Mountaineer Marketplace processes more than $400 million in transactions in first year

By directing faculty and staff to preferred vendor catalogs for more than 25,000 orders, the Mountaineer Marketplace procurement system has reduced WVU spending on routinely purchased items by more than $1 million in its first full year of operation. Marketplace also has saved the University more than $120,000 in credit card fees between FY16 and FY17.

In all, Marketplace has processed more than 87,000 transactions in its first year, with a total value of more than $400 million.

David Beaver, Assistant Vice President of Procurement Services, said Mountaineer Marketplace has produced data that helps his team better understand the University’s ordering habit for lab supplies. That in turn helps procurement negotiate better deals.

For example, “We have renegotiated pricing with Thermo Fisher for our most commonly ordered items. The new pricing for these ‘hot list; items will result in savings this year of almost $250,000,” Beaver said. “We are doing the same analysis and negotiation across other commodities as well.”

New pricing with Grainger will drive an additional $150,000 worth of savings on commonly purchased items such as filters and janitorial supplies, Beaver said.

The procurement team is planning more improvements to Marketplace, including a redesigned vendor-request form, a much more informative notification email for supervisors, and new preferred vendor catalogs.

In October, Marketplace will be expanded to include a new bid website for posting and managing all Requests for Proposals (RFPs). Coming later this fall is a new Contract Management System to create, track and manage contracts across the University.

“These enhancements will give us new, best-in-class capabilities within our Procure-to-Pay processes,” Beaver said.

You can find Mountaineer Marketplace under a tab at MyAccess.wvu.edu and learn more about the system on the procurement website.