COTTAGE BUSINESS AND MARKETING CHALLENGES (WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CHIBOMBO, ZAMBIA)

Abstract

 Cottage industry or home industry means the manufacturing of goods at home by hands, with small capital and on a small scale by the members of a family. Cottage industries occupy an important place in the economy of Republic of Zambia. In Zambia agriculture can be termed the largest and the most important industry, which does not provide any work to the agriculturists for about three to four months in a year. These kinds of industries can provide to the people some useful employment and accelerate their income. But nowadays, cottage business entrepreneurs encountered lot of problems in marketing their products and find difficulties in competing with other Multi National company products. In the last ten years Zambian market has enlarged a lot, there are number of big companies and foreign products come into the picture, they are adopting various marketing policies and strategies to attract the consumers, these aspects result more challenges to the local cottage entrepreneurs in this era.