Issue #1: Introducing "Buy Better"

Different vendors. Different products. Different prices.

And when we visit their sites? More of the same.

Price breaks. Minimum order quantities. Promos. Shipping fees.

The internet was supposed to empower us with the data to make smarter purchasing decisions, but instead, it’s flooded us with information—and left us exhausted by decision fatigue.

Rather than creating efficiency, it’s made the market highly inefficient.

A 2006 article from Harvard Business Review sums it up perfectly:

In 2000, psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper published a remarkable study. On one day, shoppers at an upscale food market saw a display table with 24 varieties of gourmet jam. Those who sampled the spreads received a coupon for $1 off any jam. On another day, shoppers saw a similar table, except that only six varieties of the jam were on display. The large display attracted more interest than the small one. But when the time came to purchase, people who saw the large display were one-tenth as likely to buy as people who saw the small display.

In the world of B2B purchasing, this inefficiency often leads buyers to stick with the same source—even if it’s not the best—just to avoid the burden of decision fatigue and bringing operations to a halt.

As we’ve talked to teams across the country while building Response, we’ve heard one thing loud and clear:

Whether they're procurement pros or juggling procurement as one of many responsibilities, buyers want to make better decisions. But with time and energy in short supply, the easy choice is often the only one they can afford to make.

This approach works for a while, but as companies grow, so does their “procurement debt.”

We’ve worked with hundreds of operations and purchasing teams in our careers, and we’ve seen how this inefficiency can hide—until it snowballs into millions in overspending.

And there is.

We’ve seen the future of better buying, and we’re excited to share it with you.

Hit “subscribe now” and join us on the journey. We’re just getting started.