Frequently Asked Questions
BlankBuy, from E&I Cooperative Services, is an online marketplace solution that brings potentially 90% of your school’s everyday purchasing spend under contract in one place and vastly improves spend control. The solution is custom-built for small institutions like yours and is fully managed by E&I.
BlankBuy can be customized to match your school’s unique branding. Think of the Blank in BlankBuy as a placeholder for your school’s brand or mascot. Think HawkBuy, PantherBuy, whatever name encapsulates your school’s unique identity!
No, there is no cost for using the solution.
The person at your institution signing up for BlankBuy should be in a strategic leadership role and have the authority to make that decision on behalf of the school. Typically, this will be a Chief Financial Officer, Chief Business Officer, VP of Finance and/or Administration, or a similar leadership role.
While there is no administrative overhead with BlankBuy, we do recommend that you designate a secondary contact as your school’s day-to-day contact. This is in case questions arise on our end or with one of our suppliers. This secondary contact could be your admin, a known marketplace advocate (e.g., someone who will use the solution such as your Director of Facilities or IT Buyer), or another responsible party.
We need two things from you to customize your instance of BlankBuy:
- A unique name for the solution.
- Your school mascot or logo.
We recommend that you choose your school mascot over a logo whenever possible. Campus stakeholders recognize school mascots and are likely to rally behind them. They’re more fun and tend to inspire loyalty and commitment – two things you’ll want to make your new marketplace a success. Don’t have a mascot? Then, it’s perfectly OK to use the school logo. NOTE: Please supply a mascot/logo (EPS/PNG/JPG format) at a minimum of 72 dpi and 500 pixels at its shortest dimension.
Next, pick a name for your new marketplace. Again, this should reflect the mascot or logo you’ve chosen.
Here are some examples of strong marketplace names or visual identities:
We recommend sticking with ______Buy in most cases, or going with a variation such as ______Marketplace. Abstract names are less likely to resonate with campus users, so we don’t generally recommend them.
That’s it – happy shopping!
BlankBuy is available to all E&I members in K-12 and higher education. However, the solution was custom-developed for and best fits the needs of smaller-sized institutions. Typically, these institutions won’t already have eProcurement in place and will have limited resources available. BlankBuy is a great way for these schools to reduce procurement costs, mitigate risk, and maximize spend on contract.
BlankBuy can be used by procurement staff, faculty, department heads and end users, and other campus stakeholders.
All purchases in BlankBuy are conducted by p-card.
If you think BlankBuy may be a good option for your school, we recommend completing this brief form as a next step. An E&I eProcurement Advisor will be in touch to discuss your situation and confirm that BlankBuy is indeed likely to meet your needs.
BlankBuy is preloaded with E&I supplier contracts and catalogs. This means that all users are getting E&I standard national pricing at all times.
At the present time, 100% of all contracts in BlankBuy are competitively solicited.
100% of all purchases made in BlankBuy count toward your overall spend and are therefore factored into any patronage refund that might be issued.
You can learn more about BlankBuy here.
No. E&I has three additional solutions for members: EqualLevel, Sponsored by E&I; JAGGAER; and Unimarket. All three are strong eProcurement platforms with varying levels of cost and functionality. Please contact your E&I representative for help deciding which solution is right for you.
If you need help with BlankBuy or have technical questions, please do not hesitate to contact marketplaceadmin@eandi.org. You will generally receive a response within 24 hours during regular business hours (Mon-Fri).
