Hilsha Fish Marketing Strategies in Dhaka City of Bangladesh

The study was conducted to find out hilsha fish marketing system in Dhaka city of Bangladesh. Hilsha fish (Tenualosa ilisha) is the national fish our country and all people like this fish on their meal but due to lack of proper marketing system maximum people remain out of touch of this fish. We found that Hilsha fish comes to Dhaka city maintaining a strong marketing channel member such fishermen, faria, bapari, aratder and finally goes to consumer plate through retailer. For identifying marketing pattern and pricing strategies of the Hilsha I have chosen sample size containing 60 respondents(10 fishermen, 10 aratders,10 beparies, 10faria and 20 retailers) and collected data from Jatrabari, Showarighat, Kawranbazar, Savar Kachabazar, Banani Kachabazar, Mirpur, Uttara , Krishi market,Baipal bazaar and Lunchghat of Chandpur through questionnaire. I found that net marketing margin for per mound (40kg) varies according to channel member such as Retailer(Tk2750.5), aratder(Tk417.5), faria (Tk1791.5), Bepari (Tk1580.5) and retailers get maximum share of profit margin. The marketing cost per mound (40kg) for retailer (449.5), aratder(702.5), faria(908.5), Bepari (1210.5). Price determined at retail market based on market condition, bargaining of retailers and consumers. Fishermen and aratder arrange an auction method for selling their fish as well as faria follows open bargaining, auction and market going price. I have also found that Hilsh fish is so much demanding to people all over the world and still sold at high priced but fishermen can not receive reasonable price due to involvement of mahajons (money lenders) who enforced fishermen to sell at prefixed rate as a result economic conditions of the fishermen are not changing