In the present liberalized era, Indian rural marketing throws great challenges and opportunities to all the people in the rural marketing chain. There is a noteworthy increase in the agricultural production due to the recent advancements in agro-sciences, biotechnology, mechanization, cooperative movements and active involvement of the central and state governments, which, apart from meeting the local requirements, provides surplus for exports too. Moreover, increasing knowledge of fertilizers and pesticides, effective use of water resources, quality seeds, and modern farm equipments have made a sea change in the Indian agricultural sector. Not only the rural masses have accepted the modern way of agriculture as a business but have also accepted the modern way of living. The socio-economic changes in villages have made them think of material well-being. Their consumption pattern has also undergone a considerable change in recent times. They have become choosy in buying. From purchasing only the essentials, they have moved on to purchase what was earlier considered as a luxury item. These include durables like bicycles, television sets, transistor radios and even refrigerators. As a result, many Indian and multinational companies are rushing to rural India to market their products.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many of the FMCG companies penetrated into the rural markets because they had already established themselves in the urban markets and the growth in these areas was becoming stagnant. At the same time, they found that the lower income groups in the rural India served as assured markets. The overall growth of the Indian economy, the central and respective state governments' initiatives to uplift the rural economy, investments in new industrial estates and the IT enclaves, land reforms, rural electrification, rural communication and rural micro credit facilities especially to the Self-Help Groups (SHGs) all combined to generate employment and higher income in the rural economy.
Due to the increasing literacy rate and the media explosion, brand consciousness is on an upswing in rural India, and this clubbed with increasing disposable income of the rural households, has made the rural consumer selective in buying the products. Also, there is a gradual shift in the use of categories and upgradation in terms of the form of the product used, for example, rural households are upgrading themselves from using traditional mosquito repellents such as gobar to using coils to mats. Also, there is an upgradation in brand products, like the local or unbranded products have been replaced by the multinational brands and the low-priced brands by the premium brands.
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