After writing the blog about rural market for lights. We decided to do a market research. We choose rural regions close by to our place. It was round 1 of our market research. The villages were already electrified and were connected to grids !!! They do have regular power cuts but our research was to see how much difference would these lights to their lives. We will do a round 2 in remote villages, for now here are our findings.
- They had maximum of 8 hours power cut at irregular intervals and 2 hours in the night. Which really didn't matter to any of the villagers. Of course it doesn't matter much to people in Cities in India.
- They are happy without light for an hour or two, there is no way they will buy a rechargeable lamps.
- There are technical guys in these villages who can connect lead acid batteries to grid and make it work if they really need backup.
- Solar panel should be optional, a better battery management would be the best solution.
- They are aware of low cost Chinese products and thats quality for them. They don't mind if the light is blue or white. It's just light for them which is better than kerosene.
- They did ask for warranty !!!
- Pricing is a major factor. They will probably buy Alkaline batteries for a good lighting product rather than pay high upfront cost for rechargeable batteries.
0 comments:
Post a Comment