Global Journal of Commerce & Management Perspective
Open Access

Abstract

Retail Pricing Pattern of Essential Commodities in Nagaland: Consumer-affable or Aloof?

E. Thangasamy

In the contemporary consumer era, a consumer is, undoubtedly, an emperor who controls and rules over the entire market irrespective of its nature, be it consumer or industrial. Management of consumer markets does, however, become more complex, as compared with industrial markets, because of its size and needs of the target markets. Consumer markets exist for both durables and non-durables in a society. Of these twin prominent categories, diverse patterns of making purchases and decision making intricacies amongst the customers are more prevalent in case of durables. In spite of fewer convolutions in decision making of non-durables, yet it draws greater attention of the marketers due to frequent purchases of the consumers. In turn, this buying behaviour of consumers magnifies the volume of sales and profit margin by leaps and bounds. Amongst the non-durables, the market for essential commodities requires to be wellmanaged and regulated by the marketers and/or the Government to ensure the wellbeing of the consumers by making the right products available at the right time, at the right place and at the right price. This is a matter of concern as it primarily poses a question of health and survival of the individual consumers who constitute the society as a whole. Critical investigations on the production, supply and distribution of essential commodity markets have, thus, become very essential and indispensable. Many studies on this issue are, therefore, being carried out by the researchers from time to time domestically and globally. The objective of this paper is to study the retail pricing pattern of essential commodities in the State of Nagaland, analyze the consumer pricing index in selected commodities and suggest appropriate measures to regulate these essential commodity markets. Findings of this study are expected to be useful not only to the producers and marketers but also to policy makers of the Government as well.