Poultry egg marketing is a common enterprise in Ika South Local Government Area, Delta State of Nigeria; but there are no documented research findings on the conduct of the market and profitability to authenticate the viability of this business. Thus, this study was targeted to analyze the performance of poultry egg marketing in Ika South Local Government Area, Delta State. The study was conducted in five purposively selected villages in Ika South L.G.A., Delta State. Twelve (12) respondents were then randomly selected from each of the five selected villages to give a total of sixty respondents. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, the profitability of poultry egg marketing was determined using gross profit margin analysis, net profit margin analysis and return on investment. Gini Coefficient was used to examine the market structure for poultry egg marketing. The results of the study showed that majority (40.00%) of the poultry egg marketers were within the age group of 30≥ 40 years, majority (71.70%) of the marketers were female, 50.00% were married, 35.00% had family size of 3 – 5 persons. 30.00% of them attained tertiary level of education, 41.67% had marketing experience of 1-5 years, 53.33% had egg marketing as their primary occupation, 65.00% were none members of co-operative societies. The gross profit margin was N772,200 while the net profit margin was N747,500 per marketer per annum and return on investment was 0.29, which showed that poultry egg marketing is profitable and viable in the study area. Gini Coefficient of 0.3054 showed that there was a moderate inequality in the distribution of incomes among the marketers hence some level of perfect competition of the market structure. The major constraints militating against poultry egg marketing in the study area included: inadequate capital, poor transportation, price fluctuations and exorbitant price of poultry eggs. The study therefore recommended that credit granting institutions should be established, effective transportation system and good road networks should be constructed in the study area for easy transportation, price control mechanism should be established to avoid fluctuation of price within the marketing system and the activities of trade union should be minimized to reduce the exorbitant price of poultry eggs to consumers.
Keywords: Gini Coefficient, Market structure, Marketers, Nigeria, Poultry Eggs, Profitability
