h a l f b a k e r yThe phrase 'crumpled heap' comes to mind.
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A certain number of households (a few hundreds) get together and purchase monthly groceries directly from wholesalers at concessional rates at discounts of 20-50 %. Groceries will be delivered monthly at doorsteps of households, every month or 15 days.
This will save uncessary trips to grocery stores,
will save time, effort, car wear; It will be huge savings on monthly grocery budget.
Also to get still better rates, an annual or 24 month agrement can be made with wholesaler. My guess is that upto 70 % discount can be obtained this way.
Only exceptional/irregular items will be purchased in retail supermarkets.
Many households buy goods from single grocery store, months after months for 2-3 decades. If one could buy 30 years of groceries in one go, they can easily qualify for attractive wholesale rates individually. However deliveries will be made every month.
[edit]
Here is an example of cost advantage of wholesale operations:
Cigarette lighter adaptor that you bought for $35.00, wholesales for $2.15. Batteries that you pay $45.00 for, wholesale around $5.50.
The Co-Op
http://en.wikipedia...e_Co-operative_Food
[zen_tom, Feb 21 2011]
Online_20Co-operative_20Store
Redundant - [marked-for-deletion] [hippo, Feb 21 2011]
[link]
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Is this different from a coop (cooperative)? |
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There used to be something akin to this for electrical equiment. And yes, coops in general, and The Co-Op in particular are supposed to be run in this manner. |
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[mp], yes something similar, but without cooperative stores. There are no stores in this case. Purchase is made with wholesaler and delivery of monthly groceries are at the doorstep of participating household by delivery van. |
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[zen_tom] I think coop store model is very similar to existing retail model, hence discounts are generally not very significant. |
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Well, sort of - for different reasons and at different times, your general grocer would originally have delivered all of your produce to your door - certainly back in the 50's in the UK, before the adoption of the self-service supermarket, all grocers (cooperative or otherwise) would tended to have considered delivery as a default, or at the very least, a common option. |
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On discounts, no the coop doesn't specifically provide direct discounts, but they provide profit sharing to those who are members (I'm not sure whether you are considered a member simply by shopping there or not) by giving out redeemable stamps. I suppose what I'm saying is that while the concept of community-purchasing grew out of an initial need for individuals to pool their buying power from rich and price-setting farmers, and while early delivery was initially born from the long distances people would have to individually travel by foot, horse or bicycle to get to a grocers; both these common models have been surplanted by the supermarket model where lots of people all turn up to a regionalised location, parking their cars in the process before returning home, having provisioned themselves for a week or so. Now we've gone full circle with the supermarkets having gotten richer and monopolised central grocery distribution, we're looking for ways to return to the previous model, for slightly different reasons. |
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//certainly back in the 50's //
As late as the early '70s, the local grocer was delivering in our area.
Regarding the co-op, you have to specifically sign up to be a member (it will cost you one, whole English pound), and then you have to shop there as well in order to 'earn' your points and get a share of the profits. |
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In this case, I think not having a store, is a major plus. Goods will be braught directly from wholesaler to consumers. This is also helpful for old people living alone. |
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Costco and Sam's Club are not co-ops. Co-ops are co-ops. |
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I've already suggested the advance purchase thing here, but this strikes me as akin to a Suma buying circle or something, i.e. baked to a crisp. |
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Do you honestly beleive you could get 70% off by simply cutting out the supermarket? Wow. Either a) supermarkets apply a 133% markup, or you're making this up as you go along. |
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I want to beleive that the supermarket's profit margin is less than that. |
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We tried something similar a couple of years back. We
bought all the year's game in January. We got a fantastic
discount, but we realized our mistake by March. There's not
a lot you can do with two hundred brace of pheasant by that
point. |
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//In this case, I think not having a store, is a major plus// |
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By "no store," do you mean that people don't come in and
collect their goods, but rather have them delivered? Or do
you mean the organization doesn't own premises where
goods bought at wholesale are temporarily stored before
being distributed to members? Or do you mean members
pay
only the wholesale cost, rather than paying cost-plus, and
getting the "plus" back at the end of the year? Or
something
else? |
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20-50% is totally unrealistic even when incorporating economies of scale. Typical grocery stores (in the US) operate at 6% net margins. Source: a quick Google search. |
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[mp] it is first 2 out of 3. |
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I think if if the scale of operation is huge, then putchases can be made, much closer to the source along the distribution chain. Please see edit. |
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