ABSTRACT

the general objective of this study was to estimate the cilects of tagged prices Ofl cOflSUflicr

purchase behaviour in grocery stores in Abia State, Nigeria. The specific objectives are to:

cxarninc the socio-cconomiC characteristics of the respondents; estimate the retationship between

price and the quantity of items purchased among the respondents in grocery stores in the study;

estimate the iactors that inluencc the purchase behaviour of price tagged items in grocery stores

by the consumers in the study area; and make recommendations based on the findings. A simple

random sampling technique was used in this study. First, 10 streets were selected from the streets

of Aba south and Umuahia north local government areas. Secondly, 20 respondents (householdS)

in each of the selected streets, were selected randomly, this gavç a total of 200 household

correspondents. Primary sources of data were used in this study. Structured questionnaire was

used in collecting data from the selected respondents. In the data analysis, objective (i) employed

descriptive statistics, such as mean, minimum and maximum limits, etc; objective (ii) used

correlation coefficient whereas, objective (iii) made use of multiple regression. From the socio-

economic profile Qf the respondents as shown in the result, the mean or average age of the

respondents was 39 years and 8 months; the minimum was 2O years, while the maximum number

of years was 65 years. The average number of years spent by the respondents in school was 10

years and 3 months, having spent a maximum of 23 years. Ihe minimum number ol persons in

their households was I erson; while on the average 4 persons were found. The maximum

number of years in terms of experience was 30 years, with an average of 7 years and 5 months

and a minium of two years. A minimum of N30,000.00 accrued in terms of income with a

maximum of900,000.00 and a mean income of N95,957.72. The correlation between price and

quantity of items purchased indicated that there is a negative relationship between price and

quaniity of items purchased in the grocery stores in Abia State, Nigeria. The result also showed

that any increase in price will lead to a corresponding decrease in quantity of items purchased.

This is based on the negative coefficient of 0.264 which is also 2.64 and is significant at I

prccni obab;iiy Tc ponentiai ft1rciiona1 form was chosen out of the four functional

form that were tried based on some econometric considerations such as number and size of

significant variables, the R2 value and the F- ratio. The result showed that the coefficient of age,

income, perception of quality and distance were significant at various probability levels with

different signs. The study therefore recommends that, grocery store operators should always

stock quality goods in their shops. 'Iflis could lead to Continuous patronage despite the tags

which do not permit haggling.