An Assessmental Study on Factors Affecting Purchase Decision Based on Awareness, Affordability, Adoptability and Availability of FMCG Products in Rural India

The word marketing is proposed as an organizational steps and a sequence of processes which
creates communicates and deliver value to customers and maintains customer partnerships in order
to provide advantages to the organization and its stake holders. According to Kotlar “Marketing is a
social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want
through creating, offering and freely exchanging products and services of value with others”. Another
marketing activity is rural marketing where one protagonist participant belongs to the rural area. The
growth of electronic media and its reach to rural India has given thrust to certain products and
services which was once considered as the copyright of the urban users. Since the rural population
has a great potential therefore in the last one decade or so, a number of companies, including
multinationals, have begun to woo the rural consumer. This signifies that rural marketing comprises of
input and output marketing of products or services between rural areas and other topographical areas.
Such marketing is merchandise that has been specifically designed for the non-urban consumers
along with the glossaries which in particular suits their needs and to make them acquainted about the
products which they are not aware of. The motive of this paper is to know about the rural markets and
the factors which affect the buying decision of rural consumers on HUL’s FMCG products. The paper
attempts to comprehend the rural market, significance and present scenario of rural market in the
context of FMCG products. The principal objective of the study is to analyze the strength and
opportunities of HUL’s FMCG in rural markets of India especially in U.P. East and investigate various
problems that are being encountered by the rural marketer.