Abstract:
Small enterprises are great contributors to the growth and developments of any country in the
world. Their role becomes paramount in developing countries like Ethiopia where the number of
huge factories and industries are not tremendously available. However, they are being
challenged by several factors. Being cognizant of this general fact, this study aimed to
investigate the impact of marketing factors on the performance of small enterprises in the case of
Debre Markos town. The study investigated the influence of five marketing factors: marketing
skills of employees and owners, promotion, place for selling and working, price and product
factors on the performance of small enterprise. From a total of 81 small enterprises, data were
collected from 68 samples as the researcher targeted the whole population for the data collection.
Self administered questionnaire and interview with key informants were used as data gathering
methods. Data collected using the aforementioned instruments were analyzed using both
qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis. Findings from the study revealed that
there is significant marketing skill gap in employees and owners even though most of them are
literate. It was also found out that the enterprises are not using adequate promotion efforts to
create awareness about their products or services. Moreover, small enterprises are facing
problems of high rent, poor location, size problem and lack of marketing channel even though
most of the enterprises are using their working premises as selling shops. Price related factors
are also among the major marketing problems that affect the performance of small enterprises.
Therefore, the local government and other stakeholders need to provide working and market
premises, marketing and entrepreneurship trainings, other support to small enterprises so as to
foster their contributions to the growth and development of the nation in general and the local
community in particular.
