City Connect Market, a cooperative purchasing partnership between the Municipal Association of SC and HGACBuy that was launched in 2021, allows South Carolina’s cities and towns to take advantage of volume discounts for many of their purchases.
The partnership brings to South Carolina a purchasing program first created by the Houston-Galveston Area Council of Texas. HGACBuy staff receive bids and assist with local government purchasing around the nation. In addition to improving pricing through volume purchases, the program improves efficiency by eliminating the need for each municipality to handle all details of every competitive bid process. The program helps with purchasing in 41 major categories of products as well as with services offered by more than 800 contractors.
The City Connect Market has links to product listings under all of the categories. Users can search through the available products or services, or they can contact the Municipal Association with a request. The Association will work with the vendor to ensure that the municipality receives a quote using the HGACBuy pricing guidelines. After the municipality receives and approves a quote, the Association will work directly with HGACBuy to place the order.