some restrictions to wider-scale group purchasing. “Due to the legislation pertaining to cooperatives and
the way cooperatives are set up, one of the major dif- ferences between a cooperative and a corporation, is a cooperative from one state cannot purchase together with a cooperative from another state or country,” he added. So, Golnik noted, “an organization can join a local state
cooperative and have access to smaller scale benefits, rather than a much larger organization operating on a national or global level. This is one of the major issues our platform managed to solve, by channeling all pur- chases through a corporation, which does not have the geographic limitations that cooperatives do. This allows all local cooperatives from any state and province to work together, purchase together, and achieve signifi- cantly better prices and benefits as one unified group.” Cooperatives may not only be better than districts buy-
ing on their own, but they may also top a conventional method of purchasing we all know: Buying from Amazon.
Last August, education technology site EdSurge report-
ed that Amazon won a five-year public sector contract with U.S. Communities, a cooperative purchasing pro- gram for local governments and school districts, with the option to renew for three additional two-year periods. The contract covers office and classroom supplies, as well as library books, technology and more. The contract value could be worth $5.5 billion over a potential 11-year period. However, EdSurge’s article tested the assumption of better pricing via Amazon with surprising results. An independent firm tracked the prices of office supplies across multiple retailers, then audited the Amazon prices to see if a California school system would have received a better deal, had it purchased the same supplies through a local supplier. “The firm found that the district would have paid 10 to
12 percent more had it gone to Amazon Business,” the article concluded. ●
Editor’s Note: Read more on the EdSurge report at
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