How you can save time on purchases by using Business Lists

In 2019, we conducted a survey to figure out what benefits you, our customers, want from a purchasing solution. We found that, “Make it easy to buy the products our organization needs” and “Free up employee time to focus on high-value activities and job roles” were the two most important benefits you wanted.¹ Business Lists is one of the various solutions we have to address these benefits. It can help you:  

Simplify buying

You can compartmentalize your purchasing needs by creating as many categories of lists as you want such as office supplies, janitorial and sanitation, breakroom etc. These lists can also be unique to your/your group’s needs (e.g. John’s office supplies, Mary’s classroom supplies etc.). You can add as many items as you want to each of those lists. Once you create a list, you can reorder the entire list or order individual items from that list at any time and in different quantities, making shopping for work easier.

Save time on purchases

In addition to saving yourself time, you can also help colleagues optimize the time they spend on business purchasing by sharing your lists. All it takes is a click and we send an email to your colleagues with a link to the lists you shared. They can now use your lists to get started with business purchasing without having to spend time discovering items they buy frequently.

Reduce costs

Creating and sharing a list motivates buyers in a department or an organization to standardize purchasing around preferred items/sellers/brands. This standardization can lead to reduced costs as buyers purchase larger quantities of the same eligible item each time potentially earning Quantity discounts. If your organization is a Business Prime member, it can also earn Progressive discounts on repeat purchases of eligible items your buyers purchase frequently. We will track purchases across multiple buyers in your account and automatically apply the Progressive discount.

Drive compliance 

Sharing lists also helps with compliance as it sends a signal to buyers that the organization recommends certain products/sellers/brands. We also offer administrators the option to classify any or all of their business lists as preferred buying policies through Guided Buying (available with Business Prime). This further formalizes the buying process.

Create lists that cater to your needs

You can create reorder lists comprising of items you buy regularly, or shopping lists that consist of items you buy occasionally. You can even create an idea list that saves items you find interesting and might want to save as a potential purchases for special events (e.g. company’s all-hands meetings, company off-site, school’s annual day etc.). So, take advantage of Amazon’s selection by opening a free Amazon Business account and creating your unique lists.

Don’t have the time to create a list? We have created lists of essential items spanning five categories (Office supplies, IT peripherals, Breakroom supplies, Janitorial and sanitation supplies, and Maintenance (MRO)) to get you started. You and your colleagues can now quickly purchase from these lists, add to these lists, or copy items from these lists to create your own catalogs. With many organizations transitioning to remote work, we have also curated a work from home list to enable your buyers to get what they need to succeed in their roles wherever they are. If you want to discover a larger selection, you can also checkout Business Plus, our curation of 4-star picks for your work purchases, all in one place.

^{[1] 2019 Brand Foundations Quantitative Research conducted by Amazon Business: 15-minute online survey among buyer decision makers in the US belonging to the healthcare, commercial, education, and government verticals. Sample = 867. In a trade-off exercise consisting of 16 benefits, the two listed benefits emerged as important stated and derived drivers of choice in evaluating a new purchasing solution.}