Introduction

First place of technological advancement has revolutionized almost every sphere of social, economic, political and cultural life across the world. Consequent drastic changes are visible in the way we produce, reduce cost, distribute the produced goods and expect higher profits. The focus is on tapping the unexplored markets. Computing and communication technology (together called information technology) has made the world global village. Liberalization of trade restrictions and regulation of domestic capital markets has further intensified competition, urban markets have saturated. This led to force the companies to redesign their marketing strategies and look to rural markets for expansion. Foreign companies are also trying their best to tap the rural market. Rural consumers have also realized that they need to be served better and have started to demand standardized quality goods that are advanced reliable and low priced. Rural markets are thus getting tougher and more and more competitive day by day. 

Rural Marketing Concept

It has been mammoth task to study Indian Villages on the grounds of marketing. Academicians, researchers and scholars have made tremendous efforts to, research in rural marketing from their own perspectives and bring out the fact a float.

Eminent personalities have written on rural marketing in book form as well. Fortune lies at the bottom of pyramid is one to quote. It is not only because urban market is saturated and then a part of market development strategy corporate is turning up to rural market. The very demographic features of rural markets are changing.

Various institutions, research agencies, academicians and government agencies have published statistical data on rural marketing. Massive data is available which sometimes misleads students and researchers. Present unit on rural marketing is written to give directions to students to study further with the help of references about rural marketing.

Definition

According to the National Commission on Agriculture, “Rural Marketing is a process which starts with a decision to produce a saleable farm commodity and it involves all the aspects of market structure or system, both functional and institutional, based on technical and economic considerations and includes pre and post-harvest operations, assembling, grading, storage, transportation and distribution”.

Thompson states, “the study of rural marketing comprises all the operations and the agencies conducing them, involved in the movement of farm produced, food, raw materials and their derivatives, such as textiles, from the farms to the final consumers and the effects of such operations on producers, middlemen and consumers”.