We are pleased to announce that Purchasing Services has signed a contract amendment with Staples Business Advantage to address the issue that our contract pricing in Eway sometimes is not competitive with the pricing found in Staples.ca.

As you know, the University has a campus wide office supply contract with Staples Business Advantage and has been using Eway portal for online ordering. Our Eway pricing reflects our negotiated contract pricing, which is a combination of deeply discounted prices for the core products and relatively higher prices for non-core products.

During the past year, many department users have brought their feedback to us that Eway pricing for some items sometimes are higher than those in staples.ca or Staples retail stores, both are under Staples Canada, an independent business and a sister company of Staples Business Advantage.

Starting immediately, the pricing under our contract will move to a Hybrid Savings Program. Under this program, Staples Business Advantage will use Boomerang Technology to scrape online market pricing weekly including staples.ca and other online retailers. For the core products, the program will compare the market price and the existing negotiated price and will use the lower one to update Eway. For the non-core products, the program will update the Eway to be in line with the market price.

This gives us the best of both worlds, great online pricing in line with the current market and the stability of negotiated pricing for the core products whichever is best. This also helps department users to reduce the time and effort spent shopping around for price comparisons.

For information related to this contract including the list of core products, contact information, and detailed billing information, please visit Purchasing Services website at https://www.uoguelph.ca/finance/suppliers/by-commodity

If you have any questions regarding this change please contact Jin Su, Procurement Contracting Officer, Purchasing Services at Ext.53779 or sujin@uoguelph.ca.