Title: Modelling the diffusion of manual irrigation pumps in lower income countries with the Bass model

Authors: Rachel Roe-Dale; Carol Brown; Mark Staton

Addresses: Skidmore College, 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866, USA ' Skidmore College, 6541 Woodlawn Ave N, Seattle, WA 98103, USA ' College of Business and Economics, Western Washington University, 516 High Street, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA

Abstract: The Bass model is a popular tool for modelling the diffusion of a new product targeted for consumers in economies above the poverty line. In this paper, the authors show that the Bass model is also appropriately used to model sales of products to consumers at the base of the economic pyramid. Specifically, the authors consider data from the sales of manual irrigation pumps (MIPs) to lower income consumers in Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Kenya. Fitting the cumulative sales data for MIPs in these economies with the Bass model provides insight about the market potential of MIPs as well as effective marketing strategies in these economies and supports the use of the Bass model to describe product sales to base of the pyramid consumers.

Keywords: Bass diffusion model; manual irrigation pumps; MIPs; base of the pyramid; social entrepreneurship; modelling; product diffusion; product sales; lower income consumers; Bangladesh; Tanzania; Kenya; market potential; marketing strategies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEI.2015.069349

International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2015 Vol.3 No.4, pp.245 - 258

Received: 13 Oct 2014
Accepted: 16 Nov 2014
Published online: 13 May 2015 *

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