Abstract

The study examined the influence of socio-economic variables on net income of wholesale and retail of sweet melon marketing in Bauchi and Gombe States, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 300 respondents from 18 markets. Where 135 sweet melon marketers were selected from Bauchi State and 165 from Gombe State as indicated in sampling procedure. Data were collected using structured questionnaires. The regression analysis of wholesale marketing of Sweet melon in both surplus, balance and scarcity periods indicated that no variable was found to be significant at any level of probability. At retail category, the result revealed that balance period recorded the higher number of significant variables with the R-square value of 0.179 and F-statistics of 6.692 (P< 0.001). The marketing cost variable having positive coefficient was found to be higher and significant at P< 0.001 level of probability. Age, education and experience had positive influence on the marketers’ net income but significant at P< 0.05 each. Conclusively some of the socio-economic variables of marketers at retail category were found to influence more net income of sweet melon marketers in the study area.