to
mix new functional and benefits in the coming years in order to continue growing the market and
to keep consumers engaged with the products and change their perceptions so as to have more
consumption of new products.

REFERENCES

[1] Anand, M.M., “Advertising and Sales Promotion Techniques in Rural India”, Indian
Management, 1974,13(3), pp.31-34.

[2] “All India Rural Debt and Investment Survey 1971-72”, Reserve Bank of India, Statistical
Tables, Volume I,1975.

[3] Aneja, R.K., “Pricing Strategies for Rural Markets”, The Economic Times, September 23,1993.
[4] Aneja, R.K., “Test Marketing of New Products in Rural Areas”, Economic and Political
Weekly, May 29,1993, pp.M77-M79.
[5] Balakrishna M.D. “Rural Marketing Myth and Reality”, Economic and Political weekly,
August, 1975, pp 1975, M80.

[6] Gangly, A.K., “Rural Marketing Strategy: Attempts to Explore New Areas”, Sedme, Vol.III,
No.2, June, 1981.

[7] Gupta, V.K.,” An Approach to Rural Marketing”, Indian journal of Marketing, Vol. 2, No.5,
Jan. 1972, pp. 12-20.