The Co-op Store

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 103, 13 June 1941, Page 5

The Co-op Store

‘THis small shop in Rochdale has been the pattern ‘" for the growth of consumer co-operation in many countries of the world. Stores have become very large in some cases and to-day they handle most of the goods sold in any large shop, but the principles underlying their management and working aré very largely the same, that is if they are consumer cooperatives of the Rochdale pattern. The weavers agreed to contribute £1 each and so to have shares in the society to the value of one pound. They saved up this amount gradually, some of them just a few pennies each week until they had the pound that was needed. Still, to-day, when societies are very large, there is a limit to the number of shares which any member may hold. The rate of interest on the shares is fixed and is usually low, and however many shares one member may hold he has only one vote. But the basic ideas of the Rochdale system which became the pattern for development in England and Scotland and for many other countries too, were connected with the prices of the goods and the distribu. tion of the profits. Goods were to be sold for cash only, at the ordinary retail prices which were charged in other shops in the town. This would naturally, given reasonably efficient management, result in profits being made each year. To distribute these profits a plan was hit upon that stands out as one of the most effective rules for success ever devised in the management of a society of people. Profits should be distributed to members in proportion to the amount of their purchases from the store. So if there were two members each with a one pound share, and one spent £10 with the store and the other £20 the second person would receive twice as much return in the way of profit as the first(Winter Course Talk, "Consumer Co-operation," by Dr. G. C.. Billing, 4YA, May 27) :