Cooperative purchasing

The Municipal Association of South Carolina entered into a partnership in 2021 with HGACBuy to give South Carolina cities and towns priority access to the benefits of their cooperative purchasing program. 

How does cooperative purchasing work?

• Centralized staff receives bids and coordinates purchases for local governments across the country. This group effort results in better pricing as a result of volume discounts.
• Cities experience improved efficiency by eliminating the need to prepare detailed specifications and satisfy requirements of competitive bidding in-house.
• Cooperative purchasing satisfies legal requirements for competitive bidding.

Who is HGACBuy?

• HGACBuy is operated by the Houston-Galveston Area Council and began in 1975. The cooperative purchasing group serves 8,200 members with 41 major categories of products and services and works with more than 800 qualified contractors.

How can a city or town participate?

• Municipal officials and staff can search the available contract through HGACBuy or contact the Association with a specific request. The Association will work with the product vendor to ensure that the city gets a quote using the HGACBuy pricing guidelines.
• Once the quote is approved by the city, the Association will work directly with HGACBuy to place the order. The Association will serve as a liaison to assist the municipality throughout the purchasing process.