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With cooperative buying, schools can combine their purchasing power to obtain lower prices and better terms from suppliers. This is especially powerful for commodities and essential supplies for school districts, colleges, and universities.
You save time and money while streamlining your procurement.
When you partner with an education buying cooperative, you benefit in a variety of ways that reduce costs, increase efficiency, and improve quality assurance.
When educational institutions combine their purchasing power, they can access significant volume discounts that would be unattainable individually. For example, a group of schools ordering 10,000 textbooks collectively will receive better pricing than ten schools ordering 1,000 books each.
Bulk ordering directly impacts the per-unit cost of items. Suppliers can offer better pricing when selling larger quantities due to the economies of scale in production and handling. This often results in 15–30% savings on common items.
Cooperative buying eliminates the need for each institution to maintain separate procurement processes. This consolidation reduces paperwork, and administrative overhead. One centralized team can handle purchasing for multiple institutions, spreading the administrative costs across the group.
Working with an education buying cooperative typically produces terms that are more favorable to schools. This might include:
Combining purchasing eliminates the need for each institution to conduct separate bidding processes, vendor evaluations, and contract negotiations. What might take weeks (or months) for individual institutions can be completed in days through cooperative buying. This allows procurement teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than sourcing and purchasing.
Each of these benefits saves time, which, in turn, saves money (and reduces headaches).
Contract management is shared among cooperative members and staff. Account managers are in contact with suppliers and manage contract negotiation and management, reducing the burden on procurement teams.
While individual schools should still maintain relationships with suppliers and retain procurement specialists as needed, cooperative buying in education means professional procurement specialists can help with problem resolution and build long-term relationships.
Cooperative buying eliminates the countless hours schools spend doing the same tasks independently. Instead of every school in a region separately researching suppliers for identical items like classroom furniture or office supplies, a single thorough evaluation serves all members.
Think about the time saved when 20 schools aren’t individually preparing bid documents, conducting vendor reviews, and maintaining separate documentation for the same purchases.
When schools join a cooperative buying program, they gain access to streamlined purchasing systems. Rather than navigating complex procurement rules and compliance requirements on their own, an education buying cooperative can help ensure rules are followed when creating standardizing contracts.
One of the most valuable benefits of cooperative buying is the ability to secure long-term agreements that provide stability and predictability. Multi-year contracts may offer locked-in pricing, protecting schools from market fluctuations and unexpected cost increases, although the majority do have annual price adjustments.
Because of the volume commitment, multi-year contracts typically mean you will have consistent supply availability as well.
The substantial volume represented by cooperative buying groups gives schools considerable leverage in demanding higher quality standards from suppliers. Instead of a single school requesting specific quality requirements, suppliers must meet the rigorous standards set by all cooperative members.
Cooperative buying minimizes the need for each school to independently test and evaluate products. When one member institution thoroughly tests a new equipment line or classroom furniture series, all members benefit from this assessment.
You get access to category specialists who have significant insight into specific products and services that you may not have. These experts stay current with market trends, source new products, and provide guidance that can benefit all member institutions.
With larger contracts at stake, suppliers are more motivated to maintain high service levels and product quality. If quality issues arise, the collective voice of the cooperative carries more weight in resolving problems than a single institution might achieve alone.
E&I Cooperative Services is the only member-owned, nonprofit sourcing cooperative exclusively focused on serving the education community. Because it’s our sole focus, we are uniquely equipped with the knowledge, experience, and passion to meet the specialized needs of educational procurement.
Learn more about the benefits of becoming a member of E&I Cooperative Services today.
