Impact of Packaging on Sales Volume, A Comparative Study of Made in Nigeria and Foreign Products

Abstract

Good quality packaging is a contributory factor to sales volume enhancement. This is however a reverse in the rural areas of Nigeria with the South East geo-political zone as study area. Hence locally made products are higher demand even at better package offer of foreign products. The research is executed based on 25 rural communities of the five South Eastern states of Nigeria, to determine the reasons for poor demand for better packaged foreign products and data were analyzed using the Likert ranking scale and the ‘t’ test statistics. These show that this reverse impact of packaging on sales volume is attributed to the high level of poverty in the rural area of Nigeria given low level of per capita income and high level of quantitative rather than qualitative education with attendant inability to read. Thus consumers are influenced by the affordability and availability of products in demand as such physical and aesthetic values as well as communication, functional and perceptional benefits and environmental, health and safety concerns of packaging are not much considered. This work recommends good consumer marketing research activities as aid to market segmentation and market offer positioning, based on the characteristics of Nigeria rural markets especially for the bridging of the gap in demand between made in Nigeria and foreign products; given the features and characteristics of package (packaging), for the realization of expected return on investment based on target market satisfaction.