Cooperative store

“ You may laugh, but I firmly believe that in cooperation, or, at least, the cooperative store, lies our one sure hope of reducing the cost of living. It works two ways—it actually cuts down the price of foodstuffs, and it teaches the woman thrift through investment in stock. ”

“ It had 12 coal depots, a furnishing store, a bakery, a tailoring establishment, a boot and shoe factory, a brush factory, and acted as a builder of houses and cottages. It had at that time 29,958 members. The work done by these coöperative stores is known as "distributive coöperation," or "coöperation in distribution." It combines the seller and the buyer into one group. From one point of view the society is a store-keeping body, buying goods at wholesale and selling them at retail. ”

“ This gives us a chance 130 to sell off all vegetables and other perishable foodstuffs that otherwise must be carried over the week-end. I mention it merely to show you that a cooperative store is not necessarily high-brow, as some women think. We try to follow all modern business methods—but we permit no substitution, adulteration, nor any other of the evils of so-called modern merchandising. ”

“ In these brief stories are written a hundred lessons that cooperatives should heed.
SUCCESSFUL COOPERATION
The Utica Cooperative Society.
At the corner of Court and Schuyler Streets in Utica stands a grocery store which is different from an ordinary store. It is different because it is a cooperative store and it belongs to those who buy as well as to those who serve. There is no need for the purchaser to be on guard lest the bargain be to his disadvantage, for he is dealing with friendly clerks who are there to help him find what he wants, not to sell him something he cannot use. ”

“ On the other hand, the qualifications which go to make a successful manager of a cooperative store, namely, steadiness, conservatism of judgment, attention to detail and business punctuality always will be in great demand in the business world. ”

“ But, on the other hand, a co-operative society, having to provide for the needs of its members only, can do so with certainty, particularly if its members are conscientious and loyal in purchasing from the store. It has not to run the risks of bad speculation and of bad stock which must be sold at a loss. ”

“ Since 1842, from which time it dates, the coöperative-store movement has progressed steadily in England, where the scores of retail societies are federated and own large wholesale stores. The long experience has developed good methods and a conservatism almost inconceivable to an American mind. ”

“ The Cooperative store system, which was started in England 73 years ago, eliminates most of these waste expenses. The system has kept spreading at an astonishing rate; in Great Britain there are now 3 1/2 million members, and more than a billion of sales a year. ”

“ The idea of getting the LeClaire departments, one by one, converted into coöperative shops on a safe basis, has not been abandoned by the company. The only reason for requiring a payment out of wages was to make them in part pay for it themselves, which was apparently the only course that would make them take the necessary interest in it.
The Nelson company has founded a workmen's town, supports schools and kindergartens, libraries, places of amusement, assists a cooperative store, and in various other ways evinces its extraordinary interest in the welfare of its employes. ”

“ If the store is his own, he can make sure that his goods are represented by a full line, he can dictate the price at which they shall be sold and the service that shall be given. Retailers have used coöperative methods in order to make their relations with production more direct, through buying clubs organized to accomplish specific purchases, through buying organizations of a permanent character which rival jobbing houses, through capital-ownership in wholesale houses, and in a few cases through manufacturing institutions. ”

“ He believes that cooperative business solves the bulk of our high cost of living problem, and he has developed many good ideas. He has tried out the parcel-post plan of shipment and secured direct dealings with farmers. The 125 store is simply fitted, but immaculately clean, and the white-washed cellar, dry and sweet smelling, is a joy to the women who get a peep into it. ”

“ To explain the theory on which our store and society are run, I will say that the requirements for this, as for all cooperative ventures, are an adequate organization of consumers to act in their own behalf, and a first-class plant. ”

“ The reasons for the failure of coöperation in retailing in the United States are generally said to be poor business management, unwise extension of credit, poor accounting and general slump of interest in coöperation. Coöperative stores usually claim to save customers money by reducing advertising, by cutting down service, and by locating in inexpensive places. In most instances, after a period of success, their competitors, the privately owned stores, defeat them just because they do advertise, offer the service that people want, and locate at the most convenient places. ”

“ The material advantages to their members are not very great nor do they suffice to bring about any marked improvement in their social status. But the establishment of these cooperative stores proves the existence of a widespread recognition that intermediate trade is superfluous. Society will ultimately achieve an organization that will do away with commerce, since the products will be turned over to the consumers without the aid of other intermediate [347] agents than are required by transportation from one place to another and by distribution. ”

“ In Germany especially army and navy stores and civil service stores have been developed to such an extent, that many commercial enterprises were ruined by them. But the workingmen’s cooperative stores have also developed tremendously during the last decade and have partly even undertaken the manufacture of certain commodities. The cooperative stores in Hamburg, Leipsic, Dresden, Stuttgart, Breslau, Vienna, etc., have become model establishments and the annual sales of the German cooperative stores amount to hundreds of millions of marks. ”

“ The storekeeper and the buyer no longer haggle over the price because both will share in the returns of the business done. The cooperative movement bids fair to solve many of the problems of open and closed shop, collective bargaining, labor organization, and of relations between producer and consumer. ”

“ The coöperative principle has been embodied much more successfully and on a larger scale in America in the form of producers' selling organizations or of consumers' coöperative stores. As, however, both of these forms of organization have been developed in America more largely by farmers than by wageworkers, the discussion of them may better be undertaken in connection with problems of rural organization rather than with those of labor. ”

“ As to whether stores or collective buying associations will be the form which the co-operative movement will assume in this country in the future, only experience can tell. For the present, it would seem that the buying association is often best fitted for the smaller cities and for relatively small groups of consumers, while the store is best adapted for larger centers and groups. Every buying association should, however, look forward to a growth of its numbers and buying power that will enable it to start a store. ”

“ The consumers' leagues offer an interesting problem. It is undoubtedly true that, under certain circumstances, more immediate economic benefits are derived from them than from co-operative stores. But the co-operation store gives accommodation in the matter of stock on hand to choose from, and of small purchases and relatively frequent deliveries, that cannot be given by the consumers' leagues. The main fault of the buying association, however, is its defective organization. In most cases people simply put their orders together and depend upon a volunteer to distribute the provisions. ”

“ The coöperative movement, as far as it has gone, has been chiefly directed toward so improving the ordinary methods of retail trade as to confer moral benefit and material profit upon the working-classes. The wastes of our present plans of retail distribution are very obvious: our streets swarm with inconsiderable shops, repetitions of one another, and maintained at an enormous aggregate expense. ”

“ As has been stated with much insight, the woman with her basket is as much one of the great types of working humanity as the ploughman with his plough, or the smith with his hammer. But she generally prefers the shop round the corner to the co-operative shop, not only because it is nearer a matter of no small importance to the tired housekeeper or one who has little free time between her work but also because she finds there more attention and sometimes small personal discounts which the co-operative system does not permit. ”

“ The number of persons capable of managing a small retail store is vastly greater than the class fit to assume control of the very complex duties involved in the care of wholesale houses—or, at all events, of mills and factories. Distributive co-operation has its origin in the fact that the expenses of a middle-man between the producer and consumer may be entirely dispensed with, and in the fact that more capital had collected in the business of distribution than could economically be so employed. ”

“ The other factor is the prevalence of co-operative societies that sell to their members at cost or almost at cost. Retailers have to compete with these societies, and there is a consequent curb on profiteering. Nearly every trade or profession has its own co-operative stores. ”

“ When, however, a similar organization proceeds to employ non-partners in the concern, and exploits them in the usual capitalist method, it ceases to be a co-operative and is transformed into a corporation.
A co-operative store organized by the American Wholesale Co-operative is conducted in the following manner: The goods are sold at the established market prices; not higher nor lower. Good quality is insured. The goods are purchased at the lowest possible prices. Profit is made on the purchases of the consumers. This profit is used, in the first place, to pay the operating expenses. ”

“ Third, to make a quarterly dividend of the clear profits to the subscribing members, or stockholders of the association, the share of profit being determined in each case by the amount the stockholder or his family purchased at the co-operative store. Thus, whatever a man's household consumed, whether much or little, he got back the third that would otherwise have gone to enrich some cheating grocer. Co-operative stores and societies of all kinds have been started in many parts of Europe, and are springing up in this country also in every direction ”

“ One of the most promising fields for American business enterprise I believe to be the organization of retail distribution, which, among other economies, can rid itself of the expense of solicitation. We have already great bazaars which combine the variety of a country store by assembling under one roof the special departments of ordinary city warehouses: is it not possible to organize for such marts stated circles of customers, on whose steady trade the proprietors can rely—circles sufficiently large for adequate support, independently of showy premises or other advertisement? ”

“ The men who compose the working community have each their particular craft or profession to attend to. One is a carpenter, another a doctor, etc. To organize and look after a co-operative store is, in fact, to undertake another business, and most men would rather pay the difference than be distracted from their own pursuits, and have the trouble of thinking about it. ”

“ In most cases the services rendered in the business management of such buying is at first largely on a voluntary basis or is but poorly paid. Only in a few sections of the country has the coöperative buying of agricultural supplies assumed a permanent or stable form of organization, and in those cases it is very frequently a department of a coöperative selling association, such as a fruit exchange. ”

“ While it is true that large department stores reap many of the advantages and employ many of the methods of a chain store group, such as large capital, buying in quantity, and the ability to command the highest type of management, it is nevertheless evident that, whereas a department store spreads its efforts over a number of different sorts of shops under one roof, the chain store owner concentrates its energy upon the conduct of but one kind of stores located in many neighborhoods. ”

“ With respect to associations of individual stores for purposes of co-operative buying, exchange of ideas as to advertising, sales methods, etc., it need only be remarked that these are voluntary groups, and that series of independent units cannot, in the nature of things, be as efficiently and successfully integrated as a chain under a single ownership and management.
But the appellee in proof and argument drew a comparison between the chain store and the department store which he insists exhibits the classification of the statute as illusory and arbitrary. ”

“ In agriculture, as already mentioned, the primary producer can receive a larger net revenue through cooperative organization of purchases and marketing. Similarly in retail distribution of staple commodities such as milk, there is room for development both of public municipal operation and of consumers' cooperatives, and such cooperative organization can be extended into wholesale distribution and into manufacturing. ”