Industry expertise

FMCG market research in India

Research for packaged foods, home care and personal care brands across general and modern trade.

Quick answer

Market Research India is a specialist fmcg research consultancy in India. We interview households, kirana retailers, distributors in Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English, with field teams in 50 cities and 4 methods matched to how this sector actually buys.

Proposal in 24 hours
Scoped, itemised and fixed-fee.
50 cities, 14 languages
Our own supervised field teams.
Senior-led, NDA-first
A research director on every project.

2,400+

Projects delivered

Cities with field teams

Industries covered

Indian languages

The decisions we help you make

FMCG in India is won in two places at once: the kirana counters that still carry most of the volume, and the modern-trade and quick-commerce baskets that set the price reference in a shopper's head. A study that measures only one of them will mislead you about both.

Which pack sizes win in rural markets?
How are D2C brands changing loyalty?
What drives trial at the kirana store?
Should the next launch defend the ₹10 price point or move the category to a larger value pack?
Which distributor beats deserve direct coverage, and which are better left to the wholesale channel?

Tell us which of these you are actually facing and the design follows — sample, method and analysis plan are all downstream of the decision.

Who we talk to, and how we reach them

Who you talk to decides what the study can conclude. We treat each audience as a separate recruitment problem rather than as quotas in one sample.

Households
Recruited by random-walk sampling within listed enumeration blocks, screened on category purchase in the last 30 days and on the main-shopper role, with pantry checks used to verify claimed usage.
Kirana retailers
Sampled from an outlet census of the chosen beats, screened on monthly category throughput and SKUs stocked, with shelf photographs confirming what is actually carried rather than what is claimed.
Distributors
Identified from stockist lists and retailer referrals, screened on territory, beats serviced and lines carried, and interviewed by a senior researcher rather than a field executive.

Interviews run in Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English, with every questionnaire translated and back-translated before fieldwork. Moderators and interviewers are briefed on the fmcg category itself, not handed a script — which is the difference between a respondent answering politely and a respondent explaining themselves.

Methods that fit this sector

Twenty methods are available; these four earn their place in this sector most often, and for specific reasons.

What a typical study looks like

Indicative, not fixed — but close enough to budget against before you have written a brief.

Indicative scope — fmcg study

Typical sample: n=1,200 household interviews across 6–8 towns spanning metro, Tier 2 and rural, plus a 400-outlet retail audit and 20 distributor depths
Who we interview: Households, Kirana retailers, Distributors — each recruited against a separate screener rather than drawn from one general sample.
Core methods: Retail Audit & Distribution, Consumer Research, Product & Concept Testing, Pricing Research
Fieldwork window: 5–7 weeks of fieldwork, staggered by town class
Standard deliverables: Numeric distribution, Out-of-stock reports, Visibility scores, Consumer segments
Signature output: A pack-price architecture with a beat-level distribution gap map
Lead time: 8–10 weeks from sign-off to debrief

Compliance, ethics and data quality

Research in this sector carries obligations that a generic fieldwork house will not have thought about. These are the ones we build into the protocol before the first interview is scheduled.

Trade data stays confidential
Retailer and distributor responses are reported in aggregate only. No stockist sees another's numbers, and nothing collected in a beat is handed to your sales team at outlet level.
Product tests handled safely
Samples for taste and home-use tests travel under temperature control where needed, carry batch and expiry records, and allergen disclosures are read out before any tasting.
No incentivised bias
Retailer incentives are flat and disclosed up front, never linked to the answers given, so stocking and offtake claims are not inflated to please the interviewer.
Verification you can audit
Every household and distributor we count is screened against a written definition, de-duplicated, GPS- and timestamp-logged in the field, and re-contacted on a 10% back-check with 10% of audio audited by a supervisor who did not run the interview.

What we will not do on a fmcg study

We will not substitute an audience without telling you, quietly loosen a screener to hit a quota, interview anyone who has not understood what they are consenting to, or move identifiable personal data outside India without your written agreement. If the fieldwork cannot be done properly, we say so at proposal stage rather than at debrief.

How we work

Our research process

01
Discovery
We turn your business question into clear research objectives.
02
Design
Sampling, method, questionnaire and discussion guides, translated into local languages.
03
Fieldwork
Supervised field teams with GPS, audio and back-check quality control.
04
Analysis
Statistical and thematic analysis by senior researchers.
05
Insight
Board-ready reports, dashboards and workshops with clear recommendations.

Where the sector concentrates

The Indian cities that matter most for fmcg

Fmcg is concentrated rather than spread: 4 cities carry most of the sector's weight, so we start there and add the metros that supply the rest of the demand. Each page covers fmcg research in that city specifically.

Before you brief us

Frequently asked questions

What does a fmcg research project cost in India?

Cost follows the sample, the seniority of the audience and the number of cities. Reaching households costs a fraction of what it costs to reach distributors, so the audience mix moves the number far more than the headline interview count. Send a brief and you get a fixed-fee proposal within 24 hours.

Which cities should a fmcg study cover?

Start where the sector concentrates — Mumbai, Kolkata, Indore, Guwahati, Delhi NCR — then add markets that match your distribution rather than the national map. Most clients run four to eight cities so results can be compared side by side.

How do you make sure respondents are genuinely kirana retailers?

Each audience has its own written screener and its own frame. Respondents are de-duplicated against past projects, fieldwork is GPS- and timestamp-logged, 10% are re-contacted on a back-check and 10% of audio is audited by a supervisor who did not conduct the interview.

How long does a fmcg study take?

Fieldwork of the scope described above runs 5–7 weeks of fieldwork, staggered by town class, and the whole project is typically 8–10 weeks from sign-off to debrief. Fieldwork usually begins five to seven working days after sign-off, once screeners and translations are approved.

Which methods suit fmcg research best?

For this sector we most often use retail audit & distribution, consumer research, product & concept testing, pricing research. The right combination depends on whether you need to size something, explain it or test it — a brief that names the decision gets a sharper design than one that names a method.

What safeguards apply to fmcg fieldwork?

Retailer and distributor responses are reported in aggregate only. No stockist sees another's numbers, and nothing collected in a beat is handed to your sales team at outlet level. Alongside that, all personal data is collected on informed consent, held in India, pseudonymised before analysis and deleted on an agreed schedule, in line with the DPDP Act, 2023 and the ESOMAR code.

Sector at a glance

Hub cities: 4
Audiences covered: 3
Fieldwork window: 5–7 weeks of fieldwork
Lead time: 8–10 weeks
Proposal: Within 24 hours

See related case studies

Keep exploring

FMCG research, city by city and method by method

Fifty cities, twenty methods and the sectors that sit closest to fmcg. Each page is written for that specific combination of market and approach.

Tier 1 metros

Full-scale quantitative fieldwork, viewing-facility groups and senior fmcg interviews in the eight largest markets.

Tier 2 growth markets

Forty-two cities where fmcg demand is forming fastest, each covered by a supervised local field team.

Show 34 more

Sectors that sit next to this one

These most often appear in the same programme as a fmcg study, either as an adjacent market or a shared audience.

All other industries

The rest of the thirty sectors we hold dedicated field and analysis experience in.

Show 17 more

Next step

Make your next fmcg decision with evidence.