FMCG market in India Rural Retail focus.

Rural India contributes 36% to overall FMCG spends and has historically been growing 3-5% The overall FMCG market clocked a value growth of 7.3% in Q3 of 2019 compared with a 16.2% growth in Q3 of 2018. points faster than urban.

Key factors on rural marketing in Tamilnadu.

These are national brands like ITC, HLL, Britannia, Marico, gsk and Similar….

Then there are state specific players like Cavin care,cholayil group, Lion dates, Rajah, Anil, Aachi, Shakti masala,Manna, A2B, ELITE, NAGA among the long list.

Then there are area specific players like Durga in salem and erode region in Tamil Nadu who has a premium quality, premium pricing and demand is so much so that you need to book one week before by paying full cash advance.

Their price is atleast 15% higher than the national players like ITC and Unilever.

Rajah aata, from Kajah FMCG
Rajah Aata and semiya is a prominent player
Anil semiya had introduced several health options and millets based foods

Durga semiya caters to a very small market yet they charge a premium and consumers willing to pay

Then There are local players and bulk suppliers. What is otherwise called loose sales. Or unorganised retail.

Other key factors in rural FMCG retail.

“Power of local connect-The people in that area may know the owner or they may have a nostalgic connection with the brand.

Some Companies might not have changed their formula or taste for several years and is still Continuing for eg rkg and kalimark and maybe dashprakash or Dinshaw ice cream.

This 84 year ghee brand has been dominating the ghee market in Tamil Nadu and Kerala let's not forget this is a flavoured ghee not cow ghee.

RKG is a prominent player in South Indian ghee market despite being a flavoured ghee and not cow ghee.

RKG ghee most popular ghee in South, since 1934, it’s a flavoured ghee not cow ghee.Other popular ghee brands in Tamil Nadu are
Bovonto

A classical case is that of bovinto from kalimark that have made even multi national like coco cola beverages to introduce their version of a product that is directly competing with bovinto from kalimark and interestingly coco cola named it “colour” highly debatable name for a soft drink as colour is not a good word as far as food is concerned, yet coco cola decided to go ahead with name colour because that is a local slang which consumers of bovinto use to ask for the product “oru colour kotungal” which means get a bottle of colour.

Besides the key factors mentioned above there are few key pointers are

Service.

Since there are so many brands that have come and gone so there is always doubts in the mind of shopkeepers if they would get service from such companies as2 always.

So they keep a track on how often the company visit the market and if they are convinced that this company visit every week then the shopkeepers confidence increase and along with this if companies come up with attractive scheme they will definitely take your product.

Service also includes taking back unsold stock replacing it with new and movable stock and a mentality of excellent after sales support is very important for regional players which most national and multinational companies does not offer.

Distributor tactics

Another important observation is that a whole sales distributor split the SKU of same company and send different sales guys on different days selling the same category of product. For example a biscuit distributor of Britannia biscuit send one sales guy for tiger biscuits and send another sales guy for milk bikis this is done so that the shopkeepers has different person to deal with and different dates for payments and not all is spend on the same agency.

Vehicle branding is another key marketing visibility to the company if the shopkeepers observe your vehicle with your products displayed is moving through that route more often then they will stop your vehicle and ask for your products so even if you run an empty vehicle with your brand and product logo displayed then you can create brand recall and product enquiry.

Report by

Hisham Kabir

[email protected]

Celebrity endorsements works in regional markets, plus vehicle branding is a great brand visibility

 

Author: Hisham Kabir
An MBA with 18+ years of experience, spanning senior roles across multiple industry verticals as an account manager with B2B Sales & Business Development in Events and Marketing, Food Buying sourcing and procurement, FMCG, New Product Development, F&B, Catering & Banquet, End to End Event Operations Management. LinkedIn sales navigator expert. LinkedIn helper2 sales automation and Zoho CRM. Extensive functional expertise in successfully managing end-to-end aspects of F&B operations spanning the front and back-office operations within budgeted guidelines and to the highest standards. People Management – Experienced in recruiting, training and managing F&B teams - Most recently managed a 50+ strong cross-functional team. Proven track record of managing 400+ catering events including numerous high-volume corporate and social events with more than 5000 pax. Further to MBA, completed a Management development programme in sales management from IIM which is among the leading business management school in India. Later ventured into independent entrepreneurial business by launching and retailing a ready-to-cook food gravy paste brand using retort technology called freedom kitchen. With significant insights into front-end retailing and a strong background in the Retail Industry, I shifted to Corporate Path by joining a food-based FMCG company as part of their rural market expansion.  My expertise is in operational excellence, channel sales development, team management, client relationship development, and Event Operations Management. large ticket banquet Management, Menu planning, costing and P&L, and people management. Driven by a passion for advertising have conducted an exhibition titled walk through the history of Volkswagen beetle. where I showcased several print ads released by Volkswagen Beetle in North America from 1958 to 1971. You can follow blogs on www.buyologist.in dealing with trends in marketing and advertising and behavioural economics.

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