Direct Charge Co-Op it works

Direct charge co.op

here's a simple idea that me & my community do to save money on our bills, once every two weeks one of our group goes to smithfield market & buys in bulk what we need, we save 50% compared to our local tesco. we only do this for ourselves & i think is a great way to budget, we also buy washing power/toilet roll/toilette's & what ever general stuff in bulk form producer, not cash & carry. at the moment we are in talks with a manufacture in clothes, our aim is to get every thing we need for half the price, there is over 350 people in our co.op about 80 family's, working together so save money & better our living conditions, we all have houses & nearly all have mortgagees, we ave been doing this for nearly a year now & i just want to let others know.

dudara

Hi OP - I'm unsure what you're trying to achieve with this post. Are you promoting your cooperative, or are you just passing on a general tip?

dudara

busman

Direct charge co.op wrote: »

here's a simple idea that me & my community do to save money on our bills, once every two weeks one of our group goes to smithfield market & buys in bulk what we need, we save 50% compared to our local tesco. we only do this for ourselves & i think is a great way to budget, we also buy washing power/toilet roll/toilette's & what ever general stuff in bulk form producer, not cash & carry. at the moment we are in talks with a manufacture in clothes, our aim is to get every thing we need for half the price, there is over 350 people in our co.op about 80 family's, working together so save money & better our living conditions, we all have houses & nearly all have mortgagees, we ave been doing this for nearly a year now & i just want to let others know.

Nice idea, cut out the middle men!
Hope it's Ok to post this ...
Not affiliated in any way with the following, just a happy customer. We have been buying from http://www.iihealthfoods.com/ for a number of years. They are open to the public every Saturday from 10am to 3pm. Not only can you buy in bulk but they also have specials on out of date items, open packages etc.
Nice friendly people to boot

Edit: Maybe the best place for this tread would be in Bargain Alerts? That's if the OP is genuine!

Hootanany

Good idea

foggy_lad

you dont need to set up a co-op to go to smithfield market once a week to buy cheap veg fruit and other household items but there is not really a large enough saving comparted to aldi/lidl to cover the costs unless it was being done like the op suggests for several families and using a van.

Direct charge co.op

Hi, I'm not advertising our co-op, only want people to know about a way of buying that's out there, it takes a little bit of structure, like we do our foodstuff & household items twice a month, clothes every month, stuff for the house every 4 months, also we make sure that things like presents for Xmas & birthdays are taken care of too, at first i wasn't quite sure how it would work, it started off with 5 family's & over the last year 80 have joined, now also we have a website that if for what ever reason any of the group had an excess of anything or anyone was looking for anything, they can post it on it, for example i might a sofa that might only need reupholstering, some one can exchange something that they have for it, now i have a family of 5 & before our normal spend on shopping might range from 150 to 300 per week on average over the year, now its more or less fixed at 100, which is great coz i lost my job 2 months ago. we used never really thing about how much we would spend of stuff, now we think about what we need & really manage our spend, it something any1 can do, & for the post relating to lidi/aldi or ikea, we've sourced produced & product, better quality & price.

tommy21

Direct charge co.op wrote: »

Hi, I'm not advertising our co-op, only want people to know about a way of buying that's out there, it takes a little bit of structure, like we do our foodstuff & household items twice a month, clothes every month, stuff for the house every 4 months, also we make sure that things like presents for Xmas & birthdays are taken care of too, at first i wasn't quite sure how it would work, it started off with 5 family's & over the last year 80 have joined, now also we have a website that if for what ever reason any of the group had an excess of anything or anyone was looking for anything, they can post it on it, for example i might a sofa that might only need reupholstering, some one can exchange something that they have for it, now i have a family of 5 & before our normal spend on shopping might range from 150 to 300 per week on average over the year, now its more or less fixed at 100, which is great coz i lost my job 2 months ago. we used never really thing about how much we would spend of stuff, now we think about what we need & really manage our spend, it something any1 can do, & for the post relating to lidi/aldi or ikea, we've sourced produced & product, better quality & price.

I find it hard to believe your not advertising, particularly given your user name Still if it would work for people why not. Have to say it does not appeal to me, the hassle with collecting money, dealing with people pulliing out, transport etc. outweighs benefit in my eyes.

Direct charge co.op

tommy21 wrote: »

I find it hard to believe your not advertising, particularly given your user name Still if it would work for people why not. Have to say it does not appeal to me, the hassle with collecting money, dealing with people pulliing out, transport etc. outweighs benefit in my eyes.

Thanks for bringing this up, as when first i thought starting the coop i came up with the same issues, ill deal with each one, collecting money is done first, we have an updated list of every thing we buy in bulk from different suppliers, so everyone knows what price things are, dealing with people pulling out, any one who decides to change their order is entitled to do so & they get a full refund, transport ect because we buy what a shop would buy we get it delivered free of charge, we have a pick up point, because of on going business, the only real work involved in this in checking my email for price lists & updating site, about 3 hours a week & its taken in turn, also yesterday i ordered 10 SAMSUNG 37" 50HZ LCD FULL HD for 1800 euro direct from main distributor, my uncle is picking them up Monday, now that the kinda value you can save coz the rrp of these is around 420 euro each, again its not a business, you can do it, it buying power.

tommy21

But surely this method of doing business must have some sort of tax implications?

Direct charge co.op

tommy21 wrote: »

But surely this method of doing business must have some sort of tax implications?

It does, we pay our vat like all business's do when they buy from manufactures or producers & because we only do it for ourselves & not sell on for profit we don't have tax, here is an example, i contacted a distributor in America for Levis, we were able to buy 150 pairs of jeans of assorted size for $12.50 each, shipping cost 150 euro, import tax 8% + 21% vat, jeans took 3 weeks to get here a total of just under 2000 euro, making each pair cost the person who ordered it at around 13.50, now the same jeans where that time 80 euro, we saved over 65 euro & paid all duty & vat.

tommy21

Direct charge co.op wrote: »

It does, we pay our vat like all business's do when they buy from manufactures or producers & because we only do it for ourselves & not sell on for profit we don't have tax, here is an example, i contacted a distributor in America for Levis, we were able to buy 150 pairs of jeans of assorted size for $12.50 each, shipping cost 150 euro, import tax 8% + 21% vat, jeans took 3 weeks to get here a total of just under 2000 euro, making each pair cost the person who ordered it at around 13.50, now the same jeans where that time 80 euro, we saved over 65 euro & paid all duty & vat.

Ok a hypothetical for you - I and 10 other families have decided to pull out of the co-op mid-order. What does this mean for you?

Direct charge co.op

tommy21 wrote: »

Ok a hypothetical for you - I and 10 other families have decided to pull out of the co-op mid-order. What does this mean for you?

Noting, they pull out, they cancel their order, this isnt a business, every1 is responsible for their own order, there no company, who ever is computer literate takes in turn updating info, the only thing is structure, when to order in a group, its pretty simple.

the groutch

Direct charge co.op wrote: »

Noting, they pull out, they cancel their order, this isnt a business, every1 is responsible for their own order, there no company, who ever is computer literate takes in turn updating info, the only thing is structure, when to order in a group, its pretty simple.

it IS a business tho, you have to register for VAT, the other "members" pay you, and I expect that you're not doing all this extra work pro bono

Direct charge co.op

the groutch wrote: »

it IS a business tho, you have to register for VAT, the other "members" pay you, and I expect that you're not doing all this extra work pro bono

Its not a business, although it could be if we wanted to turn it into on, & we have been doing it for over a year & we are not required to register for vat, once what we get, is for ourselves, every person in charge of making orders for there family is responsible for paying there own share to manufacture or producer & for extra work is about 3 hours per week, for who ever is in charge of updating price lists, Ive enquired about a pallet of bold 90 wash from a p&g distributor, theres 96 box's per pallet, costs just under 900 euro per pallet including vat @ 21% + 25 euro for delivery, making each box cost 9.90 euro, these box's sell for around 18 euro in any shop, that's a hell of a saving.

the_syco

Direct charge co.op wrote: »

also yesterday i ordered 10 SAMSUNG 37" 50HZ LCD FULL HD for 1800 euro direct from main distributor, my uncle is picking them up Monday, now that the kinda value you can save coz the rrp of these is around 420 euro each, again its not a business, you can do it, it buying power.

So you are saying you got them at €180 each? I doubt it. Unless of course you are not paying VAT, in which case you are playing with fire.

coylemj

the_syco wrote: »

So you are saying you got them at €180 each? I doubt it. Unless of course you are not paying VAT, in which case you are playing with fire.

The distributor will levy VAT, you can be sure of that. I doubt if there's a scam but like you I doubt that that price is right, the cheapest 37" Samsung LCD TV on Amazon is 390 sterling which equates to Eur 460.