Most small rural towns in Western Australia have a Co-op store.
I’m a bit sketchy on the details but my understanding is that they’re not-for-profit’s, they charge a mark up on the things they sell, but really just enough to pay wages for employees. Any left over money is distributed to the people who buy things.
Why do these only exist in small towns and why aren’t they a thing in larger towns and cities?
It would be amazing to only pay cost plus wages for your groceries.
These are all really good examples of what large grocers can do to maximise profits, but it doesn’t really answer my question.
A large not-for-profit could leverage most of these advantages. Multiple stores in multiple cities certainly could.
IGA stores are all independently owned but have a combined distribution network.
They wouldn’t have to achieve the same volume that colesworth does because… they don’t need any profit.
I know they both (Coles + ww) did some sketchy stuff to kill off all stores around them, they set up contracts with premises not to let competitors in the buildings, those contracts have been made illegal, but they still existhow are you going to know they exist to eradicate them. Plus high rents that are killing for profit businesses, that combined with Coles + ww buying power, (bulk buying in truckloads) mean they can acquire a product at a ridiculously lowered price and can therefore lower the price to much lower than a side seller can, until those go out of business and then they start the aggressive price rises, once they’ve killed off competition. They also sign contracts with producers that don’t allow them to sell to anyone else. They do heaps of other, really aggressive anti competition stuff, that should be illegal, but they probably lobby to skate by unregulated. I would suggest there’s reasons politicians aren’t doing anything about the monopoly or the practices they’ve utilised to become a monopoly, in tandem. So those practices would keep anything like what you’re talking about out.
Sure but a co-op wouldn’t need to be in a shopping centre next door to colesworth.
This effects everyone, and isn’t a reason why co-ops aren’t common.
This is the most credible reason that most people are proposing. IGA stores share a purchasing and distribution network to mitigate this disadvantage as much as possible. I don’t know much about that.
True. The flip side of this is that smaller local producers could work with a co-op.