A Mobile Shop In Rural India - The Real Life MBA
We try to understand the business environment in villages and we get a brief idea due to topics such as Marketing to Bottom of Pyramid. Many marketers are identifying villages as the next place for FMCGs to be. In class, it made me cringe when city folks made blanket statements such as “women in villages do not go and shop, so no need to target them”. Or “Villagers are only concerned about food and electronic devices are a luxury to them” So, I decided to interview a mobile shop owner in my village Munavalli – a dusty, desolate place –in the state of Karnataka. It offered mobile phones and accessories for sale as well as repair, which was outsourced to third party in big cities. It also sold SIM cards. It had a photocopy machine which is used for in-house work as well as compliment the sale of SIM cards, since buyers would need photocopies to buy them. Services include top-ups, downloading songs, videos etc. Furthermore, they have license as Patanjali distributors and have stocked few FMCG products of theirs.







