Profitability of Palm Oil Marketing in Southeast Nigeria: The Intervening Role of Information and Communication Technology

The actual impact of ICT facilities on the profitability of palm oil marketing remains inadequately understood. Thus, this study investigated the intervening role of ICT on the profitability of palm oil marketing in Southeast Nigeria. Data for this study were collected from 360 palm oil marketers from 30 markets of three randomly selected states of Southeast Nigeria using multistage sampling technique. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and budgetary techniques. The result on ICT facilities available for marketing of palm oil revealed that majority of the palm oil marketers in Abia (83.33%), Imo (78.35%) and Anambra (55.0%) used social media marketing platform in the marketing of palm oil in the study area. The findings on the cost and return in the use of ICT in the marketing of palm oil revealed that the cost of purchases constituted the highest percentage (21.84%) of the total variable. Cost of palm oil marketing in the study area followed by cost of labour (16.12%), cost of transportation (13.78%) and the least, cost of packaging (1.90%). The return on investment (ROI) realized by the marketers of palm oil using ICT to aid the business was ₦0.65 implying that for every ₦1 invested in palm oil marketing in Southeast, a return of ₦0.65 was realized. Evidence from the findings shows that palm oil marketing with the use of ICT facilities is a profitable enterprise in Southeast Nigeria. It was recommended that marketers awareness on how usage of ICT facilities could improve their marketing returns should be intensified through enlightens campagna and that marketers utilization of ICT facilities for marketing palm oil should be intensified through training to acquire requisite skills in using these facilities.