Rural Retailing in India
Rural Retailing in India-The Road Ahead
Shikhar Das Srivastava*
ABSTRACT The decision to liberalize the Indian Economy in 1991 had far reaching consequences, which is still continued into the new millennium also. On the marketing front, there was the arrival of many well-known Multi National Companies especially FMCG product dealers. In the initial years the focus was on the easily accessible well developed urban markets but soon it got saturated because of proliferation of brands and intense competition, resulting in the near saturation of the urban market. This forced companies to look for greener pastures, i.e. new markets. All eyes turned to the world’s most promising potential markets of 742 million rural consumers who had yet to taste the fruits of modernity, a promise that seemed ready to be fulfilled because of explosion in buying capacity in rural sector. Rural markets are proving to be vital for growth of most companies. Priority to develop the rural markets and sincere efforts to overcome the difficulties would open the floodgates, offering tremendous potential for growth. This paper will reveal such major opportunities existing in rural sector for many major retail players and how they are cashing the present and future gains out of that.
*Assistant Professor, Babu Banarsi Das University, Lucknow
1
Rural Retailing in India-The Road Ahead
Shikhar Das Srivastava*
1. Introduction: Even after independence, Indian economy is still being dominated by agriculture sector and the major reasons behind this- (i) its contribution in food grain production which is consumed by both rural and urban market and (ii) self-employment. Considering this fact, Central Govt. and other State Govt. have been emphasizing developments of rural areas through investments in different sections like infrastructure, agricultural technology and farm productivity. In addition to this private investors also considering rural as Creamy sector and dominantly supposing as
Shikhar Das Srivastava*
ABSTRACT The decision to liberalize the Indian Economy in 1991 had far reaching consequences, which is still continued into the new millennium also. On the marketing front, there was the arrival of many well-known Multi National Companies especially FMCG product dealers. In the initial years the focus was on the easily accessible well developed urban markets but soon it got saturated because of proliferation of brands and intense competition, resulting in the near saturation of the urban market. This forced companies to look for greener pastures, i.e. new markets. All eyes turned to the world’s most promising potential markets of 742 million rural consumers who had yet to taste the fruits of modernity, a promise that seemed ready to be fulfilled because of explosion in buying capacity in rural sector. Rural markets are proving to be vital for growth of most companies. Priority to develop the rural markets and sincere efforts to overcome the difficulties would open the floodgates, offering tremendous potential for growth. This paper will reveal such major opportunities existing in rural sector for many major retail players and how they are cashing the present and future gains out of that.
*Assistant Professor, Babu Banarsi Das University, Lucknow
1
Rural Retailing in India-The Road Ahead
Shikhar Das Srivastava*
1. Introduction: Even after independence, Indian economy is still being dominated by agriculture sector and the major reasons behind this- (i) its contribution in food grain production which is consumed by both rural and urban market and (ii) self-employment. Considering this fact, Central Govt. and other State Govt. have been emphasizing developments of rural areas through investments in different sections like infrastructure, agricultural technology and farm productivity. In addition to this private investors also considering rural as Creamy sector and dominantly supposing as
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