Tupperware party in the bush

What do you do when you want to sell things cheaply to people in areas where distribution costs are high? Philips teamed up with women who were open to the idea of holding demonstration parties.

Some two billion people in the world do not have access to electricity. Three out of four people who do not have access to electricity use kerosene lamps for lighting. But kerosene is not only a fire hazard and unhealthy if inhaled, it is also becoming increasingly expensive for poor families as oil prices rise.

This was the market that the Philips Group was aiming at when it designed two different lamps to provide lighting without electricity: a lantern which can be wound up, and another that only requires a short charge to provide light over a long period. The lamps were designed as a pilot project with rural India in mind.

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Sold at cost price
More often than not, the people without electricity are poor, and the two devices are therefore sold at cost price. The purchase price was not, however, the only consideration. The total price for light, including power for recharging, was just as important. It was therefore Philips' aim that their lamps would pay for themselves within 6-12 months.

As far as their distribution was concerned, Philips also found an effective way of keeping costs down. The majority of the areas without electricity lie far away from towns and central warehouses, way out where the roads are poor and sales limited. It would therefore be far too expensive to sell the lamps via the usual channels.

Tupperware parties
Instead, Philips decided to team up with women's self-help groups contacted through the NGOs it works with. The women in these self-help groups often have access to microloans. They could therefore each purchase a small number of lamps and sell them to friends and acquaintances – typically at home demonstration parties along the lines of so-called Tupperware parties.

Philips is currently developing further inexpensive solutions on the basis of the experience gained from the pilot project in India.