ISSN 2360-798X
Abstract
Accepted 2nd January 2019
The study assessed the determinants of profitability among honey marketers in Ondo State, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 162 honey marketers from nine Local Government Areas of Ondo State. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and seemingly unrelated regression equation (SURE). The results revealed that 51.85% of honey marketers were male and 48.15% being female; an indication that honey marketing is a unisex business in the area. Only few of the respondents (24.69%) added value by customizing their product before selling. Majority (75.31%) of the respondents sell their honey by the road side, market places or hawking in bottles, used table water and mineral plastics. The results of the seemingly unrelated regression showed that educational level, cost of purchase, labour cost, volume purchased, marketing experience and selling price were the statistically significant factors that affect the profit, gross margin and revenue on honey marketing in the study area. The main challenges faced by the marketers were inadequate funds (65.3%) and price disparity due to inability of buyers to differentiate pure honey from adulterated honey (75.31%). Therefore, this study recommends that honey marketers should be educated on the need to add value to their honey in order to gain the confidence of the buyers in terms of the originality of the product and attract better prices for their honey. It was also recommended that relevant policies to address adulteration at different levels and access to credit should be put in place for the honey marketers.
Keywords: Honey marketing, Adulteration, Seemingly Unrelated Regression