Exploring Indian Rural Market – Prospects and Problems

In the recent years rural market have acquired significance and attract the attention of marketers as 68.84% population of India reside in 6, 38,000 villages and overall growth of economy has resulted into substantial increase in the purchasing power of the rural communities. Due to green revolution, the rural areas are consuming a large quantity of industrial and manufactured products. In this way rural market offers opportunities in the form of large untapped market, increase in disposable income, increase in literacy level and large scope for penetration. To take the advantage of these opportunities, a special marketing strategy ‘Rural Marketing’ has emerged. Though there is huge potential and substantial growth opportunities in the rural markets, yet there are some challenges too, which caused hurdles in tapping rural markets. This study is a step forward in exploring various strategies to be adopted in the rural market along with the current scenario of rural marketing, highlighting key challenges related to rural marketing.