In my impression, the local supply and marketing cooperatives are divided into two parts, one of which sells daily necessities, including food. The other part is the sale of agricultural products, including seeds, pesticides, fertilizers and farm tools.
Because by the late 1980s, the supply and marketing cooperatives had lost the function of purchasing agricultural products, leaving only one thing to sell. In my father's generation, supply and marketing cooperatives also bear the heavy responsibility of buying and selling goods and distributing goods by ticket. Because they have mastered a large number of production materials or resources closely related to their lives, people who can work in supply and marketing cooperatives are highly respected. In most cases, they treat members or the public with a cocky expression.
After the emergence of private shops, private shops and supply and marketing cooperatives have coexisted for a long time, and there is a competitive relationship for the first time. Most supply and marketing cooperatives have also been restructured, contracted by the original employees, and are responsible for their own profits and losses. However, it still monopolizes the exclusive products of pesticides and fertilizers.
Then, after the prosperity of private shops and supermarket wholesale departments, supply and marketing cooperatives gradually lost their competitiveness, either becoming ordinary shops, closing their doors for rent or even selling their assets (houses).
Some people think that the supply and marketing cooperatives are gone. Actually, it's not. The national supply and marketing cooperative system still exists, but it exists in name only at the grassroots level. According to the official revenue and expenditure of supply and marketing cooperatives, most of the income depends on the state financial allocation, rather than operating income, and its main business is the allocation of agricultural resources.
In recent years, supply and marketing cooperatives have been active from time to time, and the previously cancelled business outlets have gradually recovered. So far, county-level and township-level supply and marketing cooperatives have almost achieved full coverage. And carried out several pilot projects, aiming at turning the supply and marketing cooperatives into a huge system integrating supermarket function, agricultural product sales function and agricultural product adjustment function.