Advantages Of Availability Of Rural Market

Availability
The first challenge in rural area is that of product availability. One may design the best product and yet not sell it because it is simply not available of the final customer. But having said this Indian rural market has huge potential because 1 in 8 individuals in this world reside in Indian villages. But the reason why they are underserved is because of the challenges in accessing them. The diverse terrain and inadequate infrastructure mean that getting products to every individual in the village is prohibitively expensive.
The present status is that roughly 2.25 Lack out of 6 lack villages have a shop. Villages with population of less than 2000 are not targeted by the companies as cost of distribution makes it unviable. Moreover,

With low disposable incomes, products need to be affordable to the rural consumer, most of who are on daily wages. This leads to them spending a chunk of their salaries on rent food and clothing. This product was targeted to people who had a monthly income of more than Rs. 9000.
Godrej also had to ensure that the price was high enough so that future adjustments could be made based on the inevitable emergence of competition. Already there were reports that a product on similar lines called Mittikool was also being launched in the market. Hence, entering the market on rock bottom prices may not give it any room for adjustments later.
On the other hand rural customers were very price conscious. There focus is more on the core benefit of the product. Rural consumers would not pay for frills associated with the product but expect full utility. It is for this reason that pricing has been corrected so that it communicates the utility of the product.
Godrej initially launched two versions of it at Rs. 3500 and Rs. 4000, now though the prices have increased to range between 4000-5000 this being for various designs and capacity (43 Litres and 30 Litres). This was priced at less than half the cheapest

In the past 18 lectures we have learnt that rural markets have many distinct characteristics. The behavior of rural consumers is distinctly different from their counterparts in cities. Appealing to individuals does not reap high dividends. People in rural areas usually take collective buying decisions. For a consumer durable product like refrigerator, which is considered to be a non-essential item, gaining acceptability was always an uphill task. What complicates things even more is that, rural people are usually very sceptical of such products in the beginning, and they would try out such products first before going out and buying it.
For acceptability they took care of a lot of minute yet significant details like color, size, shape etc. of the product.
Color: During their initial trials it was observed that villagers took very positively to the canky red and blue color.
Shape: They went for a cuboidal shape where all three dimensions were similar to each other. This made it almost cubical and hence easier to carry around. Such a shape also meant that it can be kept on top of other things in a shop and house. Front opening made the operation of the product easier for the customer.

Size: During the initial research people said that one of the reasons for not buying a refrigerator was that people owned very small houses and shops and hence they simply did not have the required place