At our AGM on Saturday, Richard shared with members the changes to Co-op Membership that will happen from Autumn this year.
As a member, everytime you buy Co-op branded products and services and use your card, you’ll get 5% back on what you’ve spent – from a loaf of bread to a funeral plan. You can then use that 5% anytime that you want to – against your next purchase or save it up for as long as you like.
As well as the 5% for you, 1% of the value of the Co-op branded products will also go to local causes that you help to choose.
As Ben said yesterday the simplicity of our new logo design is really going to make Co-op products and services stand out, so as a member you can see the items where you’ll get something for you and something for your community.
It’s important that our colleagues and Members’ Council can easily explain membership (we know we’ve made it hard for them in the past) and we also want them to be able to feedback on the experience. This is why over the summer they’ll have access to new Co-op membership first, followed in the Autumn by the rest of our members.
But we aren’t going to stop there. We’ll keep looking at ways to make being a Co-op member even better. And, like Mike said on Saturday we’re committed to radical transparency so we’ll be sharing our progress here on the blog. As a start, in the next few weeks we’ll share the work we’ve done so far looking at how we can create new ways to give members a voice in their Co-op.
Alyson Chadwick
Director of Strategy
Thanks Alyson. I welcome the positive outlook of Richard’s presentation at the AGM on Saturday and the new focus on membership. This could be just the boost we need in pursuit of the profitability required to start paying a divi and really make the wider world recognise our difference. But we are already perceived as expensive by a significant number of consumers – members and customers alike. The “5% for you” headline begs a number of questions. Will current shelf pricing strategy change? Will we stand accused of making price comparisons more difficult (a recent issue for some major competitors)? Will this just promote “canny” shopping? No doubt this has been thought through.
Thanks for the question James. We’ve been making significant investments to reduce our prices over the last year or so and ‘5% for you and 1% for your community’ will be on top of this. We have considered the questions you pose and researched what people think and we’ll be seeking to ensure we make the shop in-store as easy as possible for members and customers. As we rollout we’ll continue to test this and get feedback from members and customers and welcome any thoughts you have on this. Thanks, Gail on behalf of Alyson.