Direct Selling opportunities for Rural India

Direct selling business has almost doubled in the last five years and is set to grow rapidly in rural areas. Despite being a relatively new sector in India, direct selling is growing at around 20 percent. Since a business model that avoids brick and mortar stores in favor of a personal connect is what makes Direct Sales different, it’s understandable that the champions and critics alike focus on distributors’ entrepreneurial successes and challenges. However, one needs to understand that behind every direct sales representative, there is an extensive support infrastructure, and service providers, all of whom contribute to the local economy. Top direct selling companies like Glaze Trading India Pvt Ltd has its distributors from both rural and urban area.

Majority of the direct selling companies outsource production, packaging and distribution of their products, thus generating direct employment across the value chain while enabling the development of the SME sector. The rural market, which accounts for 36 per cent of India’s FMCG market by sales, contributed 60 per cent to the slowdown. The growth in rural market has been slowing for the past few quarters, but it slipped below urban market growth in the April-June quarter.

Direct selling company in India are spreading operations from metropolitan cities to smaller cities and even trying to explore rural markets. direct selling companies partner with small and medium-sized manufacturers, essentially becoming their marketing conduit. This allows them to bypass more expensive intermediaries and offer their unique products directly to consumers at optimal costs. Such a partnership helps them expand and grow their business with a net benefit to the economy as a whole. Indian manufacturers and service providers, including rural communities and large consumer companies are relying majorly on persuasive, consultative and face-to-face presentation of the Direct Selling network to acquire scale and volume - a process that is becoming difficult through traditional marketing and sales channels. The Direct Sales industry has the power to positively impact the lives of its distributors, and serve as an economic boon to communities and local businesses.