What do customers want in a purchasing solution? (Part two)

This is the second of a two-part series (see the first post here) to explain how Amazon Business addresses the top benefits that drive customer choice of a purchasing solution. The first post focused on the top four benefits. Let’s learn about the next set of important benefits.

5. Help manage total cost of purchasing

When choosing a purchasing solution, organisations don’t only look at cost; they consider long-term value. One way we help you drive long-term value is through our Business Prime programme. We designed this programme to maximise your savings through features such as:

• Fast, free delivery on eligible items
  
• Guided Buying: Identify your organisation’s preferred products or sellers, and restrict or block product categories, to guide buyer behaviour across your organisation (not available with Business Prime Duo).

One of our customers, Stephenson Multi-Academy Trust, is using Business Prime to save money that it invests back into the classroom to improve the learning experience.

“As Business Prime members, teachers could obtain the items they needed quickly and easily, which has resulted in an additional time-saving benefit.”

- Rob Owens, Chief Operating Officer, Stephenson Multi-Academy Trust

6. Provide delivery options that fit my organisation’s needs

Wouldn’t it be nice if your employees got the products or services they needed, when they needed it? We offer you the ability to customise your delivery preferences to improve your purchasing process. For eligible orders, you or your employees can choose preferred delivery days and times during the week for addresses stored in your account. You can also provide customised delivery instructions such as access codes, the delivery location within the building etc., resulting in fewer missed or delayed deliveries.

ExxonMobil is an example of a customer that has customised delivery preferences for each of its locations.

“Instead of deliveries spread out throughout hours, days, and weeks, we get them delivered across all of our locations on a dedicated Amazon Day that we selected based on our delivery preferences. Free delivery through Business Prime is also a major advantage. Otherwise, an average package costs roughly $7.50 (£5.60) to deliver via postal services. Multiply that by the many thousands of monthly deliveries in the US alone, and that gives you an idea of the shipping cost savings with free Amazon delivery.”

- Nassim Kefi, Procurement Advisor

7. Free up employee time to focus on high-value activities and jobs 

Buyers that spend less time on purchasing can spend more time growing your business. Empower them with tools to purchase what they need to be successful in their roles. Multi-user access to business-relevant products through the online store and recurring deliveries on items they purchase frequently, helps them save time on purchases—letting them spend more time serving their customers.

For example, University of Leicester is finding more time to do what matters most to them—serve students. “Previously there were concerns about time and resources being squandered,” he said. “Being able to see clearly what has been ordered in real time with the system, instead of spending time chasing records at the end of the month allows us to use our time more wisely, making sure the university procurement function is running as smoothly as possible.”

- Anthony Midgley, Category Manager and Procurement Systems Lead, University of Leicester

8. Offer competitive pricing

When you work with us, you can unlock competitive pricing on items across multiple categories spanning office supplies, IT products, work safety and more. You’ll save on every type of purchase because we match you with the best type of discount available. Between deals, everyday savings and Quantity Discounts for bulk purchases.

Busy Bees Childcare, largest provider of childcare services in the UK and Ireland, with 375 centres in operation implemented Amazon Business and found savings in bulk buying:

“We have different resources for different areas of learning which are sourced by us and available for the nurseries to buy. As part of that we needed to source Samsung tablets to support the UP app. This was our first spot buy with Amazon Business. We purchased 450 tablets using our new account and in doing so saved £15,000.”

 - Keelie Leahy, Director of Innovation, Busy Bees Childcare

Create a free Amazon Business account to reshape buying within your organisation.