PROBLEMS OF COOPERATIVE MARKETING ASSOCIATIONS 17 



CONTROL OF DELIVERY 



The fourth difficulty set forth by the officers and managers of 

 cooperative associations is inability to control the delivery of the 

 product or to specify the time of delivery. In extreme cases, in the 

 absence of a contract or in violation of the terms of their contract, 

 members may sell outside the organization and use the association 

 merely as a dumping ground for poor shipments or as a refuge when 

 market conditions are such that they are unable to sell individually. 

 In these instances, all the conditions for failure are present and 

 failure generally follows such half-hearted ventures in cooperation. 



In other instances, as indicated, the growers, although marketing 

 their entire crop through the association, reserve the right to deter- 

 mine the time at which their shipments shall be sold and, occasion- 

 ally, the market. A carefully planned pooling system should over- 

 come this difficulty. When a grower receives the average price for 

 all shipments of the same grade as his own, he should be willing to 

 allow the association to determine when his crop shall be sold. It 

 is obvious, of course, that when each grower acts as salesman to the 

 extent of determining when his crop shall be sold, no systematic 

 plan of distribution can be put into effect. 



A situation of this kind often arises from faulty organization 

 of the association. From the first, it should be understood and 

 expressed in a contract between the association and its members, 

 that all the crop produced by each member is to be delivered to 

 the association and that the association may specify the time and 

 place of delivery. Any other arrangement makes for inefficient 

 marketing. 



INEFFICIENT SALES SERVICE 



Failure to supply small markets regularly and directly and the 

 glutting of certain markets while others are undersupplied was 

 listed as a difficulty of cooperative associations, especially those 

 depending on other agencies for marketing service. This difficulty 

 appears when there is an overproduction of the commodity in 

 question and is frequently more apparent than real. The more 

 perishable commodities handled by large marketing organizations 

 certainly are distributed reasonably widely and effectively and the 

 list of cities receiving car-lot shipments is large. The Florida Citrus 

 Exchange, for example, sold car lots of citrus fruit in 413 markets 

 in 1923. It is hardly possible, at the present time, that serious 

 market gluts continue for more than a few days if other available 

 markets are short of supplies, for shippers who are in touch with 

 many markets by telegraph and are anxious to sell at the best price, 

 immediately divert or consign shipments to the cities where the 

 shortages exist. 



It is no doubt true, however, that cooperative associations, like 

 other shippers, send supplies to market without knowing definitely 

 the best markets for their products. They may pass by promising 

 markets in order to obtain " wide distribution." An analysis of the 

 available supply of the product handled and of competing products, 

 and a careful study of the requirements and potential demand in each 

 market, such as is made by the sales departments of the California 

 86142°— 26 3 



