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The study to assess Factors Leading Imported Furniture to be Preferred Over Locally
Produced Ones was conducted at Ilala and Temeke Municipal Councils in
Dar Es Salaam-Tanzania. The objectives were to; compare the prices of locally
produced furniture to imported ones; identify the quality in terms of durability and
varieties of the local furniture and that one of imported; examine promotion and
advertisement on local furniture compared to that one of imported furniture; find out
the cost of timber, manufacturing power, transportation and other factors of
producing furniture locally compared to the cost of importing them; explore the
reasons as to why people prefer imported furniture compared to locally produced
ones. A sample of 150 respondents were used, in collecting data the study used
questionnaires, interview guide and observation, secondary data were also used.
The study found that the high price of local furniture make them to be less preferred
compared to imported ones. The cause of that high price is the high cost of raw
materials such as the price of buying timber is considerably higher despite of timber
to be available in Tanzania. More over it found that high manufacturing cost which
lead to high price of the local furniture is not only caused by high cost of raw
materials but also poor power supply, poor technology, poor infrastructure and
unfavorable tax and levy. It also found that the quality in terms of durability of the
local furniture is high compared to imported furniture, but low preference of the local
furniture is due to high price, less varieties, less promotion and advertisement,
unpleasant appearance and long waiting time from ordering to deliverance of the
local furniture.
The study recommended that; Tanzania furniture manufacturers should not seek to
compete at low price while the costs of production including the cost of timber,
electric power, transportation are high, they should focus on means of reducing such
kind of production costs. The controlling measures/way forward and
recommendations on the high local production cost (high price), less varieties, less
promotion and advertisement and others are evidently exposed on the study. |
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