Cooperative Retail Store - A Brief Story.

on Monday, June 6, 2011
Cooperatives are defined by the International Cooperative Alliance's Statement on the Cooperative Identity as autonomous associations of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprises. A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit.A cooperative may also be defined as a business owned and controlled equally by the people who use its services or by the people who work there.

Cooperation dates back as far as human beings have been organizing for mutual benefit. Tribes were organised as cooperative structures, allocating jobs and resources among each other, only trading with the external communities.In 1761, the Fenwick Weavers' Society was formed in Fenwick, East Ayrshire, Scotland to sell discounted oatmeal to local workers. In 1810, Welsh social reformer Robert Owen, from Newtown in mid-Wales, and his partners purchased New Lanark mill from Owen's father-in-law David Dale and proceeded to introduce better labour standards including discounted retail shops where profits were passed on to his employees. The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844, is usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, used as a model for modern co-ops, following the 'Rochdale Principles'. A group of 28 weavers and other artisans in Rochdale, England set up the society to open their own store selling food items they could not otherwise afford. Within ten years there were over 1,000 cooperative societies in the United Kingdom.

A retailers' cooperative is an organization which employs economies of scale on behalf of its members to get discounts from manufacturers and to pool marketing. It is common for locally owned grocery stores, hardware stores and pharmacies. In this case the members of the cooperative are businesses rather than individuals.

A consumers' cooperative is a business owned by its customers. Employees can also generally become members. Members vote on major decisions and elect the board of directors from amongst their own number. The first of these was set up in 1844 in the North-West of England by 28 weavers who wanted to sell food at a lower price than the local shops.

The consumer co-operative structure in the India has four tiers, with the National Co-operative Consumers Federation of India Ltd. (NCCF) at the national level. Thirty State Co-operative Consumers Organisations are affiliated to the NCCF. At the Central/Wholesale level, there are 800 Consumer Co-operative Stores. At the primary level, there are 21,903 primary stores. In the rural areas, there are about 44,418 village level Primary Agricultural Credit Societies and Marketing Societies undertaking the distribution of consumer goods along with their normal business. In the urban and semi-urban areas, the consumer co-operative societies are operating about 37,226 retail outlets to meet the requirements of the consumers. The NCCF, besides undertaking distribution of consumer articles, also has a Consultancy and Promotional Cell for strengthening consumer co-operative societies engaged in the retailing activities. The NCCF with its Head Office at New Delhi, has 34 branches/sub-branches located in various parts of the country. 




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