Lessons from the Unorganised Trade

Further to my post on Modern Techniques by Unorganised Trade, I spoke to Tushar Shinde of Shree Vashi Pharmacy on what's been the response to his SMS marketing initiative. Shinde says that there's been a steady increase in the number of people subscribing to his SMS service. With over a 1000 customers database within a 5 km radius, Shinde knows the wealth of information he's sitting on. And companies know it too with Shinde getting enquiries by companies to push new product launches, price discounts and offers to his captive base using SMS. Some have even offered to buy out the database. Shinde says that companies like Ranbaxy-OTC, P&G, Cadilla Healthcare to name a few are some of the companies using his SMS service.

Soon, Shinde plans to start a website which will be the online version of his pharmacy on the Internet. The website will retail Home and Personal Care products, but for OTC drugs, a prescription will be needed according to the regulations.

So, will it be fair to call Shinde part of unorganised trade? He had the far sightedness of how the market is developing and adapted accordingly. Not only that, he now is thinking ahead as to how can he harness platforms like Internet, which though nascent is bound to grow even in India. The bottomline is there are enough instances of unorganised trade adapting to the changing environment and there are lessons one can learn from them. It's the power of local knowledge, which marketers can ill afford to ignore. Please do mail me your thoughts....