What benefits does the COOP bring?

grizzly1911

In the good old days The Cooperative benefited members by offering fair prices and benefits through the divi as I understand it.

I believe Coops have been set up in various guises for specific things either to help very small communities take on the likes of "The Village Shop" or to bulk source a specialist product.

Is it just me but the COOP these days seems to have lost these benefits in real terms?

The supermarkets seem expensive, with very few meaningful offers, and their petrol stations are way off the pace IMO. I know they have their membership scheme but does this make up the difference?

I know they are "greenish" too.

TIA

gillian62

The local co-ops here have a section of local produce, but prices aren't really terribly cheap.

They can be good for some of their offers, although I find them notorious for only having 1 product for a BOGOF offer!! Therefore I don't intentionally go to the co-op but may use in passing.

I don't have a 'loyalty card' either as you need to spend a lot before you get anything back. Years ago they used to give extra stamps for different products and that was really useful, 40 stamps which filled a page!

Ben84

The co-op here (east anglia) has quite a big market share, there's about four within 5-30 minutes walk of my house and there's plenty more around the city. Some of them are bigger than others, but none are really big so the selection isn't vast. I like them though and do a fair bit of shopping there, I find the prices reasonable, better than many other local small shops and the quality is generally very good. However, I appreciate that selling groceries through smaller shops costs more per item so they exist for convenience more than being the cheapest. Still, they get a small number of decent offers and they often have good bargain bin stuff too.

A tesco petrol station with food has sprung up near by, but I still go to the co-op, the food is nicer and although the dividends aren't huge there's something about shopping at a store which is basically owned by the local residents (including me) rather than just another chain.

Triggles

Our new one in the area is quite small and doesn't have very good prices either. But then, it's just down the road from the Farm Foods, so I imagine they suffer by comparison for some prices.

McKneff

I have a local coop, also a loyalty card, and a coop credi card.

I shop for odds and ends and get the dividend but what puts my divi up is I always buy big things on my cc, which is a cash back card, and get points for the big things too, so a double whammy, also my house/contents and car insurance are with the Coop so i do end up with a decent payout twice a year.

The annoying thing I find is that Veg is prepacked, I dont want 6 tomatoes, i want 2, I dont want 12 onions, i want 2, I dont want a big bag of carrots, i want 3 etc.

There was a big advertising campaign lately and it said 'Get what you want, when you want it' not in my case Im afraid.

rosieben

our local c00p is overpriced and not very well stocked so my divi is usually £1; I check out their leaflets for specials though, latest one shows B&J ice cream, bogof ....

Reverbe

I am in Britannia Building society - apparently we now get divi points on our groceries.. they turned our Coop into a Morrisons - so now the 20 plus year loyalty bonus of a sizeable amount (usually a few hundred a year bonus on savings and ISA) is reduced to a few pennies as I dont use ANY coop products or services

foxgloves

We really like our Co-op (Lincolnshire). You pay a one-off investment of £1 to be a member & get a dividend card which you use to collect divi points on all items, but they pay extra on fair trade products, stuff from local producers & fresh fruit & veg. We do our main shop there & use all the vouchers they send out to members to get extra points and we also take part in most of their promotions where they give extra points for minimum spends, etc. In addition, they pay their members a Christmas bonus each year, the amount of which is based on how profitable the Co-op has been & how much members have spent in the Co-op that year. Our bonus is very welcome (comes mid-November) and is usually around £100. That's in addition to all the divi which builds up on our card over the year which I usually pay into my member's share account. You just hand your divi card over at the shop's banking kiosk & ask to pay all your points into your account. We've had over £700 in there in the past, just from banking points & making sure we use all the offers to maximise our divi. It does feel like 'free money' as it is completely separate from our bank account & savings account and we tend to use it for emergencies or to pay holiday deposits, etc. We first started shopping at the Co-op because it is an ethical business. I'd recently read 'Shopped: the shocking power of British supermarkets' by Joanna Blythman & had been shocked by some of the really exploitative practices of the big chains towards farmers & producers. Since then, the range of products has really improved. However, we still shop around. I still like to do a big store cupboard stock up 3 or 4 times a year at Lidl (esp. bread flour) and also use Waitrose for more unusual ingredients & certain products which are cheaper in there. We also like to support local independent shops so visit the butcher & get lots of fruit & veg from our local market. Another benefit of our Co-op is that they have opened a 'clearance' section at one of the local stores. Not just the usual shelf of whoopsies, but about 1/4 of the shop space devoted to end of lines/clearance, etc. Most of the prices are 75% off. There is nothing wrong with the sell-by dates or anything, just that the shop might be relaunching a product or no longer stocking it i.e I recently bought loads of tinned tuna for 23p each, deodorant for 49p, washing powder 45p, even 75% off well-known brands of single malt whisky, which is very useful for the present cupboard. So, we love the Co-op, but I think Lincolnshire does retain a degree of independence with its dividend scheme. Re the bargain section, I don't know if other Co-ops do this. I think all the bargain stuff from all the Lincs Co-ops come to this one shop & as new stuff is added all the time, it's worth going in for a look.

dancingfairy

Our Co-op is quite good - its very local. O.K prices aren't quite as cheap as Sainsburys or Mr T but it's good if you want to support someone other than Mr T or Sainsburys- if you feel they've got enough of the market.
Another not quite so local one is much bigger but just doesn't have a god feel about it and doesn't seem to have any better deals or offers really that the smaller one doesn't.
I also like some of their own brand products.
df

grizzly1911

Foxglove - You are lucky over there - like the sound of that end of line stuff in tins. Who doesn't buy Tuna;)

Know what you say about exploitation, that's unrestrained capitalism for you bring out all those efficiencies.....

The returns you get sound good too my only concern is "dependent on the profit of the shop" which is really down to how HO want to apportion the overheads not necessarily the local staff or customer support.

Just seems that they don't have a clear strategy.

At least with the others they seem to have a theme World Domination or quality for instance.

westcoastscot

The co-op is all we have, and there's lots of controversy at the moment as its become known that whereas in the past prices were the same around the country, they are now higher in more isolated areas. Ours are dreadful! Much higher even than the bigger co-op 40 miles away in our nearest town. Choice is really limited too - its small!!

I use it when I have to, but its cheaper to travel the 160 mile around trip to the city once a month than to shop here

WCS