Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

How A Purchasing Co-op Can Help

  • By Angela Webb
  • 10/01/16

For people working hard to educate students, time and money are invaluable; there’s not a minute or a dollar to spare. That’s why it’s so important for districts to take advantage of every resource. Purchasing cooperatives are a great place to start.

Co-ops save you time and money by doing the work for you. Co-ops can offer competitive pricing that’s otherwise unavailable to individual districts by nationally leveraging their purchasing power. In other words, vendors are willing to exchange lowered prices for a pool of customers. When you’re part of a co-op, the vendor will provide a list of eligible and approved products available at exclusive prices — all you have to do is shop the list to save money.

If you’ve got a large project, you can use your co-op as a centralized place to see all products, so there’s no need to get multiple bids. These items are pre-approved to make sure they’re competitively priced and meet state guidelines — which means you don’t have to spend time wading through red tape. Since they’re designed to meet statutory, policy and administrative requirements, you can think of co-ops as a one-stop-shop for your district. Plus, you’ll benefit from “customized contact” perks. These include coordination of delivery and certain on-delivery services not available to individual customers.

When you join a co-op, you become a member of a network of educators. You’ll be invited to exclusive conferences on current trends, summer-creditive programs and opportunities to meet other educators. Essentially, a co-op offers a place for you to do all the things you want and need to do, but wouldn’t otherwise have time or money for.

Many co-ops offer free membership. TIPS is available nationally, is free to join and includes all standard services. Shop around and see what’s best for you.

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

About the Author

Angela Webb is director of Sales at School Outfitters. She can be reached at 866/619-5311 or [email protected].

Featured

  • University of Kansas Breaks Ground on Entrepreneurship Hub

    The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new KU Entrepreneurship Hub, according to university news. The Hub is part of the university’s School of Business and will include spaces for experiential learning and programming.

  • AAADM Announces Building Safety Month Initiatives

    The American Association of Automatic Door Manufacturers (AAADM) recently announced its support of Building Safety Month as declared by the International Code Council (ICC), according to a news release.

  • Campus Safety Requires Using Every Resource Available

    Across the U.S., school and campus leaders are facing a security landscape that has changed dramatically over the past decade. Incidents on school property have increased in recent years, with several consecutive years setting record totals. According to analysis of data by CNN, dozens of shootings now occur on school grounds annually across K-12 and higher education environments.

  • abstract illustration of school gym

    How the Gymnasium Can Serve as a Model for Learning Space Design

    Multipurpose gyms work because flexibility was built into the brief from the start, not retrofitted later. The same logic applies to academic spaces.