Group purchasing organization
A buying group is a form of cooperation and thus a voluntary association of companies for the purpose of increasing their profitability. Shopping communities are especially common in medium-sized retail. By bundling of demand, for example in energy terms, obtain the individual farms improved conditions.
Named for the many forms of purchasing groups in trade, other terms are used such as integrated trading system, cooperating trading system, trade cooperation, cooperating group, composite group, purchasing organization, purchasing office, shopping or purchasing cooperative association in the literature.
Depending on the membership of the cooperating company to one or two economic levels or to different industries purchasing groups are divided into horizontal, vertical and conglomerate collaborations. Horizontal Shopping communities connect, for example, exclusively retailers or wholesalers with each other. Compounds of wholesale and retail dealers are referred to as vertical cooperation. A special case is when the horizontally designed Einkaufsgenossenschaft of retailers. With their cooperative merger will create a Community operations at the wholesale level: the cooperative or the cooperative headquarters. The same applies to purchasing cooperatives of artisans, restaurateurs or freelancers.
From a macroeconomic perspective Shopping communities are characterized by numerous competitive features, eg by the simultaneity of intra-and interorganisationalem individual and group competition. It follows that purchasing groups have to abide by the conditions of the market and the provisions of the antitrust and competition law for their needs hedging transactions like any other market participant.
Origin and history
End of the 19th century, the competitive situation of small and medium-sized commercial enterprises worsened by the emerging competition of consumer cooperatives, goods and department stores and chain stores. In order to survive long term in the competition, especially the procurement of goods was jointly organized, which reduced the purchase prices of the merchandise. The Community acquisition of goods still has a central role in the operation of shopping communities.
The majority of purchasing groups were shared by their members ( equity investors ). For this reason, chose Shopping Communities initially mainly the legal form of a cooperative ( Einkaufsgenossenschaft ). For them, the Cooperatives Act applies.
Since the early 1920s, buying groups were also established in other legal forms or transformed into another. As a result, numerous gradations and mixed forms have made that offer many other services in addition to the Community Shopping.
Objectives and tasks of purchasing groups
From a business point of view, buying groups represent network organizations whose areas of responsibility include the commodification of procurement and in-plant operations on Internal economies of scale and the economization of the paragraph by the action progression of sales policy instruments.
Shopping communities speak in meeting the economization in the member companies of central corporate functions such as purchasing, marketing, human resources, finance and legal experts.
Managerial implications of purchasing groups
Your membership in modern shopping Communities positive impact on the risk situation of the member companies, particularly in the use of key service offerings in sales, management and controlling. A central financial controlling the financial management of members and the credit quality improves increases. In the context of information networks through ERP systems or the experiences of members creates an early warning system that serves as the basis for decreased investment risk.
The strength of the economic impact of this is clearly related to the degree of cooperation of a company with stronger centralization also increase the positive effects.