GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT

The current study evaluated the effects of buyer timing strategies on the occurrence of wholesale price volatility, paying special attention to early purchase, late purchase, bulk-time purchase, and opportunistic purchase among the buyers. The effect of wholesale price volatility can lead to uncertainties during the procurement process, planning of inventory, negotiation, and decision-making within the supply chain, especially in markets where the timing of purchase is determined by the buyers' expectations on the price, cost of storing, speculations, and availability of supply. Adopting the theory of dynamic pricing and the bullwhip effect, this study established that the timing strategies undertaken by the buyers could lead to imbalances in demand patterns, pressure in the short term, and instabilities in prices. The current study employed positivism research philosophy and cross-sectional survey design in carrying out the investigation. Primary data were collected using structured questionnaires distributed among 100 respondents randomly selected from the Ladipo spare parts market. The responses from the questionnaire were rated on a five-point Likert scale, whereas the statistical analyses were performed using descriptive statistics, regression, and ANOVA analysis in SPSS software version 23. The descriptive results indicated that most of the respondents believed that buyers' timing strategies affect the occurrence of wholesale price volatility, having a mean score of 3.85. The late purchase strategy registered the highest mean score, indicating that the strategy of waiting for price changes by the buyers has a high contribution to market variability. In addition, regression analysis confirmed a strong correlation between buyer timing strategies and wholesale price volatility. The first model indicated that buyer timing strategies accounted for 61.7% of the variance in wholesale price volatility, whereas the second model reported that they accounted for 80.8% of the variance in perceived wholesale price volatility. Both models showed to be statistically significant at p < 0.05, and thus, the acceptance of the alternative hypothesis in both cases and rejection of the null hypotheses.