Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Background/Objectives: This study reveals the propensity of rural customers towards various retail formats during the purchase of both durables and non-durables. Capturing the behavior pattern of rural customers will shed us light as there is a vast change in the buying behavior of rural consumers. As a result, retail giants have developed many strategies to create huge market space and they have realized that all the rural consumers do not have common buying behavior. Hence this study is very much necessary to find out the perception of rural customers during the purchase of both durable and non-durable products with respect to various retail format shops. Methods/Analysis: Mean and standard deviation was calculated and the difference between the population groups as samples was found out using ANOVA. Findings: The results of the study confirmed that rural consumers prefer to go to nearby Kirana shops (mean = 3.19), weekly markets (3.1717) followed by street hawkers (3.1196). For purchasing durables they prefer to go to retail outlets and for non-durables they preferred weekly markets and retail outlets. Applications/Improvements: The managerial implications of the present study will thus help retailers to frame effective marketing strategies to face the competition.
Keywords: Durable Goods, Non-Durable Goods and Preferences, Rural Customers