United States · Since 1938
REI Co-op
No shareholders. Just 24 million members who each hold an equal stake.
24M+
member-owners
REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) has no shareholders. It's a consumer cooperative — owned collectively by everyone who's ever paid the one-time membership fee, currently $30, with no renewals and no recurring charges.
Every member holds an equal ownership stake, regardless of how much they've spent, and can vote in board elections that shape the company's direction. In return, members receive an annual reward of roughly 10% on eligible full-price purchases — a share of the surplus flowing back to the people who generated it.
That structure has scaled: REI's community has grown past 24 million lifetime members, with a public goal of reaching 50 million by 2030 — proof that cooperative ownership isn't a niche structure limited to small local businesses.
Why it matters
REI proves the consumer-cooperative model works at national retail scale: the customer relationship and the ownership relationship are the same thing, not two separate systems bolted together.