Fedco

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Federal Employees' Distributing Company
Type Discount membership store
Founded 1948
Headquarters Los Angeles, California
Industry Retail
Products clothing, footwear, housewares, jewelry, garden, appliances, sporting goods, produce, hardware, toys, electronics
Website None

Fedco (Federal Employees' Distributing Company) was a membership-based department store chain that operated in Southern California from 1948 to 1999.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Beginning

Unusually, the chain was a nonprofit consumers' cooperative; it had been founded by 800 U.S. Post Office workers who had wanted to leverage their buying power by purchasing goods directly from wholesalers. Trade lines included grocery, and in some locations, auto services and furniture. A lifetime membership was available for under five dollars if the prospective member was an employee of the U.S. government or a student, or family of the same. Fedco's lifetime membership cost $10 in 1998 [1].

At its peak, Fedco had ten department stores plus three appliance-only stores, and served 4 million members.

[edit] Bankruptcy

Fedco predated the giant chains Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart, and fellow membership chain Costco, but remained a regional chain and eventually was unable to compete with the national retail titans. Fedco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999, at which point it had been the longest-operating membership-based store in the country. Most of its locations were sold to the Target chain. The proceeds of the bankruptcy sale were placed in a trust fund intended to charitably serve communities that had hosted Fedco stores.

[edit] Locations

[edit] References

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