Marketing of Dried Swim Bladder of Fishes (Vesica Natatorium) in or on Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria | Biomedgrid

This study examined the marketing of dried fishes swim bladder (vesica natatorium) in LGA, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. It examined the socioeconomic characteristics of marketers, characterized and documented the preferred fishes, estimated the cost and profitability and analyses the constraints to marketing. Descriptive statistics, characterization and documentation research, budgetary analysis and simple ranking models were used respectively. The research results show that 51.67% of the traders were aged 31-40 years while 80% of them were married, 55% had household size of 4-6 persons and 50% had primary education. 53.33% of them apiece have 5-10 years trading experience with petty trading as their secondary occupation while 55% made a monthly income N21,000-N30,000. Field survey shows that only cartilaginous fishes swim bladders were preferred. Budgetary analysis of Fixed Cost (FC) marketing shows that shop rent was 9.35% of the Total Cost (TC) and 41.60% of the Total Fixed Cost (TFC). It was followed by refrigeration/power. Analysis of variable cost marketing shows that fish price has the highest percentage of both the TC and the Total Variable Cost (TVC) of marketing. The FC and TVC was only 22.47% and 77.53% of the TC respectively. Profitability analysis gave total revenue of ₦3,413,591.00, net profit of ₦889, 001.00 and marketing efficiency of 135.2 for the period. However, it was constrained by lack of storage facilities, poor marketing channels, high cost of drying, price fluctuation, etc. It recommends that the constraints should be addressed for effective and efficient marketing of the product.