Perceived Influence of E- Marketing on Products Distribution and Profitability of Retail Firms in Lagos Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the perceived influence of e-marketing on product distribution and profitability of retail firms.The study employed the descriptive survey design. Two research questions guided the study and two hypotheses were tested using the independent t- test at 0.5 level of significance. The population of the study was 480 retail firms' customers, ten experienced and ten inexperienced retail firms' managers. Purposive sampling technique was used to draw10 key informants who were used as initial samples. This was used because the researcher is aware of the fact that the initial samples have adequate knowledge of the subject matter. This referral (snowball) sampling was used to generate additional 470 respondents bringing the final sample to 480 respondent (Customers) and 20 managers. The main instrument for data collection was a four point rating scale questionnaire with 18 items. The data collected were analysed using mean and standard deviation to answer the two research questions and determine the homogeneity or otherwise of the respondents while the independent t-test was used to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that affiliate marketing influenced retails firms' product distribution and also increased their profitability level. It was concluded that the use of affiliate marketing will increase retail firms' brand awareness. Based on the findings and conclusion of the study, it was recommended among others that retail firms managers should extensively utilize affiliate marketing in their businesses to enable them effectively distribute their products to a wider market and attract customers all over the globe. It was also recommendation that retail firms' managers should fully engage the services of affiliates to market their products to enable them reduce cost of marketing and also to increase their sales turnover.