Frontier Markets is a sales and marketing distribution company with a mission to reach Base of the Pyramid (BOP) households in emerging markets. Frontier Markets’ innovative marketing and sales channel will open new opportunities for manufacturers to create affordable and relevant products for rural markets. Frontier Markets becomes THE scale solution for manufacturers creating products for rural markets, focusing on areas like clean energy, healthcare, and livelihoods.
Contact Information
Our Focus
We have started operations in rural India and are working with clean energy products like solar lighting and smokeless stoves. Frontier Markets’ mission is to provide over 1 million products to 3 million households in India by 2016, and become a global leader in rural distribution and products for BOP households. Frontier Markets works with microfinance institutions and locally trained field staff to educate, relate, and reach households providing them access to high social impact and affordable products, and customer service. We set up our own wholesale points and franchises to reach target consumers and become first movers for new products and innovation. We are targeting women households who have sufficient income, are microfinance or self-help group members accessing finance for income generation, are consumers right now, and are located in areas where there are clear cut gaps and demands that are not being addressed in the markets today. Average income is USD $3000/yr - short term they have sufficient capital to buy products (tier 2), midterm (tier 3 - w. financing), and long term (incl. tier 4). They have limited access but high demand for quality and affordable energy products that reside in rural and semi-urban settings and live in a households that earn Rs 2,000-3,500 ($43-$76 USD) per month.
Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas
BOP households, especially in rural India, use traditional chulas that are hazardous to health, leaving black smoke, and severe environment and health issues. Indoor-air pollution is a large factor of lung-related diseases in rural households in India. Frontier Markets has started introducing smokeless stoves at scale to these households to replace chulas at a low cost - major messaging includes ability to cook indoors, lowering cost of wood, and mobility of products.
We are currently working with the Institute for Microfinance Research to conduct market assessments on existing products. We focus on understanding household perspectives of cost, energy, stoves, culture, and education. We spend a lot of time doing but qualitative and quantitative surveys to compare products in the market. We are constantly vetting new products in this sector to ensure our members get the best product for their money.
We do not have any experience in this area, but would be interested to know about efforts regarding this.
We would like to partner with an organization that has tools to survey and conducts impact assessments on indoor air pollution and health monitoring of our members.
Relevant Publications or Studies
None noted
Our Contribution to the Partnership
We have experience in rural distribution, consumer durables, microfinance, and understanding low-income households. We'd like to help scale products to low-income households, we focus on conducting education campaigns and pushing energy-related products. We'd like to work with organizations that are measuring impact on the ground, we can be the source of tests in our area of operations.
