An Assessment of Shea Butter Marketing in Southwestern Nigerian Markets

The study carried out an assessment of Shea butter marketing in Southwestern Nigeria. It specifically examined the socio-economic characteristics of the Shea butter marketers in the study area, determined the profitability of Shea butter marketing and also examined the market structure and conduct for the Shea butter in the study area. A multi- stage sampling technique was used to select 30 Shea butter marketers in the study area and structured questionnaires were administered to them. Descriptive statistics, gross margin and Gini-coefficient techniques were used to analyze the data collected. The study showed that 80% of the respondents belong to the active segment of the population while the remaining 20% were older than 50 years. Analysis also revealed that Shea butter market was dominated by the retailers which accounted for 56.6% of the sellers though there were other categories of sellers such as wholesalers (20.0%), wholesaler/retailers (23.4%) but zero percent of the processors. The profitability analysis showed that an average marketer incurred an average total cost of ?232,090.83 per quarter but earned an average revenue of ?316, 80.00 per quarter which imply that an average Shea butter marketer earned ?84,709.17 per quarter as gross margin. A Gini-Coefficient of 0.77 obtained in this study indicates high level of concentration in the Shea butter market. Keywords: Shea butter; Market structure; Market conduct; Wholesalers; Retailers