Impact in 3-D: What difference does accessing essential goods make for low-income consumers?
Taking a 3-D look into consumer impact in Bangladesh
What does the impact of a business-focused development project look like in “three dimensions” ? Although we used a nostalgic, visual metaphor to get your attention (see cover image),?we don’t actually mean the jump-off-the-screen 3-D kind here; no flimsy paper-framed glasses with a red and blue lens needed. By 3-D, we mean getting a fuller view of what a project achieves for the people it’s meant to benefit, in this case, low-income consumers in rural Bangladesh. This article defines what we mean by impact and what these three Ds are. Then, we’ll show you what one project’s impact looks like when we measure it in 3-D.
Bopinc believes that the best products should be available, where they matter most. From startups to multinationals, we help organisations design and deliver inclusive, commercially viable business models that make a positive difference for low-income consumers.
One example of this work is Bright Innovations, a project in Bangladesh and Nigeria that brings needed consumer goods to rural areas while providing economic opportunities for women sales agents. For low-income consumers, the main benefit is bringing a basket of quality products to rural areas where they have not been available before. This includes personal care products (oral rehydration salts, menstrual pads), reproductive health products (condoms) and nutritional food items (powdered milk). From inception in 2019 until closing earlier this year, the project was supported by Unilever, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Partnerships Resource Centre.
Here’s what we mean by impact and what we learned by looking at the impacts of this project in 3-D.
What do we mean when we say “impact”?
We define impact as contributing to a better quality of life for low-income consumers and entrepreneurs. Quality of life encompasses a range of things that most people consider part of the “good life,” from enjoying good health and satisfaction with one’s life to personal safety, living in a healthy natural environment, and having decent work and a living income.??
We consider our projects impactful if they contribute to positive changes in well-being. But we can’t stop there. We also want those positive changes to be:
These are what we’ve come to think of as the “3-Ds” of impact, and all three are critical for getting a fuller picture of our project impacts (see Mourshed, M 2022 and Singh, J. 2017 for more background). What do we see then when we look at the impacts of this project in 3-D??
Distribution of impact
The Bright Innovations project touched many people, including salespeople and distribution agents who have taken part and earned income through the project. But our focus here is on impacts for low-income consumers, where the reach of the project was quite broad indeed. Based on the number of distribution and sales agents engaged in the project, the estimated number of consumer households they serve, and the average household size, we estimate that almost 1.6 million low-income consumers accessed needed goods through the Bright Innovations project, most of them in Bangladesh.?
That’s an impressive figure, but there’s more to the story of this project’s impact. We need to look further, at the depth and also the duration of those impacts.?
Depth of impact
We know that the project reached a large number of low-income consumers, but what - if anything - did gaining access to products mean for them and for their quality of life? To understand this depth of impact, we partnered with Upinion on a consumer study in areas of rural Bangladesh where the project had been active, speaking with customers who had purchased one or more of these products outside of small retail shops. Our primary question for them was whether their quality of life had changed since they started purchasing the product, and if so, how.
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A quick note on the selection of products in this project: the goal of the distribution partnership was to bring needed goods to rural consumers while ensuring a business case for the retailers, distributors and suppliers of these products. So the partnership supported a mix of highly socially impactful products, and some with lower impact potential. The rationale was that some less impactful products fetch higher profits, which helped build a business case for all players in the distribution chain.
Two things jump out from the results for the six most commonly-purchased items below: some products are strongly associated with positive changes in quality of life, though not all are. For example, almost six out of every ten consumers of oral rehydration salts (ORS), a product for recovering from dehydration brought on by diarrhea, say it has improved quality of life for them or their households. More than half of consumers say the same about menstrual pads and condoms. Consumers are slightly less enthusiastic about diapers, but quite clear that powdered milk and energy drinks don’t do much to change their quality of life.
These results make intuitive sense, given what we know about the areas in question and the other results from the survey about availability of comparable alternative products. Furthermore, we learned from the survey that consumers generally preferred products made available through Bright Innovations because they were higher quality, better value and more consistently and widely available than alternative products, when alternatives even exist.?
Duration of impact
Bringing impactful products to a large group of consumers is important, but we can only really improve quality of life if access to these products lasts over time. So, our survey included questions about how consistently available consumers find these products to be. Availability came up a lot in the survey results among the qualities consumers appreciated most about products in the basket. We asked consumers in the survey about whether they can find these products in their communities when they want to purchase them. Results were broadly in line with what we expected, with strong majorities of respondents saying these products were “always” or at least “sometimes” available when they wanted them. Still, there was a cut-point between products like condoms, ORS and menstrual pads that most respondents said were “always” available, and milk powder, energy drinks and diapers for which availability was less consistent. Our research team gathered data for this survey in April 2022, about five months after the distribution partnership kicked off and shortly after the project formally closed.?
It is encouraging to read in these results that consumers reported generally strong availability of these products when the survey was conducted, especially since the project had already closed by then. A further test of duration of impact would be to return to these communities six months to a year from now to assess this once more, long after Bopinc’s involvement with the project has ended.?
Where we go from here
The Bright Innovations project brought needed products to a large group of low-income consumers across rural Bangladesh through a pre-existing distribution network, while also supporting micro-entrepreneurs to earn more money working as distributors. 1.6 million consumers reached is an impressive figure, but this is not enough to paint a full picture of the impacts of this project. We’ve shown in this article that we can and should bring depth and duration into both the goals and the measurement of our impact. Taking this approach to looking at impact in “3-D” helps us see a gap emerging between products that contribute to changes in quality of life and also show consistent availability (ORS, menstrual pads and condoms) and products that matter less for quality of life and are harder to access consistently (milk powder, energy drinks and diapers). This is useful evidence for future projects wishing to bring socially impactful products to market to consider. Sales data, to detail demand for and margins commanded by these products, would help round this analysis out further.
We note that this research has some other limitations, including potential negative impacts of these products that our study does not capture. For example, disposal of product packaging and used products can harm the environment and those who depend on it. This may be especially true in rural Bangladesh where waste collection and recycling services are scarce. The introduction of new products may take market share away from existing ones, hurting the bottom line of people who produce, distribute and sell established alternative products. Lastly, the sample for the survey itself skews male. Where possible, we’ve compared the perceptions of women and men on these products, and often their views are similar. However, future studies may need a mix of recruitment strategies to achieve a better gender balance among respondents.?
We have shown through these findings that it is possible to look at the impacts of a rural distribution partnership through the dimensions of distribution reach, depth and duration of impact. And we learn a lot by doing so, which can help us design better projects in future and tweak existing ones as we go. When we bring all 3-Ds together in our impact measurement, the full picture of our organisation’s impact starts to becomes visible.?
About the study
Bopinc partnered with Upinion to conduct the consumer-level deep dive study for the Bright Innovations project. Local enumerators conducted in-person surveys with consumers of products distributed through the Bright Innovations distribution partnership near retail stores in four districts of Bangladesh. A total of 422 customers were surveyed in April 2022.?