Financing and Marketing Management

Unit 12 - Approaches for studying the problems in marketing

12.3. Marketing channels for small-scale fisheries products
In India, the marketing channels for marketing fresh fish from marine sources involve several intermediaries with different functions such as auctioneers, commission agents, wholesalers, retailers and fish vendors. Some intermediaries undertake multiple functions. The number of intermediaries and channels of distribution vary from region to region, state to state and district to district within a state. Depending on the distance of the markets and type of consumers, i.e. individual or institutional, the number of intermediaries increases or decreases. Fresh fish from marine sources often passes through one to eight hands before reaching consumers located in rural, urban and metropolitan centres. The bulk of the fresh fish, i.e. 70 percent passes through only one to three hands.
In the case of institutional customers such as restaurants and hotels, not more than three intermediaries are involved. While the bulk of sales are carried out through auctioneers, about 40 percent of fresh fish is sold through commission agents or wholesalers. As a result of the involvement of intermediaries in marketing, the net share of fishermen of the prices paid by the final consumers varies from 25 to 56 percent, depending on the states in which fish is traded.
Fish production from reservoirs is mostly sold in urban markets. Due to eating habits and the limited purchasing power of the people living close to fish landing sites, most fish is transported for sale to urban centres. Calcutta is the major urban consumption centre for freshwater fish. Fish from landing sites in all other states is sent to this city. As demand for freshwater fish is high in all urban centres in the northeastern Indian states such as Assam and other neighbouring states, fish caught in other states is also sent to these urban markets for sale.
The marketing channels and trade flows of freshwater fish are by and large similar across the country. Fishers sell their fish to wholesalers directly or through commission agents and retail intermediaries. Wholesale intermediaries sell fish to retail intermediaries either through commission agents or directly. Fish marketing through cooperatives and public fish marketing corporations is very limited. Even in the case where fishermen sell fish to cooperatives, private intermediaries are also involved in the marketing chain. In some cases, cooperatives become additional intermediaries in the marketing channel. In the farmed fish sector, subsistence level production is consumed locally while commercial production is invariably sent to urban centres. The market intermediaries in commercial fish farming are limited to three or four. Fish farmers sell their fish to a fish trader, who transports the fish to urban markets, where it is disposed through auction to a wholesaler. The latter sells the fish he/she procures at auctions to a retailer. Thus, fish passes through three to four hands before it reaches the final consumer.
In the case of export of fish products, only a few intermediaries such as an auctioneer, a fish trader-cum preprocessor and the final processor are involved in the marketing channel. In some fish marketing and export centres, fish is directly delivered to the processor-cum-exporter at a predetermined price. Farmed shrimp is either bought by the processor directly from the farmer or, if intermediaries are involved, their numbers do not exceed more than two or three. Intermediaries such as auctioneers and agents are also involved in certain states such as West Bengal, where auctioneer-cum-financier-cum-preprocessor and selling agents are involved in the marketing chain between farmers and processor-cum-exporters.
Examples of marketing channels identified in the State of Karnataka are shown in animations.

Fig 5 shows one major source of economies affected by using middlemen. Part (a) shows three producers, each using direct marketing to reach three producers working through one distributor, who contacts the three customers. This system requires only six contacts. In this way, middlemen reduce the amount of work that must be done.