The feature of ASC is that its members are co-owners of cooperative and its
customers at the same time. This is an important stimulus that promotes the interest of
participants of a cooperative enterprise to seek economic gain in group activities. The
formation of the agricultural service cooperatives should become the priority in the
agrarian sector of the Ukrainian economy because small-scale farmers and private
farms are interested in service cooperatives. It should be noted that cooperation is also
appropriate to private companies having the similar material and technical condition,
common economic problems, and the same motivation for joining the cooperative as
small-scale farmers [2].
To achieve their goals enterprises must fully understand the needs of consumers
and study the basic characteristics of the goods that satisfy them. The one of the main
reasons of poor performance of the local agricultural market is insufficient use of
marketing by agricultural enterprises. Marketing cooperatives have their own specific
objectives: searching the most effective market entry; achieving better coordination
between production and consumer; controlling the sales, including the retail chains;
providing leadership in marketing channels, including vertical integration.
Since not all of the agricultural cooperatives can organize an efficient marketing
activity, experts advise them to resort to alternative actions, including laying the
performance of marketing functions to the executive director, marketing manager,
marketing service or to create a marketing cooperatives’ association to plan and
implement the marketing strategies of cooperatives. There are several factors that can
affect the formation of a marketing system of agricultural service cooperatives,
including: lack of marketing orientation of cooperatives; lack of material and
informational support; underdevelopment of the marketing infrastructure of the
agrarian market, etc. At the same time, the costs of the agricultural service cooperative
for the implementation of marketing activities can be significant: it is necessary to
reconstruct the business processes, study the needs of consumers, hold the meetings
and negotiations, develop the marketing programs and provide various additional
services.
Chapter 2. Current state of marketing mix of agricultural service
cooperatives. The formation of market relations requires agricultural producers to pay
more attention to marketing methods used in production management. Currently, the
most of the agricultural enterprises can’t function without marketing department and
careful design of the marketing mix, since producers should understand what to
produce, how many, at what prices, and what channels of sales to use.
Cooperative activities aimed at maximizing of customer satisfaction, whether they
are members of cooperatives or ordinary consumers. Marketing activities of
agricultural service cooperative concentrated on the implementation of marketing mix
consisting of product, price, distribution and promotion that cooperative can use to
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