An investigation of retail trends, emerging opportunities, and challenges on the performance of retail businesses in Uganda: a case study of Kikuubo market

Abstract

This study sought to investigate retail trends, emerging opportunities, and challenges on the performance of retail businesses in Uganda, with a particular focus on the Kikuubo market in Kampala as the primary case study. The study focused on addressing three objectives which included; establishing the relationship between key drivers of retail market growth and performance of retail businesses in Kikuubo market, examining the relationship between financial accessibility and the performance of retail businesses in Kikuubo market, and establishing the relationship between other challenging factors (firm size, profitability levels) and the performance of retail businesses in Kikuubo market. The study adopted a quantitative survey design and a sample of 122 retail businesses was considered for the survey. The study used online questionnaires as the only method of data collection due to lockdown that was caused by covid 19 pandemic and data was analyzed using descriptive analysis and inferential statistics with help of SPSS 23.0. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the response rate, respondent’s characteristics, and characteristics of the firm. Inferential statistics based on Pearson’s correlation was used to determine the relationships between variables while multiple regression analysis was used to determine the effect of business environment on the relationships of study variables. The study found out that key drivers of market growth had a positive significant relationship with the performance of retail businesses while financial accessibility had a positive but insignificant relationship with the performance of retail businesses. The study recommended that retail businesses should adopt innovative thinking to expand their product base and modify existing products. SMEs should invest some resources in market research so as to devise ways of producing the same products but at a minimum cost which in return enhances performance as well as embracing their marketing capabilities and especially focusing on their pricing mechanisms and product features. This is because prices and product features are key elements to market positioning. SMEs should try their best to develop blockbuster products that are extremely popular amongst the market segment and generating sales. These firms should also charge competitive prices that do not scare away customers. The price should be competitive enough to keep the product in the market for a longer time. This is because this study’s outcome has shown market positioning contributes positively to performance