Strategies, Opportunities and Challenges of Rural Markets in India

Rural market is getting an importance because of the saturation of the urban market. As due to the competition in the urban market, the market is more or so saturated as most of the capacity of the purchasers has been targeted by the marketers. So the marketers are looking for extending their product categories to an unexplored market i.e. the rural market. In recent years, rural markets have acquired significance in countries like China and India, as the overall growth of the economy has resulted into substantial increase in the purchasing power of the rural communities. On account of the Green Revolution in India, the rural areas are consuming a large quantity of industrial and urban manufactured products. The market scenario in the rural areas today is changing very rapidly. The boundaries of nation are disappearing, technological changes are taking place at the flash of an eye, standards are undergoing changes in no time and so are the fortunes of various organizations. Rural families have shown no intentions of cutting down their expenditures on weddings, pilgrimages, construction or consumption. They have their own set of aspirations and are willing to pay right price for right product. It is very difficult for the companies to overlook the opportunities they could from rural markets. As Two - Thirds of Indian population lives in rural areas, the market is much unexpected for the companies to be successful in rural markets. They have to overcome certain challenges. The present paper has been covered to know the rural market status in India, the identification of different Rural Marketing Strategies, to highlight the Opportunities and Challenges of rural marketing in India, to offer suggestions to overcome challenges of rural marketing in India.