Quality Tested Re-fubrished Goods Market in India
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 10th June 2016
With greater penetration of Electricity in rural areas, there has been no corresponding rise in entertainment electronics or mobile feature/smart phones. Neither has electric pumps or motors or other agri-implements shown signs of improvements. While we continue to have gung-ho news of villages getting electrified. This points to either a continued struggle for households to get metered connections in rural areas although distribution companies seems to be buying more since there seems to be growth in generation.
This is even though it is well known that rural areas are hungry for such goods, but lack of electricity has definitely help up the demand in rural areas.The other reasons possibly for lack of growth could be lack of efforts on the market development side by the electronics and associated industry keen to break into this market.
Unlike in developed countries, electronic hardware in India doesn't change so easily with advent of technological progress for most households. The products are used for a much longer duration and replacement is basically an event. Therefore most vendors in urban centres normally promise a good replacement discounts and web-based used goods market has sprung up.
The used good's buyers again expect the used goods to be of use to them for a considerable period and more so if they are from rural areas with low income and investing significant amount of their income on these wares.Purchase of electronics or mobile phones is expected to be dicey since the repairs may not be easily available amongst the semi-skilled talent available in rural areas. So purchase of these used goods with no certification or replacement warranty say for up to six months, is considered a big risk.
In such a scenario, a word from the used widget buyers with their shops in the city or sundry sellers on used goods selling sites are hardly providing any confidence to opening up of the markets. What the market basically requires is product companies themselves to step in. whereby they create a market for their own widgets which may have been used at least once. This may allow the company to upsell in the urban centres and retain customer/user base, while they get to penetrate rural areas with a marked down used product which has been tested and certified by them possibly with some "return if not satisfied" policy.
While the market players continue to perform the task in some form however the markets by themselves are not efficient. Besides the Indian vendors do need to differentiate themselves in understanding of the markets from the MNCs in this space rather than playing by the rules of the MNCs with the policies/processes followed by them globally. The Indian product companies may also have the option to promote associated ventures for the ventures with necessary transfer of knowledge and beef up products like mobiles with software upgrades or pre-package it with suitable apps to the benefit of new targeted client base.
There could also be possibility of participating in some skilling program for training of sales-cum-service certified professionals in rural areas who make take up such small business ventures.It may be noted that such a market provides a healthy base for the automobile industry's growth even when the used automobile undergoes considerable wear and tear during their lifecycle. A healthy engagement point with customer looking to change the product while giving new entry level price points for customers who may be willing to own used products might do well for the companies in the segment who are up against global rivals. It should require MNCs to open up such markets by specifically entering with used products.