Family Decision-Making in the Indian Hinterland: Lessons for the Marketers

Abstract

Given that India is one of the world‘s largest consumer markets and is an emerging world economic champion too, this market presents a potentially vast untapped source for research and business. 69% of Indian population is residing in villages (Census, 2011), these rural markets demonstrate linguistic, regional diversities and economic disparities, and hence are considered to be more complex to deal with than the urban markets.  This paper attempts to explore the dynamics of family purchase behavior in the rural context by means of a survey of 152 families from eight villages of Aligarh district (Uttar Pradesh, India). The study empirically investigates the relative involvement of family members in the different stages of decision making. The impact of members‘ position in the family has been tested on  in the purchase decision stages (idea initiation, information collection and final decision) for specific products and  also product related sub-decisions (amount to be spent, when to purchase, what brand, type, size, color and quantity to purchase and from which dealer). Statistical tools like Kruskal-Wallis-H test have been employed to analyze the data collected.