Consumer Behaviour in Rural Market: A Study on Buying Behaviour of Rural Consumers in Manipur

Abstract

A consumer is one who buys any goods or services, by paying its price, either for his own consumption or for his livelihood. Therefore, everybody is a consumer in one way or the other way. Philosophers and thinkers have regarded consumers as the base of every business. But it is still a common practice that businessmen exploit the consumer with regard to quality, quantity, weight, price and the related factor involved in the daily business transaction. Ignorance is one of the prominent factors contributing in the exploitation and most prevalent among the rural mass. Hence, keeping in view the vital goal of consumer welfare, grass root level survey has initiated to observed, understand and analyze the behavior of the rural consumers with particular to weaker section, This study covered one district namely Churachandpur district of Manipur. Stratified sampling methods were used. The sample area is stratified into six 6 development blocks from where data and other related information were collected. The sampling unit consisting of 24 villages, approximately 4% sample of the 612 villages of the selected district were chosen by applying convenient Sampling technique e.i. Parbung( 57 of 4%) 2  villages, Thalon ( 47 0f 4%) 2 villages, Churachandpur (243 of 4%) 10 villages, Henlep (96 0f 4%) 3 villages, Samulamlan (104 0f 4%) 4 villages and Singhat (65 0f 4%)3 villages. From the sampling villages, the sample size consist of 120 respondents i.e, 5x 24 villages were selected by using purposive sampling technique. The respondents chosen are the village chairman, youth club leader, women society leader and two elders. Apart from these data other relevance information were also collected from the concern organization, consumer club, consumer forum, consumer commission and other agencies.