Factors influencing Rural Consumer purchase decision

Socio-cultural Factors

Socio-cultural environment is an important part of environment culture, traditions, beliefs, values and lifestyle of the people within a limitation of society constitute the socio-cultural environment.

The following elements play a big role in the decision-making stage to a large extent as to what the people will buy and how they will consume.

Culture

Culture is the combination of factors like religion, language, education and upbringing. Accurate information on the consumption habits, lifestyle and buying behavior of the rural people can be obtained through a survey of the socio-cultural environment.

Cultural shifts carry the marketing opportunity as well as threats and also carry the cultural dynamics, the needs and feelings of rural people which need to be understood.

Social Class

Social class is one of the main concepts in socio-cultural environment. A society consists of different social classes and all social classes are determined by income, occupation, literacy level etc. of its members. Each class has its own class values according to lifestyle, behavior etc. These values have a strong consumption pattern and paying behavior of the member of the class.

Social and Cultural Environment

The society and polity across the country varies between different religions, castes and linguistic groups. Common socio-cultural behavior has been mapped as distinct sociocultural regions, which may be spread across political boundaries. The influence of social practices shows itself in consumer preference for product features, product size, shape and color.

The source of information also gets influenced by social practices. Along with cultural dynamics, the needs feelings of rural people also need to be understood. Marketers would first understand this and then design and launch products accordingly. For example, Cadbury’s has launched Chocobix, a chocolate- flavored biscuit, on the basis of research theory and understanding that rural mothers will always opt for biscuits instead chocolates for their children.

Caste System

Indian Society had a scheme of social gradation, with the Brahmins at the head of the hierarchy, followed by the Kshatriyas, the Vaishya’s and the Shudras at the bottom. The castes in themselves have sub-castes which are claiming social supremacy over the other.

Marketers have to be sensitive towards the caste systems and accordingly products in rural areas. While developing advertisements, brand communication and promotion plans, marketers should have to be sensitive to ensure relevance of characters and message which doesn’t affect any caste system.

Population

India is the largest democracy in the world occupying 2.4 percent of the world’s geographical area and supports 16 percent of whole world population. More than 72 per cent of the total population of our country resides in rural areas.

The estimated size of India’s rural consumers can be estimated from the following table. This table highlights the rural and urban population of India between 1981 and 2001 −

According to this table, around 72 percent of the total population of our country lives in rural areas. This provides the marketers a larger market as compared to the urban market. So, growth in population is the main contributing factor that leads the marketers to have an eye on this particular segment.

In terms of the number of the people, the Indian rural market is almost twice of the entire market of the USA and the USSR. But we have to consider other factors while studying rural marketing environment like occupation pattern, spending pattern, economic reforms, source of income generation and infrastructure facilities etc.

The above table shows you the population and its growth between 1901 and 2001 and also how it is now growing rapidly.

Though the proportion of rural population to total population of country is showing a slight decrease over the years, but in absolute numbers rural population is increasing at a higher rate than the urban population. The increasing rate of population in rural areas provides scope for marketing of consumer durables goods and services.

Occupation

Occupational pattern of rural people also has an impact on the nature of income generation, which will in turn affect the expenditure pattern. Purchase behavior of the rural consumers depends upon the nature of occupation and the consistency in the generation of income.

A major section of the rural population relies on agriculture and allied activities for occupation. So, the income in the hands of rural people is very much conditioned by the status of agriculture and other allied activities.

Literacy Level

The literacy level of rural people has a considerable impact on the marketing strategies to be adopted by the marketing team especially in communication with the rural people. Higher the level of literacy, the easier it becomes for companies to penetrate into rural areas.

From the table, we can make out that there has been a rise in the literacy rate during the last two decades, changes in the literacy rate from 1991 was only marginal. It can be further noticed that only 45 percent of rural people are literate in our country even today.

Land Distribution & Use

One of the main obstacles for marketers to exploit the rural market potential has been the largeness of rural markets in terms of the areas it covered. It is much easier to divide it according to the needs of the urban population because of concentration, but it is very difficult in the case of rural market because of their widespread nature.

The following table shows the distribution of villages in India:

This clearly shows that rural population is distributed in almost about 638365 villages. It is also noted that villages are not uniform in size. About 42 percent of the villages in India has population of less than 500 people in it.