Unethical marketer behaviour could be regarded as any behaviour that falls short or below the general acceptable standard of expectations. Unethical behaviour can also be described as anything on the part of the marketers that betray the confidence the employers and consumers repose on them and injure the right and welfare of their employers and consumers. Unethical behaviour goes against the marketing management orientation or marketing concept which up holds consumer satisfaction. Unethical behaviour is seen as failure in the part of the marketers to abuse by the codes of conduct of their organisations or professional body.
Do marketers in Nigeria exhibit unethical behaviour? The answer is yes. We discover that many unprofessional marketers in Nigeria focus their attention mainly on ways to maximize or make highest possible profit at the shortest period of time. The emphasis or preoccupation here is to make as much profit as possible, not minding the frustrating effect of this on the customer or consumers. This "profiteering" attitude or behaviour crests a lot of problems or frustration for the consumer and the general public. Some marketers in Nigeria often take decisions and actions that are exploitative and injurious to the consumer.
In some specific terms,the following are some examples of unethical behaviour of marketers in Nigeria.
I) Adulteration of Products; Some unscrupulous marketers in their bid to make profit adulterate their products. We have this unethical behaviour where by some marketers add saw dust to fertilizers, or kerosene to petrol.
II) Selling of Harmful and Expired Drugs or Other Products; Some marketers do sell it encourage the sell of harmful and expired drugs, not minding the danger and damage to health of those who buy them.
III) Selling of Fake Products; This is different from adulteration, where marketers tamper with the original components or constitutes of the product. In this case,it is completely fake, like marketer selling chalk as drugs or selling an inferior product as the genuine one. Some marketers even go to the extent of tagging foreign labels on made in Nigerian products,which inadvertently make the Nigeria product a fake product (Adirika 1998).
Creating Artificial Scarcity through Hoarding of Product; Some marketers intentionally hoard products to create artificial scarcity and there by maximize profits. To achieve this, they will sell the product through "black market". This has happened many times in the case of fuel or petrol marketing in Nigeria.
