Perhaps it is because my time as an e-resources librarian is fairly short or maybe I just need to get out more, but I’ve been surprised by the number of times I’ve heard about the lack of price negotiations for e-resources.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am hardly an expert at license or price negotiations. However, I do believe that negotiations can be beneficial. Three years ago, I was able to negotiate renewal prices for three different databases so that we saved nearly $6,000 compared to what vendors initially quoted for these renewals. (I realize that this amount’s significance varies significantly depending on the size of your institution and budget.)
Yes, it took time, yes it was frustrating, but in the end, due to flat budgets, that $6,000 allowed us to keep some of the smaller databases and cancel less the following fiscal years. Incidentally, I negotiated with only three vendors, since, as a department of one, I do not have the time/staff to negotiate all subscriptions. Typically, negotiations are started because a price is extremely high, the renewal rate is high, or there are other reasons to argue for a lower price or better licensing terms.
Tactics that have worked for me in the past, but are probably not new to many of you, nor are they guaranteed.
- Negotiate hard for a new subscription since a lower initial cost means that future percent increases are added to a lower amount.
- In addition, when signing a license agreement for a new subscription, adding a clause to lock the annual percent increase of the next 3-5 years can help too.
- When only students in a specific discipline use a database, find out how many students are in that discipline and argue for a lower price based on this figure instead of the school’s entire FTE, especially if the vendor does not offer lower prices for fewer simultaneous users. It is unreasonable to pay the full FTE price for a product that only a select portion of the student population uses.
- Again for discipline specific databases, counter that by making the database available to students now, they are more likely to purchase a subscription at higher rates when they are out in the workforce.
- Instead of asking the vendor to come up with a reduced rate, counter with a percent increase of your own. While the vendor’s final offer will usually be a little higher, it is usually less than the original quote.
- Conduct negotiations via e-mail, and during a negotiation, send your reasons in several short emails over the course of a week rather than all at once in one long e-mail.
- Develop negotiation phrases that you can copy and paste to save time.
- Use the average percent increases for your library’s subscriptions. Vendors often say that their 5-8% increases is “industry standard.” However, our average percent increase is usually lower than this. Yes, there are outliers on both ends, but by telling a vendor that your library’s average percent increase for all e-resources is X% instead of 8%, you can sometimes reduce your renewal rate.
- Plead flat budgets, have patience, and start well before the renewal date!
- Consortiums can be a great help.
- Cite competing vendors’ favorable terms, price freezes, low percent increases, etc.
- If you have concerns about a particular license agreement, post your concerns on your blog, Twitter, FriendFeed, or a listserv to see out how others have dealt with the concern(s). If nothing else, your shout-out will alert other libraries of unfavorable terms.
- Be prepared to walk away. In one experience, it took about a year and half license terms to changes, but it was definitely worth the wait. While it is rare that you can actually walk away from some products without repercussions of some kind, the more libraries are willing to walk away from unfavorable terms, the more likely the vendor will make changes.
What price negotiation strategies have worked for you?
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