Ohio University uses the E&I Consortium contract for our Lowe’s purchases. E&I is a purchasing consortium for higher education and Ohio University is a member. This allows higher education institutions like the University and across the country to consolidate their supplier spend and negotiate higher quality agreements and benefits with vendors that they could not get alone.
The E&I contract with Lowes was recently renegotiated and as a result, Lowe’s has discontinued the use of ‘fobs’ for discounted in-store purchasing. As a result, when you shop in-store at a Lowe’s, you will no longer receive any discounts – you will be paying retail prices. If you require an in-store purchase, purchasing via PCard is acceptable, just be advised that you will not receive a discount.
A 5% discount is still applied for purchases processed through the Lowe’s punchout catalog in BobcatBuy (both in-store pickup and delivery).
You can still place orders for in-store pickup via the Lowe’s punchout catalog on the BobcatBuy homescreen. You can select the ‘FREE pickup’ option to pick-up your item in-store when adding your item(s) to the cart as long as the item is in stock. Questions? Please submit to financecustomercare@ohio.edu .