Elderly population in India is turning into the new customer segment that is large and distinctive with significant purchasing power
Today there is an urgent need to address the wellness of present day Elders, officially designated Senior Citizens, that encompass their physical, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual needs by looking at them from an entirely new perspective because of their sheer increasing numbers in absolute terms in the demographic divide that now make them an extremely vital segment of the community that require to be reckoned with. One report puts it – “In India, the senior living sector with strength of over 100 million is poised for a significant growth in the years to come.”
Mr. Harish Bhat, MD&CEO of Tata Global Beverages and author of Tata Log: Eight Modern Stories from a Timeless Institutions writing in the Brand Line column of the Hindu Business Line calls upon the marketers to include the Elderly Population of India as the “new customer segment that is large and distinctive with significant purchasing power”. He writes their population increasing, they are also willing to spend reasonable amounts of money on their essential requirements, in many cases their children, who earn good money are also willing to contribute. They have a distinct set of needs – as they may suffer from weak eyesight or infirm hands that are unable to work with small buttons or phone or remote controls with small keys, slippery bar soaps, wrist watches. He suggests easy to use uncomplicated mobiles with large fonts. Also, banks and reality need to develop products to cater to this segment. Besides there is also a significant proportion of this segment who are naturally either obese and of large build or unusually tall or with large waists, wrists and feet who search for ‘jeans that can make them look slimmer’, bathroom slippers that they can easily slip their feet into, cars and airline seats that they can be comfortable in. They even have specific needs of foods and beverages at variance from others.
The FMCG sector too has now come to recognize the fact that the Elders too have truly arrived as a new class of discerning customers:
A recent Research Survey of 1,900 elders from 12 cities in India reveals:
Many reality operators have now zeroed on the seniors to satisfy the growing demand for Senior Care Communities where the lifestyles, socio-economic and healthcare requirements are well taken care of. The developers have jumped into the bandwagon to take a piece of the burgeoning cake of the Assisted Living Community Projects.
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Congrats, you have done a good job in collecting all these statistics. The most important need is need for human love, especially their children and grandchildren's love which has become a rare commodity in the midst of all these mentioned in your surveys.
If we could go back to the olden days large family system I think most elderly and old elderly (>80) could do without many of these wants. As you grow old one important thing that one has to do is to keep his/her brain active. This will keep the memory and all other bodily functions active.
Senior's club is a good idea and social service is another tonic. To say that they are good market is a purely money making trick. 25% for so called health care is only for illness care which could be cut down drastically if doctors do not practise poly-pharmacy on the older population. In fact, polypharmacy in old age is the important casue of heart attacks and strokes!
bmhegde
Mr Harish Bhat talks like a salesman rather than true concern for senior citizens.
It is sad that the good old joint family system that addressed most of the concerns of built-in safety and security, emotional and financial support, baby sitting, counselling kids are given a go-bye in the nuclear families.
I've known the so-called snooty 'educated' girls demanding at the boy-meet-girl pre-engagement talk if he has 'old furniture/excess baggage/waste paper basket' - meaning live-in parents.
Then we have the NRIs who are in fact "NOT RELIABLE/REQUIRED INDIANS" who summon their mothers/mothers-in-law in turn to to take care of their newly delivered babies giving rise to a new acronym for IAS - "International Ayah Service".