Dignity drives purchasing decisions for South African low income consumers
There is so much I was going to say when I came across this snippet in the news about South African consumer habits among the lower income folk for yesterday’s post. I am not convinced by the framing of the interpretation of the qualitative data but that’s an embedded SA problem with qualitative research in […]
Seasonality as an element of contextual planning for emerging consumer markets
Growing up as a Hindu expat in multicultural ‘West Malaysia’ of the 1970s and 80s, it was a matter of course that every festival would be a big occasion. We had Christmas in December, and Chinese New Year soon after, to be followed by Hari Raya (Eid) and Deepawali – each of them deserving of […]
Research Question: Why is the informal retail sector so persistent and resilient?
Retailing in India is currently estimated to be a USD 200 billion industry, of which organised retailing makes up 3% or USD 6.4 billion. By 2010, organized retail is projected to reach USD 23 billion and in terms of market share it is expected to rise by 20 to 25%. (Sinha et all, 2007) These […]
Is the pay per use business model changing household purchasing dynamics?
The process of writing the previous post on India’s energy efficient cook-stove development efforts made me pause and reconsider my assumptions. Here’s the snippet that struck me in the article. Philips took its India stove to more mature markets in Africa, where a raft of foreign-funded stove projects had familiarised customers with the product. This […]
Purchasing Patterns in Cash Based Markets and Informal Economy
When cash flow is irregular and not always unpredictable, both in amount and frequency, such as it is for the majority earning a living in the informal economy, buyer behavior is not quite the same as for mainstream consumers with access to credit cards and regular paychecks. I’ve quite often made reference to how operating primarily […]
Breaking bulk and profiting at the margins
Michael sent me this information from Nairobi last week. He’d spotted informal retail within the context of a mini-supermarket – known as traditional trade in the jargon of consumer product distribution and retail. He adds, “So 500 ml of Rina cooking oil retails for 120KES, 1 litre for 195 KES. What the owner of this […]
How I Use My Phone – Extracting consumer insights from purchasing patterns
The Mobile Experience Center of the Co-Creation Hub in Lagos, Nigeria conducted a survey series – How I Use My Phone – where they looked at phone use among university students, white collar professionals, blue collar workers and market traders*. I’ve screen-capped the section on airtime purchase patterns from each infographic to analyze a little […]
Part 3: Synthesis and Insights from original research on rural economic behaviour
One can conclude from synthesizing the data collected across the geographies and the range of “BoP” income levels that rural households demonstrated similar patterns of behaviour in their management of household expenses on irregular income streams. These are: the rapid conversion of cash into tangible assets such as goods or livestock, the subsequent storage of […]
Informal payment plans offer flexibility and convenience
Rural electronics shops in the North Meru region of Kenya are full of colour television sets, home stereos and DVD players as increasing electrification of smaller and smaller market towns takes place. How do aspiring customers pay for these high value items on their variable income streams? Since shop owners tend to know the great […]
Convenience as a service
Convenience can mean different things to the household consumer, depending on their location. In urban Chicago, its stocking up the freezer and pantry with a trip to a megastore like Costco while in Singapore it might be the ubiquitous neighbourhood hawker stand where rice, meat, two veg can be had for as little as $2.50 […]
