Marketing of rural handicraft product : Bajau's handmade "Parang" / Ali Faizal Limun

The handicraft industry playing important roles as a creative sector that producing various of ethnic and traditional craft through formal and informal retail market specifically in rural areas. This industry has continuously struggling to realize and maximize the potential and at the same time try to establish itself as a viable and vibrant economic activity for prospective entrepreneurs and the intermediaries. Therefore, the research was carried out on study about the marketing or rural handicraft specifically for Bajau's handmade "Parang" in Kota Belud Tamu. The aim of these studies was to find out the level of marketing knowledge among the sellers of Bajau's handmade "Parang" by taking into account 4 major elements in marketing mix including product, price, place and promotion. This study has conducted by survey methods and is among the applied researches. The target community of this study is focus on the sellers of Bajau's handmade "Parang" by considerable consumers' views or opinions. Though the study was restricted in Kota Belud Tamu where, the data and information was assemble through interviews and distribution of questionnaire that were designed both for the sellers and consumers. Therefore, the result have discovered that there are significant difference between 4 main elements in marketing mix in order to determine the level of marketing knowledge toward the sellers of Bajau's handmade "Parang" where, the most associated with the poor or lack one is about price determination and effectiveness promotion of handicraft product. These finding can be helpful especially for the sellers or intermediaries of Bajau's handmade "Parang" to organize planning on how to promote and market the handicraft product more effectively in future.