Comparative study of rural and urban consumers with regard to FMCG

Today there is a huge scope of FMCG market in India as 9 million retail stores among 12–13 million stores in India belongs to FMCG category and the Indian FMCG sector is the fourth largest sector in the economy. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine consumer behaviour for the purchase of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) by equally dividing the sample consumers in rural and urban markets. Rural markets in India are big attraction these days. Marketers need to understand rural markets differently for the future prospects. A comparative study has been carried out to understand how rural and urban consumers buying behavior differ in respect to different factors affect on their buying behaviour. The study was based on the sample of 100 (50 from urban and 50 from rural area) households across the Ambala District of Haryana selected on the basis of non-probability convenience sampling. FMCGs are divided into five categories i.e. Personal Care, Cosmetic & Toiletries, Household Cleaners, Food, Health & Beverages and Paper Products. From these above categories Food, Health and Beverages Products have been selected for the study. India is one of the fastest growing markets of the world. The potential not only lies in the urban India but in the rural India also. The study has been carried out to know whether and how demographic, income, education, lifestyle have influenced in buying branded and non-branded products by rural households from that of urban households.