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Social marketing experience over three decades gives enough benchmarks and insights into how the network of shops in the developing world can be used to deliver essential products to the poor. The shops have an extensive presence, and are quite willing to integrate subsidized products in their service delivery functions as long as the shopkeepers don’t have to make any special efforts to stock the products.
From 1996, Janani focused on creating a market infrastructure, exactly as in a conventional social marketing programme. About 139 distribution points were established on the basis of transportation facilities available. A management system with a stringent financial and inventory controls was activated. Field personnel, recruited and trained in Patna on aspects of salesmanship, were deployed in all parts of the programme area to distribute the products widely among 25,000 urban and semi-urban shops. Pharmacies became the primary outlet type, followed by general merchants and cigarette shops. Grocers, who account for the major proportion of retail shops in Bihar as in India, have traditionally resisted stocking condoms. Most grocery businesses are family run. In urban areas, Janani, like all social marketing organizations, could make inroads by deploying a field force which visited the shops and placed the products on their shelves. As the distribution moves to lower population strata, however, the volumes get much smaller, the density of outlets less, and distribution costs very high. Though the coverage was high by traditional distribution norms—prompting the government to entrust Janani the responsibility of distributing its own brands, Nirodh condoms and Mala-D oral contraceptives—large parts of the community were not part of the distribution plan. In the current phase, the programme is dealing with two specific objectives: • Extend stocking points to interior towns so rural stocking points can get supplies with least efforts Janani is currently extending the frontiers of distribution beyond pharmacies and general merchants to grocers and provision stores. This is a major thrust area for the programme and is being achieved by integrating commercial products that have a high presence among such shops. The products include mass moving consumer goods such as personal care products and cosmetics. This addition will gradually enable Janani to increase distribution to 40,000 shops. Such integration also offsets Janani’s distribution costs. Janani is also extending the stocking network particularly in Bihar and Jharkhand ( sub stockist + RS) so that rural outlets can be replenished easily. Because transportation arrangements to ship products from Janani’s central warehouses are grossly inadequate, the extension is made through existing stockists by linking them with sub-stocking points. Janani facilitates the identification of sub-stockists; stockists, motivated by more sales volumes, undertake the responsibility to move the goods to sub-stockists. |
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