Welcome to the fifth and final installment of our procurement marketplace blog series—a series that will teach your procurement team everything you need to know about procure-to-pay marketplaces and how you can transform your agency and empower your employees with access to a marketplace platform.
So far, we’ve covered:
- What is a Procurement Marketplace? 5 Benefits You Can Expect with Centralized, Cloud-Based Tech
- Bridging the Gap Between On-Contract Spend and Staff Mobilization
- Compliance vs Savings in Purchasing: How an AI-Powered Marketplace Can Change the Game
- 5 Things to Consider in a Procurement Marketplace Tool
This blog discusses why your agency should be putting a heavy emphasis on comparison shopping to maximize cost savings, and how you can formulate this process without overworking your team.
Why is Comparison Shopping so Difficult?
We know you’re committed to comparison shopping, but other people on your staff can see this as a burden. While procurement teams are often champions of the “3-bids-and-a-buy” rule, non-procurement staff can see this as unnecessary busywork.
Effectively vetting and shopping the market can be a tedious task, especially when trying to keep track of all available vendors, prices, and options in the market. This challenge is often compounded by two factors:
- Making purchases that are on-contract can be inefficient.
- Conducting thorough comparison shopping is time consuming.
That’s where purpose-built procurement marketplaces step in. Agency staff can still conduct the 3-bids-and-a-buy process instantly–without having to spend any additional time. By automatically comparing products or quickly requesting quotes for services, your team can achieve the same great outcomes of comparison shopping without the hassle.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though—first we need to look at two big pain points in the purchasing process.
The Complications of On-Contract Spend
Contract spend tracking is a crucial aspect of procurement, and yet it can be complicated and confusing.
Imagine this scenario: You’re a government employee that needs to purchase a new computer chair because yours broke, and now you must start the tedious process of manual comparison shopping. First, you check the list of approved suppliers provided by your company. However, it’s just a simple spreadsheet that requires you to manually search and visit each supplier’s site individually.
It becomes overwhelming, and here are a few roadblocks you may run into:
- Several vendors may sell the same thing—but that information isn’t always clear from the vendor’s name. Think Best Buy. When Best Buy pops into a person’s head, what do they automatically think of? Electronics. But they sell office chairs and may have a better rate than an office supply store.
- Manual searching. We can’t be the only ones that hate constantly toggling between tabs on vendor sites. It gets confusing quickly, especially when trying to find exact product comparisons.
- Vendor contracts expire. The vendors that your organization is under contract with in 2023 may not be the same vendors as 2024. So, if you bookmark a vendor site and default to that site when purchases—like office chairs—need to be made, it’s easy to accidentally make the purchase on an expired contract (off-contract spend).
It’s essential for organizations to maintain an updated list of approved contracts to ensure all purchases are within the agreed terms and conditions. However, constantly checking and updating the list can be a hassle for employees who are already overworked. This leads to our next issue, which is the difficulty that accompanies the act of comparison shopping.
The Difficulty of Comparison Shopping
Comparison shopping is a vital part of procurement, along with contract spend tracking. It’s the process of researching and evaluating various vendors to find the best options in terms of price, quality, delivery time, and other factors.
However, with so many vendors and products available, it can be overwhelming to keep track of everything. Not to mention the time and effort required for employees to visit each vendor’s site individually. This can lead to employees simply choosing a product or service from the first supplier they come across, without comparing prices or other important factors.
We understand that employees have limited time and resources, and their focus should be on more urgent tasks. That’s why we’ve developed a solution that simplifies comparison shopping for organizations without adding to employee workloads.
Leverage a Procurement Marketplace to Simplify Comparison Shopping
Fortunately, advancements in technology have made it easier for organizations to compare and evaluate vendors, products, and more. Euna Procurement’s marketplace solution simplifies comparison shopping by providing a centralized marketplace for all approved contracts and vendors.
Organizations can easily access an updated list of approved contracts and track their spend against each contract all within the centralized platform. Moreover, the platform also allows for easy comparison shopping by providing a comprehensive view of products and services offered by multiple vendors in one place.
Additionally, Euna Procurement enables organizations to compare prices, availability, and other details from different vendors, making the procurement process more efficient and cost-effective.
Fun fact: Did you know that Euna Procurement leverages AI to automate the 3-bids-and-a-buy process? The solution automatically identifies identical and alternate items, makes a recommendation to the shopper, and compiles everything into a simple PDF file.
In conclusion, comparison shopping is a crucial aspect of procurement that helps organizations make informed purchasing decisions. By using technology solutions like Euna Procurement, organizations can simplify the process and ensure they are getting the best value for their money.
Request a demo of our marketplace solution today to learn how you can save time and money through automated comparison shopping.
