Brand Delivery Speed Positioning Strategy and Sales Performance of Food and Beverage Manufacturing Entrepreneurs in Small and Medium Enterprises Sector in Rivers State, Nigeria

The study investigated the relationship between brand delivery speed positioning strategy and sales performance of food and beverage manufacturing entrepreneurs in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector in Rivers State, Nigeria. The descriptive and quantitative survey research gathered data from 490 entrepreneurs who operate food and beverage SMEs and their customers in Rivers State. A well-structured questionnaire containing 8 items, with five demographic items was used to elicit data from the respondents. After data editing, and reliability analysis of the instrument, inferential statistics was conducted to determine the relationship between brand delivery speed positioning strategy and sales performance with the help of SPSS. The result of the inferential statistical analysis revealed a moderate and positive relationship between brand delivery speed positioning strategy and sales performance. The empirical study concluded that brand delivery speed positioning strategy has a significant predictive capability on sales performance in the context of sales growth. The study therefore recommended that manufacturing entrepreneurs should adopt flexible delivery policy in line with changing demand pattern of their customers, because customer will consider such companies to be reliable and will wish to continue doing business with the firm thereby reducing the possibility of customer defection to competitors.