Rural Consumer Behaviour

Module 4

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Rural products and consumer behaviour
▪ Consumer buying process consists of sequential steps that the consumer follows to arrive at
the final buying decisions

▪ Mostly, consumers follow a typical buying process

▪ Marketer must know how consumers reach the final decision to buy the product

▪ Since, marketer is responsible for marketing and selling of goods in the market so the
marketer must have the knowledge how the consumers actually make their buying
decisions

▪ In many cases the companies presume that consumer buying is random process

▪ These companies carry out marketing activities based on hit and trial method

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Rural products and consumer behaviour
▪ There is a sequence of steps that most consumers go through before deciding whether to
make a purchase or not

▪ These stages can vary from consumers of urban to consumers of rural areas but normally
the following steps are by and large followed by the consumer

▪ In fact there are five stages to the consumer buying process and as a marketer if they can
understand each stage in a comprehensive manner then they can market a product,
offering or service to the consumers effectively

▪ Understanding consumer buying process enables the company to align the marketing
strategy accordingly

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Rural products and consumer behaviour
▪ Marketer can change or modify marketing programme based on the study of how the
product is used and disposed

▪ In case, when consumers are much creative, it is important to investigate how the product
is used or disposed

▪ Thus, consumer buying process is a process from problem recognition to reaction of buyers

▪ The entire process is important to the seller

▪ The process reflects most of factors affecting consumers

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Rural products and consumer behaviour
▪ Therefore, the marketer must study the buying process from consumer’s perspective

▪ Company must take certain steps to support consumers in each stage to buy its product

▪ The five stages framework is an important tool to evaluate the customer’s buying process

▪ John Dewey first introduced the following five stages in 1910

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Rural products and consumer behaviour

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Rural products and consumer behaviour: need identification
▪ The first and foremost step in the consumer buying behaviour is the need identification and
looking for solution for the satisfaction of the need

▪ The focus of rural marketers/producers is to identify and find out the needs of the urban
consumers and to find out the ways by which the rural products can be effectively offered
to the consumers for the satisfaction of their needs

▪ There are many products that the urban consumers are willing to purchase but they are not
aware about the sources from where the products can be bought

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Rural products and consumer behaviour: information search
▪ The second step relates to the search for information for the satisfaction of the stated
needs

▪ This step refers to the process of getting all the information about the product

▪ It is a stage in which a consumer searches for internal or external information

▪ This process is same for the urban consumers as well for the rural consumers

▪ The consumers need information about appropriate evaluative criteria, existence of

alternatives and performance of each alternative on evaluative criterion

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Rural products and consumer behaviour: information search
Various sources of information search are as follows and includes:

▪ Personal sources: family members, friends, and reference groups

▪ Commercial sources: Advertisements, Salespersons, promotional hoardings etc.

▪ Public Sources: Mass media

▪ Self-Experiments like handling the product, using samples of products like shampoo sachets
etc.

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Rural products and consumer behaviour: evaluation of alternatives
▪ This step focuses on the various alternatives available to the customer for the satisfaction
of needs

▪ In this stage, consumers evaluate all the product and brand options on attributes which
have the ability to deliver the benefit that the customer is seeking

▪ The products that consumers compare form their evoked set which is also called as
consideration set and it represent the alternatives being considered by consumers during
the problem-solving process

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Rural products and consumer behaviour: evaluation of alternatives
For example in the purchase of a carpet the decision criteria could be identified as follows:

▪ Price
▪ Design
▪ Support in terms of services and logistics
▪ Repairs
▪ Warranties
▪ Reliability
▪ Multiple uses

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Rural products and consumer behaviour: purchase decision
▪ This is the stage when the consumers make up their mind to make the particular purchase

▪ During this time, the consumer forms an intention to buy the brand because he has evaluated all
the alternatives and identified the value that it will bring him

▪ The purchase decision is also affected by the availability of products at a particular point of time
and changing nature of needs

▪ When a desired need is not fulfilled an alternate goal emerges

▪ Since the consumer has rational & emotional motivations, which are purely objective or subjective

▪ Therefore goal substitution occurs on non-attainment of the desired goal

▪ The final purchase decision can be disrupted by two factors which are negative feedback and
unanticipated situations like loss of job or closing down of retail store etc.

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Rural products and consumer behaviour: post-purchase behaviour
▪ The last stage of the consumer buying behaviour is the post purchase behaviour which
takes place after the product has been purchased

▪ It is a general tendency of the customer to be satisfied or dissatisfied after the product

purchase

▪ The post purchase behaviour is based upon the consumer’s own satisfaction arising due to
his preference for a more profitable option of the available alternatives

▪ The analysis of the psychological factors on the customer is done by the marketer to
understand the reasons for their purchases and post purchase behaviour

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Rural products and consumer behaviour: post-purchase behaviour
▪ Some companies nowadays engage with their consumers with post-purchase
communications in order to influence their feelings about their post purchases

▪ Methods like offering money back guarantees also enrich post-purchase communications
between the company and its consumers

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Consumer behaviour: rural vs. urban consumer
▪ The advertising strategy and other promotional tools used by the marketer plays an
important role in influencing the behaviour of the consumer

▪ Since the urban consumer is more informed due to exposure to the external environment
therefore the buying behaviour of the urban consumers is different as compared to the
rural consumers

▪ To understand and analyse the buying process of the consumer’s it is important that the
consumers are made aware of the products which are available in the market through
effective marketing strategies

▪ Due to the complex buying behaviour of the rural consumers the demand for the product is
low per capita and because of this reason the rural marketers must look for volume
business

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Consumer behaviour: rural vs. urban consumer
▪ Due to better infrastructure the accessibility and reach of the urban consumers is high and
also due to high income levels, high literacy rate and with high disposable income the
propensity to adopt a value offering product becomes high

▪ Therefore the marketers should approach the urban consumers as well as the rural
consumers with the products with marketing strategies especially catered for both the
urban and rural consumers

▪ The rural marketers apart from depending upon traditional methods like weekly haats,
festival, fairs and publicity vans for demonstrations and advertising should also focus on
technology and networking sites for promoting the product and selling the product

▪ Technology can be a game changer when it comes to selling the product to the urban
consumers

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Consumer behaviour: rural vs. urban consumer
▪ Apart from the above mentioned methods for promoting products television
advertisements has become a popular medium to advertise the product along with TV
advertisements

▪ Radio, newspapers in vernacular languages, wall hoardings, pamphlets also plays an

important role in the marketing the product

▪ The promotion of the rural products can also be done by offering complementary
products and price discounts

▪ Using the online platform for selling the product is also an effective medium

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Buying behaviour of Indian consumers
▪ The buying behaviour of the consumer refers to the stages which the consumer undergoes
before the actual purchase of the product for personal consumption

▪ The buying behaviour of the urban consumer is more complex as compared to the buying
behaviour of the rural consumers

▪ In view of this the marketer has to put in extra effort to understand the behaviour of the
urban consumers

▪ The Indian market huge and it offers tremendous opportunity to the companies to offer
their products and services

▪ For example, Gillette conducted a comprehensive research on the Indian consumers to

understand their behaviours

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Buying behaviour of Indian consumers
▪ The rural products which satisfy the needs and want of the urban consumer are always in
demand

▪ The reason for this is that the rural products are considered to be more environmental
friendly and less harmful for the environment

▪ The present trend shows that the urban consumers are more inclined towards the hand
made products by the rural producers

▪ The village theme restaurants and malls are very much in demand by the urban consumers

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Buying behaviour of Indian consumers
▪ About 66% of India’s population lives in rural areas

▪ The huge population offer immense scope for marketing of the rural products

▪ The combined Indian market consists of 6,00,000 villages in the country as against about
300 cities and 4600 towns and this combined figures make up the Indian consumer
market

▪ The urban consumers because of their typical buying behaviour always look for new and
innovative products

▪ They look for variety and innovativeness in the product

▪ Due to the changing buying patterns there is a tendency to try and purchase new products

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Buying behaviour of Indian consumers
▪ The urban consumers are diverse and this diversity brings different buying behaviour for
different class of consumers

▪ The urban consumers because of this diversity display vast differences in their purchase
decisions and product usage

▪ The urban consumers react differently to different products, colours, sizes, etc. in
different parts of India

▪ It is important to understand the Indian consumer psyche and needs before marketing
products to them

▪ Thus, the study of consumer behaviour becomes important for better understanding the
consumer so that marketers can tap the target market effectively

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Buying behaviour of Indian consumers
▪ In the end it’s important to mention here that different products have different consumer
decision making with the type of buying decision

▪ Expensive purchases are likely to involve more buyer involvement and more participants
as compared to the routine or cheap products

▪ As per some experts, the consumer buying behaviour can be categorized into four types
behaviour based on the degree of buyer involvement and the degree of differences among
different brands, as detailed on following slides

✓ Complex buying behaviour

✓ Dissonance-reducing buying behaviour
✓ Habitual buying behaviour
✓ Variety-seeking buying behaviour
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Complex buying behaviour
▪ Complex buying behaviour occurs when the consumer is highly involved with the purchase
and there are significant differences between brands

▪ In this type of buying behaviour the consumers purchase those types of products which are
costly and many times are one time purchases therefore the consumer invests
considerable time and effort in purchasing the product

▪ Since the products are costly and expensive these products are bought infrequently and
with much more deliberations

▪ The purchase of these products is risky and highly self-expressive

▪ For e.g. automobile, two-wheeler, house, high end jewellery etc.

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Dissonance-reducing buying behaviour
▪ The dissonance means dissatisfaction from the purchase of product which crops up after
the purchase of the product

▪ Sometimes the consumer is highly involved in the purchase of the high end product due
to the limited differences between the brands the differentiation becomes difficult

▪ The high involvement products are expensive, infrequent and risky

▪ ‘Dissonance’ can occur if consumers worry afterwards that they may have made the wrong
choice

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Dissonance-reducing buying behaviour
▪ Consumer will choose such products on the basis of price or convenience and seek
confirmation, after the purchase, of their decision

▪ Therefore, to reduce the dissonance the marketing communication should focus on

reducing the dissonance and making the consumer satisfied about the consumer’s choice
for his or her brand

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Habitual buying behaviour
▪ Habitual buying behaviour refers to situations where a consumer has low involvement in
a purchase, and perceives very few differences between products in a given product
category

▪ There are many products which fall in this category of routine purchases

▪ These types of products are frequently purchased and less risky

▪ These are low involvement products and less deliberations and time is given for the
purchase of these products

▪ Hence they are bought under conditions of low consumer involvement and the absence of
significant brand differences

▪ Most of them are everyday use products and commodities, such as salt and black pepper
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Variety-seeking buying behaviour
▪ It is the buying tendency of those consumers in which the consumers do not have a high
involvement with a product and there is a significant difference between brands

▪ These types of consumers seek variety for no genuine reasons and soon become bored
with products

▪ In many cases especially the urban consumers looks for variety in the products

▪ These products are also characterized by low consumer involvement but significant brand
differences

▪ The consumer may shift to the other brand due to the boredom or just because of simple
wish to try another product for a different taste

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Variety-seeking buying behaviour
▪ Due to the number of options in front of consumers, variety-seeking buyer behaviour
consumers typically do a lot of brand switching, or the decision of a consumer to
purchase a brand other than the one they have previously used or purchased

▪ Since the cost to change potato chip brands is relatively low, then you might change brands
strictly out of sheer boredom

▪ The marketer tries to encourage habitual buying behaviour of the consumers by

dominating the shelf space, avoiding out of stock conditions, sponsoring frequent reminder
advertising, offering lower prices, deals, coupons and free samples

▪ Variety-seeking buyer behaviours in consumers can cause a major problem for marketers

▪ The problem which all marketers wish to solve is that how they can fight consumers with
these behaviours
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Consumer behaviour strategies
▪ Marketing strategies are generally based on explicit and implicit beliefs about the
behaviour of the consumers

▪ The marketing decisions based on explicit assumptions and sound theoretical and practical
aspects are more likely to be successful as compared to the marketing decisions based
solely on implicit intuition

▪ The sound consumer behaviour knowledge can be an important tool for gaining
competitive advantage while formulating the marketing strategies

▪ It would be helpful in handling the risks and uncertainties of the marketing environment
effectively

▪ It can also reduce substantially the odds of bad decisions and market failures

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Consumer behaviour strategies
Some of the principles related to consumer behaviour which are kept under consideration by
the marketers for effective formulation of marketing strategies are as follows:

Analysing Market Opportunity

▪ Consumer behaviour helps in identifying the unfulfilled needs and wants of the consumers

▪ This requires scanning of the marketing environment and identification of the trends
operating in the market area, like customer’s lifestyles, income levels and technological
advancements in the market

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Consumer behaviour strategies
Some of the principles related to consumer behaviour which are kept under consideration by
the marketers for effective formulation of marketing strategies are as follows:

Selecting Target Market

▪ The scanning and evaluation of market opportunities helps in identifying different

consumer segments with varying wants and needs

▪ Identification of the target market and understanding the buying behaviour of the target
market helps the marketer to design products and services as per the requirements of the
target market

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Consumer behaviour strategies
Selecting Target Market

▪ Example − The market research have shown that consumers don’t prefer shampoo packs
priced at Rs 60 or more

▪ They would rather prefer a low price sachet containing sufficient quantity for one or two
washes

▪ This made companies to work on their marketing strategies to offer a product which
satisfies the unfulfilled need of the market, thus companies introduced shampoo sachets at
a minimal price which was very successful and helped the companies in generating higher
revenues

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Consumer behaviour strategies
Selecting Target Market

▪ Example −

▪ These strategies have been effective in launching of many successful products related to
the toiletries segment as well as the agro products

▪ The FMCG companies have been able to take the maximum advantage of this research and
the changing requirements of the consumer

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