What is the easiest way to share an Amazon cart for office supply orders?

Question

So I'm the one stuck doing the monthly office supply run for our little design firm in Portland and it's honestly becoming a huge headache. We have like 12 people and everyone wants something different—specific pens, those weird expensive snacks, ergonomic mice, whatever. I'm trying to find a way to just let everyone dump their stuff into one cart so I can get the boss to pay for it without me having to manually copy-paste fifty links from Slack or emails. I saw there is a Chrome extension called Share-A-Cart but I read some reviews saying it doesn't always sync right or can be glitchy with the prices and items disappearing. I also looked into Amazon Business accounts but that seems like a whole lot of paperwork for such a small team, like do I really need a separate business tax ID just to buy some Post-its and coffee?

Here is what I'm looking for:

Budget is around $600 for this specific haul

Needs to be finalized by Thursday for a Monday project

Boss is totally tech-illiterate so it has to be dead simple for him to just click buy

I definitely don't want to share my login or password with the whole office

Is there like a built-in collaborative cart thing I'm missing or a better way to do this? Literally anything better than my current copy-paste method...

Ellendof · Accepted Answer

I have been very satisfied using Share-A-Cart for our office orders. It is a reliable tool that works well for teams who dont want to share logins.

Simply create a cart ID for everyone to use.

Send one link to your boss for checkout.

Avoids all the copy-pasting from emails. It definitely makes our weekly supply run way easier.

SantoTum · Answer

^ This. Also, catching this a day late but honestly, stay away from those sketchy browser extensions if you are dealing with office funds. In my experience, they always break right when you need them because Amazon updates their code constantly. I have tried a bunch over the years and none are 100% reliable for a business setting. Just use the built-in Amazon Lists feature instead. Its way more stable and handles the technical side better. You create one list, invite the team to add their items, and it keeps everything organized in one spot. No weird syncing errors or disappearing carts. Before I dive deeper tho, how exactly does your boss handle the payment part currently? Is he logging in himself to hit the buy button or are you using a firm card on your own account? If you are worried about the budget, just get any supplies from Amazon Basics. You cant go wrong with their brand for standard office stuff and it saves a ton of cash. Found a really helpful thread over on Smartphone Board that explains exactly how to do this.

Russellflous · Answer

Honestly, I have been through this exact nightmare more times than I can count. Managing a dozen picky designers is like herding cats, especially when everyone wants a different brand of fancy ink or those specific ergonomic mice. In my experience, the native List feature on Amazon is the only thing that does not blow up in your face. I used to do the whole Slack thing too, but I lost so many links that my boss eventually just gave me his credit card and told me to figure it out. Not ideal at all. The easiest way to handle that 600 dollar haul by Thursday:

Go to Your Lists and create a new one named Office Supply Run.

Click on Invite and make it so anyone with the link can add items.

Blast that link to your Slack and tell them they have 24 hours.

Once the team has added their stuff, you can go into the list and hit Add all to cart. Since your boss is tech-illiterate, you can just do all the heavy lifting, get the cart ready, and then use a guide on how to share amazon cart to send him a pre-filled cart. I have tried a dozen different ways over the years, including those buggy extensions people mentioned, but keeping it native to Amazons own site usually saves the most sanity. It keeps the prices accurate too, which is huge when you are trying to stay under a specific budget like yours. Just make sure everyone is done by Wednesday night so you have that buffer for Thursday... things always go wrong at the last minute!