Page 29 - The EDGE Spring 2020

VENDOR/BUYER CONFERENCE

BY DON HARRIS
It’s Not Necessarily Easy to Become a School District Vendor

Vendors who want to break into what can be a lucrative Who do I contact at a school when beginning my sales
public school district market may find it difficult, but a panel process?
of purchasing insiders provided tips on what to expect and
what to do. Stewart noted that some vendors reach out to the end user,
the director of construction or the district office.
Jeff Thomason, Purchasing Manager, Creighton Elementary
School District; Jeff Stewart, Buyer, Queen Creek Unified Thomason’s advice: “It’s best to contact Purchasing, which
School District; and Roger Spivey, Director of Purchasing, is me.” He then refers the request to the appropriate person,
Litchfield Elementary School District, tackled several issues and not necessarily the end user.
for vendors to consider.
Spivey recommended starting with Purchasing. “We do have
How can I register as a bidder/vendor? some vendors who have relationships with end users,” he
said. “But new vendors should come to him, he said.
Stewart has a lot of vendors reaching out to him, and the best
way is by email. “This way I have your contact information, I have heard the school procurement community is very
and I will respond by email telling you that this is the way hard to enter for new vendor. How can I break into the
we do business in our district,” Stewart said. “I will give you K12 market?
the guidelines and the rules that we follow.”
Spivey said it is really hard now, for various factors, including
As the only person in his office in the growing Queen Creek existing relationships, small purchasing staffs, and the use
district, Stewart doesn’t have the time to return all voice of cooperatives. “Decisions are not made by the end users
messages. but by the cooperatives,” Spivey said. He recommended
reaching out to districts periodically as occasional reminders
Thomason said Creighton uses Arizona Purchasing.com and if anything comes up for them.
has the same thresholds for purchases as every other district,
with some caveats. “It’s at our discretion whether to do a “I get tons of new vendor packets daily,” Spivey said. “If
bid or quote it out,” Thomason said. Arizona Purchasing you don’t respond once or twice, I remove you from our
maintains a list of vendors and those vendors are notified list. And don’t try to go too big too fast. Find a niche and
when school districts that use the service issue bids. establish a good relationship.”

Even if a vendor isn’t interested, it’s wise for the vendor to Word-of-mouth can help
send in a no-bid to Arizona Purchasing. If a vendor doesn’t a vendor. A district might
respond to three or four bids, Arizona Purchasing will stop ask another district to
sending notices to that vendor. recommend a vendor for a
specific product or service.
Litchfield Elementary maintains its own bidders list, Spivey “I want to benefit my
said. He said fewer than 70 districts use Arizona Purchasing, colleagues,” Spivey said.
which is considerably less than 50 percent of the more than
200 school districts statewide. “You have to reach out to
individual school districts,” he said.
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