Investigation of the Marketing Structure of the Flower Market: Case Study of the Flower Based Market under Religious Purpose in the Sacred City of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka
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Date
2019
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Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
There are various kind of trades and businesses around the archaeological and religious places, especially the flower-based marketing become a widespread business type. The aim of this study is to find the marketing structure & behaviour of the flower market under religious purpose in Anuradhapura sacred city. Primary data were collected by field observation by surveying 60 of flower businesspersons in the Anuradhapura sacred city of the northcentral province of Sri Lanka & descriptive statistical method was used to analyze the data. There are a number of flower shops, more customers & better business environment around Sri Maha Bodhi and Ruwanweliseya than other sacred places in the Anuradhapura sacred city. There is a huge gap between profit levels; profits are higher in Buddhist festival days due to the higher arrival of pilgrims than other usual days. Entering the flower market is not much easy because most of the florists enter to market by inheritance and by the support of relations who have already been doing flower business. In addition, there are some regulations to enter the market; the municipal council of Anuradhapura has limited flower business stalls in the sacred city. Florists can influence the price as they decide the price due to the consensus of all florist who runs flower business in the sacred city. Hence, the price is always equal in any flower shop in the sacred city at any given time. They change the price of flowers in different seasons; the decided price of a flower is higher in Buddhist festival seasons rather than off-season. Few wholesale suppliers supply flowers to the businesspersons. The main reason to limit the suppliers in the market is the lack of sources because the available sources are leased by few flower suppliers. Thus, based on the existing evidence of the behaviour, the marketing structure of the flower-based market under religious purpose in the sacred city of Anuradhapura characterizes an oligopolistic market.
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Marketing, Business Management