Purchasing Division

The AFCNA Purchasing Division acquires product that is available for purchase by shareholders, a limited number of wholesale accounts, and to retail customers.  Products may be acquired from the AFCNA Marketing Division or from outside suppliers.

Originally set up as a traditional marketing cooperative, it soon became apparent that AFCNA shareholders wanted an option for acquiring finished goods made of alpaca fiber, particularly for resale from their farms.  Thus was born the Purchasing Division.

Purchasing Division activities are similar to traditional consumer or purchasing cooperatives.  Using economies of scale unavailable to individuals, AFCNA acquires products of use to shareholders from a variety of sources.  The Purchasing Division offers significant shareholder discounts, and offers wholesale accounts to both shareholders and non-shareholders.

The Purchasing Division also operates on the retail level to a limited extent, offering alpaca fiber goods to the general public via the Americas Alpaca™ website and select trade shows that are attended through the course of the year.

Net profits of the Purchasing Division may be returned to shareholders in proportion to their purchases made from AFCNA.  (No net profits are returned to non-shareholders.) 

Products offered by the Purchasing Division include finished goods produce by the Marketing Division, private labeled products made for AFCNA by outside suppliers, and "Designer Line" products carrying the label of the vendor.

AFCNA is proud to use the America's Alpaca™ label on all private label and produced in-house products.  The co-op owns and operates the America's Alpaca™ website as its main direct sales outlet.