Indian rural households collectively account for 57% of the current consumption and hold great opportunities both for the Indian and global marketers. The growing prosperity of the Indian rural consumers, with rising incomes, changing lifestyles and shifting demographic profile, challenges the marketers in terms of product pioneering, rapid penetration and easy accessibility of different products. This study makes an effort to identify the market segments available based on rural Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles (VALs); develop a consumer buying behavior scale both for the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and durable products; and identify and access the product categories and penetration level of a few identified products in the rural areas. The study is a combination of exploratory and descriptive research with a total sample size of 400 taken from two important districts of North-East India. The study reveals six clusters with distinctively different VALs characteristics. Pricing, availability and promotions are found to significantly affect the purchase decisions of FMCGs; further with body and hair care products having the highest penetration among rural consumers. Whereas product levels and availability contribute positively in case of purchase of CDs with bicycles and mobile phones having highest penetration among durables in rural markets.

Rural’ is any habitation with a population density of less than 400 per sq. km, where at least 75% of the male working population is engaged in agriculture and where there exists no municipality or board (Census of India, 2011). The term ‘rural’ is a viable analytic, empirically referent in reality (Miller and Luloff, 1981) and a multidimensional concept (Redfield, 1947). Rural marketing involves establishing, stimulating and converting the purchasing power into an effective demand for specific products and services in rural areas to create satisfaction (Kashyap and Raut, 2007). The philosophy behind rural marketing is marketing with social concepts, developmental marketing and relationship marketing (Oliver, 2008). In the rural market, consumers as a segment has several distinctive characteristics. The values, aspirations and needs of the rural consumers are different. There are also variations in the buying behavior, income levels and the macro and micro environment of consumers where they are located. Therefore, rural markets require a different marketing approach to cater to the needs of the rural consumers.

Marketing Management Journal, Predicting, Customer Satisfaction, The Mobile Value-Added Services (MVAS), Application of Multiple Regression, M-Commerce, M-Education, M-Health, M-Entertainment, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA).