Decline and Fall
By the late 1970s the RACS was in trouble. Greater customer affluence and competition from supermarket chains such as Sainsbury's were changing the society's market – its size & democratic ownership structure made it slow to adapt. Membership numbers declined, weakening the society's democratic basis. Reserves dwindled and dividend payments – for many, the Co-op's unique selling point – all but ceased. In 1985, after a century of expansion in size & scope the RACS avoided collapse by 'transferring its engagements' to the national Co-operative Wholesale Society. Many of the former RACS supermarkets and funeral homes remain as Co-op outlets.
Read more about this topic: Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society
Famous quotes related to decline and fall:
“Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall,
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)