Amazon Buying Program

    • When the Amazon cart is created and then submitted, the clock begins ticking on the lifespan of the cart.  The cart will expire in 7 days (not working days).  It is important that the purchase requisition is created on the same day (and time, if possible) that the cart is submitted to Amazon.

    • The Amazon cart MUST match the purchase requisition. There are no exceptions. If they do not match, the cart will expire and will need to be re-created and re-submitted.  This means that the 7-day window of locking in the price and stock starts all over again.

    • Not all Amazon orders can be approved in the same time frame. SAA orders, which are Student Activities (81s or 82s), require another layer of approval from Finance.  The Purchasing Department cannot approve any SAA order without the approval of Finance.  For the 81s, the student approval forms should be submitted to Finance as soon as possible, or this could factor into the expiration of the Amazon cart.  It’s extremely important that the approval group entered on your purchase requisition for SAA orders should be 81 or 82. Otherwise, Finance cannot see it to approve it on their report.

    • It’s important to combine orders whenever possible. It costs approximately $65 or more to process a purchase requisition, including soft costs, etc. It doesn’t make sense to request an order to be processed for less than $50 unless it’s extremely urgent.  When placing Amazon orders and fielding requests for small purchases, it’s best to check around your building to see if there are other requests that can be consolidated to reduce costs.

    • When ordering a large number of items, Amazon will begin calculating the cart to determine the best way to ship your order.  When this happens, your cart can randomly be split into multiple orders (carts).  This could cause some confusion for the entry of your purchase requisition.  It is recommended that to avoid this confusion, do not enter one large purchase requisition for over 30 items.  Please determine the best way to input your requisitions based on how many total items you’re ordering.