Ritu Srivastava
The Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) segment contributes to approximately 40% of the world’s population. It comprises of people whose daily income is in the range of $2-$8 and annual per capita income is less than or equal to $ 3,000. The unique nature of this segment calls for specialised marketing management skills to serve these markets. To achieve this goal, a systematic literature review of existing scholarly research in marketing with reference to BOP is undertaken. The study identifies the themes associated to marketing that have been researched at the BOP , the content of these themes, the methods of enquiry that have been adopted by scholars to investigate marketing at BOP and the possible directions for future research in marketing at the BOP. A content analysis and synthesis of these themes reveal the present status and potential research directions. Further research questions that can be studied in detail to deepen the understanding of this market segment have also been outlined. Finally methods used to investigate in the existing literature and potential for future research on methods in the BOP also have been identified. This review has been done purely from a marketing perspective, which makes it a unique contribution. The second contribution is in terms of identifying the future marketing related research questions pertinent to the BOP context. The review also points out that a multi paradigm research view is to be adopted to study these markets and this would become the basis of choosing the research methods.