Retail procurement strategies: How to stay competitive

Retail never stops evolving—and neither do the expectations that organizations place on procurement leaders. Whether you’re sourcing seasonal inventory, navigating vendor negotiations, or trying to maintain continuity across physical stores and digital shelves, the pressure to deliver is real.

But inflation and supply chain fluctuations have made cost control and availability anything but predictable. Add in the rising demand for fast, seamless omnichannel fulfillment, and an increasing need to comply with sustainability mandates and it’s clear that retail procurement is no longer just about buying. Instead, it requires building a strategy that flexes with demand, scales with growth, and supports broader business goals.

Smart business buying strategies can help you create a competitive edge through speed, transparency, and stronger supplier relationships. 

What is retail procurement?

Retail procurement is the process of sourcing, purchasing, and managing the goods and services that keep stores and digital shelves stocked and running. At its core, it plays a pivotal role in budget management, supply chain continuity, and, ultimately, customer satisfaction. Retail procurement also requires balancing cost savings with reliability, all while navigating supplier relationships, inventory constraints, and internal compliance. 

For organizations that are managing purchasing across multiple locations, especially in-store networks, controlling tail spend at the retail level can introduce added complexity. When you don’t manage them, one-off or low-value purchases quickly snowball into hidden costs and inconsistent supplier usage.

To combat these challenges, modern retail procurement’s focus has shifted from securing the lowest price to building a procurement process that prioritizes value, resilience, and risk mitigation. Leading procurement teams are now looking beyond unit cost to evaluate supplier reliability, fulfillment speed, and alignment with sustainability and compliance goals. By embracing tools that streamline approval workflows, standardize purchasing behavior, and surface spend data, these teams can operate with greater agility and impact across the business.

Modern retail procurement: Five key strategies

To keep up with evolving consumer preferences and global headwinds, retail procurement teams need a forward‑looking mindset and the right tools to stay competitive. We suggest starting with the following five strategies to work toward these goals:

1. Focus on value-based supplier partnerships

Procurement in the retail sector has evolved. Instead of just getting the lowest price, you need to build supplier relationships that help your organization adapt, scale, and innovate in real time. When you ground those relationships in shared goals and trust, they become a strategic advantage.

So what does that look like in practice? 

Leading retail procurement teams often co-develop objectives with suppliers, like improving quality and supporting diversity initiatives, to create mutual incentives and reduce risk. Expanding into emerging supplier categories, such as direct-to-consumer brands, can also reduce over-reliance on traditional channels.

Procurement professionals use performance data to guide these sourcing decisions, rather than relying on static vendor lists. But they’re not alone in it—Amazon Business supports this shift with features like vendor certifications, supplier relationship management tools, and a broad supplier catalog that allows teams to filter and compare providers, making it easier to find partners who align with your business goals and can adapt alongside you.

2. Create agile demand forecasts

Running a retail organization means keeping operations steady, even when demand fluctuates. Teams need a reliable way to stock essentials like breakroom supplies, cleaning products, and office equipment so employees can stay focused on serving customers.

To stay agile, procurement teams need to blend historical data with real‑time inventory levels and current market signals. Strong team management is also key here. That involves aligning store managers, fulfillment centers, and headquarters around shared forecasts so you can adjust orders quickly and maintain a competitive advantage.

In this area, Amazon Business offers analytics that integrate with your existing procurement systems and suggest reorder points. This allows you to streamline purchasing and implement proactive inventory management before shelves empty of product. 

3. Gain control over tail spend

Retail organizations often juggle thousands of small, decentralized purchases across stores, warehouses, and offices. Left unchecked, these purchases, known as tail spend, can add up quickly and create headaches like duplicate vendors, rogue spend, and limited visibility into where money is going.

By standardizing how buyers order everyday essentials, retailers can streamline approvals, reduce delays, and make it easier for teams to get what they need without breaking policy. Fast delivery and shared ordering lists also help locations operate consistently, so employees spend less time chasing supplies and more time focusing on customers.

Smart buying solutions like Amazon Business provide tools to manage tail spend at scale. Features like Guided Buying in Business Prime, approval workflows, and spend analytics give procurement leaders the visibility and guardrails they need to curb waste, consolidate vendors, and keep distributed operations running smoothly.

4. Diversify supply chain networks

Having only a single source of supply leaves retailers vulnerable to geopolitical disruptions, natural disasters, and transportation delays. By instead cultivating multiple sourcing options across regions, production methods, and types of procurement, procurement teams can manage those risks. This decentralization reduces risks and helps you flex your capacity up or down when demand fluctuates.

Tail spend in particular can be challenging to manage because it often occurs outside formal processes. However, Amazon Business customers can address this issue through Spend Visibility, a Business Prime exclusive that offers powerful dashboards that help you analyze decentralized spend and identify savings opportunities. This smart buying solution makes it easy to track purchases across locations, highlight maverick buying, and reinforce compliance policies. 

Guided Buying and custom catalogs further support supplier diversity by steering employees to preferred vendors and price points, while location‑aware delivery options ensure stores receive inventory faster without duplicating shipments.

5. Align procurement with responsible purchasing goals

Retailers are under growing pressure to buy more responsibly. However, translating sustainability goals into procurement action is easier said than done. 

When it comes to working with suppliers to improve sustainability, 57 percent of procurement executives believe that performance measurement is their highest challenge, according to a 2023 Gartner survey. This means that even when organizations prioritize environmental or social impact, they often struggle to track supplier progress in meaningful ways.

To close that gap, procurement teams are increasingly looking for suppliers that offer clear, verifiable sustainability credentials. Whether your focus is tracking recycled content, carbon offsets, reusability, or third-party certifications, visibility is key. These attributes can also influence cost, compliance, and long-term resilience.

Amazon Business supports responsible procurement with tools that make it easier to manage. Its vendor certifications and reporting dashboards, for instance, help you track your purchases against purchasing goals, which gives teams the confidence to act on what they can measure.

5 steps to future-proof retail procurement

Implementing modern procurement requires an actionable roadmap that balances agility and control. Here’s where to start:

1. Identify your specific needs

Start by understanding what your stores, headquarters, and e‑commerce fulfillment centers require. Segmenting your needs in this way allows you to tailor your sourcing strategies, such as using bulk packaging for distribution centers or specialized displays for brick‑and‑mortar stores. 

In addition, an inventory‑management system that tracks SKUs by location prevents over‑ordering and ensures every store has the right stock to serve customers.

2. Conduct thorough supplier evaluations

For retailers with multiple locations, procurement is about making sure every store or department can purchase in a way that aligns with organizational standards. Distributed teams often need flexibility to buy what they need locally, while procurement leaders need visibility and control at the enterprise level.

Associated Accounts and multi-legal entity features from Amazon Business support this balance. They let organizations manage purchasing across stores, regions, or brands under one umbrella account, while still giving each location the autonomy to operate efficiently. With shared visibility into spend and streamlined oversight, retailers can simplify approvals, consolidate suppliers, and keep operations aligned with broader procurement goals.

3. Negotiate contracts and terms

Don’t lock yourself into long‑term deals in volatile categories like consumer electronics or commodities. Negotiating contracts with flexible quantities and shorter renewal cycles instead allows you to adapt quickly when demand spikes or prices fall. 

To help with this, include clear service‑level agreements, supplier incentives, and mutually beneficial payment terms. That way, you can guarantee your suppliers remain committed, even during turbulent periods, and maintain profitability for both parties.

4. Manage purchase orders and approvals

Streamlining the purchase order (PO) process reduces friction, lowers administrative costs, and prevents unauthorized spending. To accomplish this, automate approval workflows to simplify store‑level POs and route them to the right decision‑makers without manual intervention. 

With Amazon Business, managers can optimize their PO processes by setting spending thresholds and auto‑approving routine purchases while flagging exceptions for review. This automation reduces bottlenecks, gives stakeholders visibility into budgets, and frees your team to focus on strategic initiatives instead of paperwork.

5. Monitor fulfillment and performance

Procurement doesn’t end when you place an order. You also need to track whether suppliers deliver on time, complete orders accurately, and respond quickly to issues. You should also regularly assess retail‑specific metrics like fill rate (the percentage of delivered orders that suppliers have completed), timeliness, and supplier responsiveness to identify gaps and highlight opportunities for improvement. 

But tracking these KPIs is only half the battle. Acting on the insights they provide is what drives real results.

That’s where real-time analytics tools come in. They make it easy to research trends, build custom reports, and turn raw data into informed action. Take The Paper Store as an example—its team uses Amazon Business Analytics to report on purchasing activity. Because it understands patterns and acts on insights, the company saves over $10,000 per month and reduces the hours its stores spend on ordering and approvals, freeing up payroll resources for high‑value work.

Drive growth with retail business procurement

Modern procurement is a strategic lever for driving brand growth. When retailers invest in value‑based supplier partnerships, agile demand forecasting, and diversified sourcing, they create the flexibility they need to thrive in today’s fast-moving, omnichannel environment.

However, as retail organizations grow, so do the complexities of purchasing across locations, teams, and categories. Without standardized systems and clear visibility, even the strongest procurement strategy can fall short, leading to cash flow constraints, policy violations, and missed savings opportunities.

That’s where Amazon Business can help. As a smart buying solution, it helps organizations streamline procurement operations, improve compliance, and uncover real opportunities for efficiency and impact. 

Connect with the Amazon Business team today to learn how to reduce friction, deliver measurable results, and contribute to more sustainable purchasing practices in your organization.