Rural Marketing for MFM

Rural market is defined as those consisting of villages and small towns having less than 1 million population. It represents a market of 1 million consumers and USD 1 trillion market. It represents 56% of India's income and 64% of the spending and 33% of the savings. Also it is the largest consumption market for FMCG and durables. ( Source )

Rural markets represent a great potential as far as India is concerned. As per Mr Pradeep Kashyap, founder and CEO Mart, a knowledge based consulting firm on emerging markets, the biggest challenge is to  reach your product to 600,000 villages as compared to 5000 towns in urban India. 

Talking of textiles, the views are very different. As per a report in 2010, rural market is not very attractive for textile industry. A need is felt to cater to the need of the rural markets. The marketing strategies would have to be volume based. It should be low value and high volume garments which the rural markets can afford. 

As far as Ready Made Garment Sector is concerned, despite being a big chunk of India's population- about 70%, the rural market segment contributes only 54 per cent of the total domestic RMG industry in 2011. 

Talking of the categories- Saris, trousers, salwaar kameez, jeans and T-shirts account for more than 60% of the domestic RMG market ( value terms). Volume of shirts, trousers, jeans and T-shirts in the rural areas is higher than as compared to urban areas. However, as the unit realisations of these categories are higher in urban areas, their market size is higher in the urban areas. For Sarees and salwaar kameez, the gap in realisations in rural and urban areas is the least among the above-mentioned six major categories. Moreover, owing to higher sales volumes, the market size of sarees and salwar kameez in rural areas is higher than in urban areas ( Source - CRISIL)