Empowering Consumers - WishGini

Consumer education empowers consumers to exercise their consumer rights. It is perhaps the single most powerful tool that can take consumers from their present disadvantageous position to one of strength in the marketplace. Consumer education is dynamic, participatory and is mostly acquired by hands-on and practical experience. 

For instance, a woman who makes purchase decisions for the household and does the actual buying in the marketplace would be more educated about market conditions and ‘best buys' than a person who educates himself about the market with the help of newspapers or television. Also, today, it is not just the market or products that a consumer needs to educate himself about but s/he also needs to know about company profile, government policies and introduction of new technology.

 Market influences have grown so much that not just wholesale and retail sellers but even medical practitioners are falling prey to their pressures. The pharmaceutical industry is one such example. India, with its 1 billion population and largely uneducated consumers, is a very lucrative market for this industry. The  pharmaceutical industry, to boost its sales, offers free samples of medicines, freebies, and even free luxury holidays to physicians to influence them to use their brands and give them preference over other brand names. There have been many instances when drugs banned in countries like US, have been prescribed to Indian consumers and are readily available as over-the-counter drugs. It is a sad example of gross violation of consumer trust by medical practitioners. This situation is rampant not just in rural areas but also among educated urban consumers. The reason why the market, in connivance with physicians, is able to exploit consumers is that Indian consumers are not aware of the prevailing situation and do not keep themselves abreast with latest developments taking place around them. Consumer education can play a crucial role in protecting consumers against such dangers. In the Indian context, sustainability and traditional knowledge can play a vital role in empowering consumers but consumers are unable to connect to their knowledge base. Consumer education can re-join the broken link and make traditional knowledge accessible to consumers again. Some sources of consumer education are past experiences of consumers, information dissemination by government agencies and NGOs, classroom teaching by teachers and informal lessons by parents.

We at WishGini help our customers avoid the violation of trust by protecting their identity while shopping online. We protect them from sellers who try to cross-sell products by exploiting the customer database thus customers are empowered to demand their terms and price without any inhibitions. For a secure online shopping experience visit our website www.wisngini.com today.