ABSTRACT

Sales promotion stimulates consumer purchase and aid dealer effectiveness. The basic purposes of every organization are survival and profitability, which will depend on the rate at which their outputs (products) are being demanded. The understanding of sales promotion helps the consumers to allocate his limited resources (money) among the available products in the market and enable him/her to become a better informed buyer whose purchase will be more satisfying. Consumers are to buy product when they are aware of the product existence, quality, price which can be achieved through the elements of promotion mix as stated by Philip kotter (1999) which include advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, publicity and public relation. Therefore, sales promotion can be define as one of the element of promotional mix. It is a promotional activity outside advertising, personal selling, publicity and public relation. The objective of this study is aimed at assessing the effect of sales promotion on the sales volume of detergent and how it can influence consumer buying behaviors. A case study of Unilever Nigeria plc. Specifically, the objective is aimed at the following: to investigate the extent to which sales promotion activities affects sales volume of the company understanding, to know whether sales promotion has helped the company under study to provide customer or consumer with needed product information, to identify the different sales promotion activities and the problems and constraints upon by the company under study, to offer possible solution and make recommendation to marketing companies on the essence of sales promotion. In gathering the information, both primary and secondary data were used. In sampling techniques, the instruments that were used is self administered questionnaire and personal interviews. The respondents were reached with this, by visiting their various depots of the company and consumers of the product in question. Open ended, multiple- choice type of question is used in the questionnaire to allow good responses from the respondents. In data analyses, two methods were used: percentage and chi-square. Percentage is used to answer the research question while chi-square is used to test the hypotheses. Data were presented and analyzed based on the data collected through personal interview and questionnaire and the hypotheses were tested using chi-square statistics. Based on the analyses of the questionnaire and the test of the hypotheses, the results was that sales promotion helps in the increase in sales volume of detergent product.