I have grown up in the city of Patna and have completed my education in Patna too. Sometimes, in my childhood, I mostly visited my village with my father and I would be attracted to the local market on a specific day.
Sultanpur Baazar is a weekly nomadic market at Tankuppa Block, Gaya, organized each Tuesday near the Sultanpur Mountain. There are approximately 500-600 stalls of local vendors at a single place.
How our urge for more luxury and comfort has transformed us from local markets to big and sterile shopping malls, online shopping and elegant fashion stores lined up on both sides of roads. But if you give it a thought, these lifestyle centers have put an end to that hidden excitement of rushing through those scattered markets and squeezing into its narrow lanes to shop around. None of them can beat the weekly neighborhood bazaar’s fun!
Being in a country with such diverse cultures and traditions like India, thankfully, it is not the end of the world. We still have access to these attractive, vivacious markets and satisfy our unexplained excitement. Not only the urban markets but in a country like India, the rural bazaars have so much to offer. I am quite sure most of you have seen or are aware of a village weekly bazaar. Ever wonder what exactly it is?
As companies deepen their penetration into rural markets, they must bolster customer retention efforts. Leading firms are doing so by providing reliable, consistent, and cost-effective after-sales service and by investing in the longer-term welfare of their customers.
After-sales service is critical in rural markets. A product that breaks and can’t be fixed is tantamount to a promise made and broken. In rural communities, that may permanently lose you an entire village, since word of mouth carries so much weight. While most firms depend on their sales staff to assist rural customers after a purchase, the market leaders are building dedicated service infrastructures by hiring locals to furnish no-frills support in their villages and by taking innovative approaches to lowering the costs of delivering service.
Idea Cellular, for instance, relies on mobile vans, which it previously used for marketing purposes, to provide customer service. Each van typically carries a photocopy machine, a camera, and a representative to help villagers with documentation verification. If say, a SIM card is not working or gets locked, customers can go to these mobile vans to have the problem resolved.
In addition to paying careful attention to fulfilling their brand promises, leading firms are sustaining the trust of rural populations by aligning their long-term interests with the development of local communities in both small and large ways. Part of Ashok Leyland’s driver care program, for instance, is a medical center set up in the city of Hosur, in Tamil Nadu, where drivers can get free checkups and consultations. Another initiative is “All the Best,” a scholarship program for top-performing children of drivers. Launched in 2010, this scheme has benefited 650 deserving children in two states so far.
What Is A Weekly Nomadic Market?
The village bazaar is held in one or the other village every week. This bazaar helps the locals neighboring the village to trade, barter and buy domestic items and other essential articles as most of the interior villages of the rural India do not have proper linkages to the market. One of the developed villages which have good connectivity host a weekly bazaar.
In fact, there is so much that we miss out by not shopping in a village market that if I start to list it will never end.
In rural India, word of mouth plays a strong role in building brands, far more so than in urban areas. Gaining the trust of respected teachers, health care professionals, and others with high standing in the community can reinforce marketing messages.
Smart companies determine which stakeholders are likely to be the most influential and supportive, and then they find ways to earn their loyalty. Tata Motors, for instance, has tapped local teachers, health professionals, and mechanics to refer potential customers to its dealers, furnishing them with detailed product manuals and shingles they can place outside their homes designating them as “motor dadas” (auto experts).
Another automaker, Ashok Leyland, engages truck drivers by asking their opinion on vehicle designs. The outreach makes the drivers feel important, empowered, and favorably disposed toward the Ashok Leyland brand. The company capitalizes on this goodwill with a program called “Ban Jao Malik” (become an owner), which helps drivers achieve self-employment by buying their own vehicles. In addition, Ashok Leyland trains mechanics on new products, provides tools, and certifies participants.
Local farmers generally bring a variety of commodities to sell ranging from vegetables to seasonal fruits, flowers and grains to food products. At a weekly bazaar you get the best of local, seasonal produce because they come directly from the farm and sold by the farmers themselves. No middlemen and no spoiled produce due to repeated loading and unloading of produce during transportation. Also, these bazaars are set up weekly so that farmers have enough time to participate. Hence, they bring you nothing but the best produce that’s farm fresh.
A visit to the weekly bazaar of any village is an opportunity to get the glimpse of the social lifestyle of the people living in the locality. Imagine spending your Sunday shopping after a demanding week and still having fun in doing so. If you consider local urban markets fun, then think how much more exciting the authentic rural bazaars will be for you. It offers not only the much-needed household items but also great food, accessories, antiques that bring you closer to the local culture and help you get acquainted with village life. I am sure with its creativity, lifestyle and rich culture these countryside bazaars can add some of the finest memories to your offbeat travel experiences.
And that’s not all; there are too many things to explore in this bazaar that you will not believe that you have been missing out on all this stuff! We must come out of our comfort zones, and only then we will realize that weekly bazaar s are not a bad place to be in at all. So whenever an opportunity arises, make sure you visit your local weekly bazaar!
The Bazaars are open from 9 in the morning until late evening and it is a place where you can buy it all. Almost everything from the large clay pots to tiny plastic toys which is useful for villagers can be seen on sale here. Stalls of clothes, rice nuts, seeds, and spices can also be spotted. Here, you can buy not only the required vegetables and groceries but also alluring embroideries and handicraft and treat yourself with savory snacks.
Have you ever negotiated for a price while shopping? Or have you seen anyone bargaining? ‘Saving is an earning’ is a new normal, and there might be n number of articles out there to learn negotiation techniques, but learning the bargaining wisdom in bazaar is all the more special as the variety here is abundant with an unbeatable price range, especially when one has the liberty to bargain. People from different localities in the region are seen buying, selling and bartering along with fellow traders. Even observing the bargaining skills of local is an altogether different experience which you will not get to see in city life.
Tired Of Shopping?
You can have the best of refreshments here! The bazaar is fun not only because it has great products but also cause of the food stalls beckoning some delicious looking street food. From tantalizing thalipeeths (parathas) to crispy bhajias, the bazaar assures an indelible treat to your taste buds.
The weekly bazaar is also a place to understand the rural enterprises where locals gather in the bazaar to trade their products and purchase their food supplies for the week. These bazaars also have many other produce such as handicraft, accessories and decorative pieces for trading which give us an insight into the overall rural economy, beyond agriculture.
Indian villages are in a state of flux. Change is coming into all the areas in villagers lives. Agriculture and allied activities are the basis of village economy and they require the active participation of all caste groups. Urbanization, industrialization, and democratization are breaking up the traditional structure of Indian villages in caste, economy and political organization, etc.
There has been an economic change in village life from the expansion and spread of the market economy. The economic frontier has some important consequences on village organization. It is seen in several studies that the money economy has permitted some castes to move quickly up the status ladder and forced traditional high caste to move downwards.