Development of Marketing Strategies for Meat Goats in Songkhla Province

Abstract

The goat market is a highly demanded market despite still lacking distribution channels. The purpose of this research is to developgoat marketing strategies in Songkhla Province. The field data were collected by interviewing manufacturers, retailers, and entrepreneurs in goat menu restaurants in order to find conditions that created flow in the distribution to increase the market in conformity with appropriate consumption.The results showed that the structure of goat distribution channel consisted of 3 channels: distribution between goat farms, distribution between goat farms and restaurants, anddistribution between goat farms and general customers.All three distribution channels were based on the credibility and trust from the society while unique conditions in distribution between goat farms were selling at a lower price than at the farm. Regarding to the distribution between goat farms and restaurants,goat farm owners used credits to insure sustainable trading, and no trading conditions were found in distribution between farms and the last customer.The findings revealed that goat marketing strategies can be assigned in two aspects: clustering between goat farms to assist in integrating knowledge in raising, and cost management.Strategy development with restaurant customers should focus on providing services and creating promotions to expand more groups of consumers to increase the market size in accord withsustainable needs of customers while general customers should focus on networks, personal relationships, and after-sales services to expand the customer base.