Price Wars and Sales Performance at Century Bottling Company Ltd, Mbarara, Uganda

Abstract

Purpose: Even when price war has seen massive interest among scholars, it is still unclear how it affects sales performance. This study examined the relationship between price war and sales performance among carbonated drink manufacturers in Uganda: a case of Century Bottling Company Limited.
 Methodology: Mixed methods design was used in this study. The population comprised of 210 employee managers and outlet managers. With the aid of Krejie and Morgan (1970)’s table, a sample size of 169 respondents was selected. Questionnaire was used to collect primary data in line with the positivism design and obtained a response rate of 55.0%. Pilot testing however preceded the final survey and we were able to check the relevancy of the instruments which was confirmed through the validity and reliability statistics that we achieved. Zero-order Pearson correlation was used to test the hypotheses.
 Findings: The study results showed a strong positive and significant relationship between promotional pricing and sales performance (r = .522, p= 0.000). Also Penetration pricing was found to have a moderate positive and significant association with sales performance(r = .369, p= 0.000). Last but not least, the study confirmed existence of a strong positive and significant relationship between Oligopoly pricing and sales performance at Century Bottling Company Limited (r = .573, p= 0.000).
 Recommendations: The study recommends that century bottling company limited consider the actual situations of different manufacturers when implementing its promotional strategies in order not to suffocate them, increase the number of sales outlets to ensure increased trades and selling, since it enables the company to access many customers and also to revisit its pricing strategy where customers like low-priced commodities and offer customer discount features according to different selling contexts.