Are cities and school districts likely to save money by switching their purchasing from a local office supply company to Amazon Business?
To help answer that question, we examined pricing for 57 items that were purchased by a county school district in California during a two-week period in January. The district, which was randomly selected, purchased these items from an independent office supply dealer, which has annual sales of less than $5 million. We compared the actual prices invoiced to the district by this dealer with Amazon Business pricing for the same items.

This analysis found that an independent office supply dealer provided a local school district with a lower overall price on two-weeks-worth of purchases than the district would have obtained from Amazon Business. In addition, the dealer provided superior shipping terms, with next-day delivery, rather than the 2-day delivery on Amazon Business Prime items and up to 2 weeks for Amazon Business Marketplace items. While this finding may be counter to the common assumption, it’s not actually that surprising when you consider that independent office supply dealers are buying in significant volume, often via group purchasing cooperatives, and many have achieved significant efficiencies through years of operations. Amazon’s pricing is dynamic and can vary day by day. This comparison was a snapshot taken at a single point in time. In theory, a purchaser could spend days and days on Amazon Business checking every item, waiting for a lower price, while weighing delivery times against the needs of their organization. There is, of course, a significant cost to doing this.

While the dealer in this study is typical of similar dealers around the country, it’s not possible to say for sure. However, one thing should be crystal clear: The claim that Amazon Business has the lowest overall price is false, and any assertion to the contrary is not based on fact.

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