Southern Co-op pull out of reciprocal dividend scheme

Stuart_W

If you shop at any type of Co-op food shop, you may need a heads up that the reciprocal divididend scheme is falling apart a little further from 1st April. Southern Co-op will no longer pay dividend on Co-op Group, Midcounties, Central England or Chelmsford Star membership cards.

The system has always been utter confusion for many people (and staff) since Co-op group first launched it and various societies joined. Each society pays it's own declared rate of dividend and when you received it depended on which card you had. Co-op group haven't actually paid a dividend for many years now, but since 2016 have had a different instant "rewards" scheme based directly on certain purchases (used to be 5% of co-op brand stuff, now 2%) but you had to be a Co-op group member and other society cards didn't get this reward. 

Moral of the story is to make sure you are a member of any Co-op society you regularly shop with. Some societies, like East of England and Lincolnshire have always remained separate and have never been involved in the reciprocal scheme. I have a Midcounties and Central England membership card that both look virtually identical to a Southern one, but they won't work in a Southern Co-op. 

For the time being, if you have the blue Co-op group card and occassionally pop in to a Midcounties or Central England Co-op you will still pick up the divi (it just takes ages to get paid to you and it doesn't appear with your "rewards" on the till receipt), but the writing is probably on the wall there too.     

I'm sure I'm not the only person with three different societies in close proximity, so this is a bit annoying. Bring back the old fashioned divi stamps. They worked across societies - and there were hundreds of societies then.

glider3560

I've got a Co-op Group and Southern Co-op store within a mile of each other.  Somewhat annoying now having to keep two cards in my wallet, instead of one.

I reckon 99.999% of customers won't even realise they are different companies despite the different branding, different staff uniforms and totally different self service tills.