What is punchout, and does a small office dealer need it?

Sooner or later a supplier form or tender questionnaire asks a small office dealer: "Do you support punchout?" It usually comes from a council, a university, a hospital trust, a school trust or a large company whose buying runs through software. For most small dealers the honest answer today is "not yet", and the useful next question is whether saying yes is worth what it costs.

This guide explains punchout in plain English, the two common formats (cXML and OCI), the hosted catalogue alternative, the purchasing systems a UK dealer is likely to meet, what a connection costs, and what buyers often accept instead. Disclosure: we build Orbit Commerce, an ecommerce platform used by UK dealers, so we have a stake in how dealers sell online. Every outside fact links to its source, checked on 29 October 2026.

What is punchout?

Punchout lets a buyer shop your website from inside their own purchasing system. Instead of typing your products into a requisition, or ordering on your site and then raising a purchase order by hand, their staff go round one loop:

1. They sign in to their purchasing system and click your name in its list of suppliers.
2. The system opens your website and signs them in automatically, so they see their contract prices and the range agreed for them.
3. They fill a basket as usual, but instead of a checkout there is a button that sends the basket back.
4. The basket lands in their system as a requisition and goes through their own approval steps.
5. Once approved, their system sends you a purchase order, by email or electronically.
6. You deliver, and invoice against that purchase order on the account’s terms.

Two things follow. No money changes hands on your website: payment comes later, against your invoice. And the buyer’s finance team gets what it wants, which is every order approved and matched to a purchase order before it reaches you. That control, not convenience for the person ordering, is why large buyers ask for it.

What are cXML and OCI?

They are the two common formats for the messages that pass between the buyer’s system and your website.

• cXML (commerce XML) is a format for business documents between purchasing systems and suppliers. As well as punchout it covers purchase orders, order confirmations, ship notices and invoices, and the current version is 1.2.071 (cxml.org, checked 29 October 2026). SAP Ariba, Coupa and Jaggaer are among the systems that use it for punchout (apps.shopify.com, checked 29 October 2026).
• OCI (Open Catalog Interface) is a format developed by SAP. The basket goes back to the buyer’s system as a set of fields posted to a return address the system supplies, called the HOOK_URL. One integration firm describes OCI as less flexible than cXML, usually with a single shared login, and without built-in purchase order or invoice messages (tradecentric.com, published 19 May 2026, checked 29 October 2026).

In practice, ask the buyer which one their system uses before you price anything. A connector that only speaks cXML is no use to an OCI buyer. Shorter definitions of these and other trade terms are in our office trade ecommerce glossary.

What is a hosted catalogue?

A hosted catalogue is the other way to get your products into a buyer’s purchasing system. Instead of linking out to your website, you send a file of your products at the buyer’s agreed prices, it is loaded into their system, and staff search it there. When prices or lines change, you send a new file.

Large buyers often run both side by side. The University of Glasgow lists Lyreco among its hosted catalogue suppliers, and Dell and RS Components among its punchout suppliers (gla.ac.uk, checked 29 October 2026). Scotland’s public sector purchasing system, PECOS P2P, hosts supplier catalogues and asks suppliers to keep them accurate and up to date (gov.scot, page updated 2 September 2026, checked 29 October 2026).

Which purchasing systems will a UK office dealer meet?

• Scotland’s public sector: PECOS P2P. It is provided by Elcom and available to all Scottish public sector bodies, including central and local government, NHS boards, universities and colleges (gov.scot, page updated 2 September 2026, checked 29 October 2026). It supports punchout to supplier websites in cXML and can send purchase orders to suppliers in cXML (gov.scot, checked 29 October 2026).
• Schools and trusts: finance systems such as IRIS Financials. IRIS says its purchasing module includes punchout, and lists Amazon Business, KCS Education, ESPO, Herts FullStop, YPO, HBS and Findel as its punchout suppliers (iris.co.uk, checked 29 October 2026). In September 2026 it said it had added the suppliers that schools and trusts asked for at its roadshow events (iris.co.uk, published 4 September 2026, checked 29 October 2026). A school used to buying that way may ask you the same question.
• Universities: marketplaces of hosted catalogues and punchout suppliers, as in the Glasgow example above.
• Large companies and some public bodies: SAP Ariba, Coupa, Jaggaer, Workday and BirchStreet. These are the systems Red Technology names pre-built connectors for in its punchout service, which uses cXML with selected OCI integrations (redtechnology.com, checked 29 October 2026). Suppliers to SAP Ariba buyers trade through the SAP Business Network, which has supplier fees of its own (below).

How schools, councils and the NHS buy more generally, from frameworks to purchase cards, is in our guide to selling to schools, councils and the NHS.

What does punchout cost a small office dealer?

Three lots of cost: a connector on your side, any charges on the buyer’s side, and your staff’s time.

A connector on your website

Your platform has to speak cXML or OCI. Dealer and B2B platforms that include punchout, such as ECI’s EvolutionX and Red Technology’s tradeit, do not publish prices; they are compared in our guide to the best ecommerce platforms for UK office supplies dealers. Add-on apps do publish theirs. In Shopify’s App Store, for example, PunchRelay lists $349 a month including two punchout connections, $99 for each extra connection, $999 for assisted set-up and $499 to set up an OCI connection (apps.shopify.com, checked 29 October 2026). Punchout Cloud lists $399 a month for one connection (apps.shopify.com, checked 29 October 2026), and JCC Punchout Connect lists $299 a month (apps.shopify.com, checked 29 October 2026). All are in US dollars and sit on top of the store’s own plan.

Charges on the buyer’s side

Some purchasing networks charge the supplier. PECOS has a one-off cost for building a punchout connection and does not publish the amount, although once a connection is built, other organisations using PECOS can use it at no additional charge (gov.scot, checked 29 October 2026). On the SAP Business Network a standard supplier account is free. An enterprise account becomes chargeable once you reach 5 documents and $50,000 of qualifying spend with one buyer in a rolling 12 months; it then pays an annual subscription based on document count and a transaction fee of 0.155% or 0.35%, capped at $20,000 per trading relationship (learning.sap.com, checked 29 October 2026). Ask each buyer which network and account type they expect you to use, and who pays.

Your staff’s time

Someone has to map your product codes and units to the buyer’s (is it a ream or a box of five reams?), load each buyer’s contract prices, test the connection with their IT team, and check every order that comes back. When a connection fails in the middle of term, it is your phone that rings.

A worked example

Every figure here is an assumption for illustration, not a quote: a connector at £300 a month, £1,000 to set it up and test it, three days of staff time to set up, and two hours a month to keep it right, with staff time at £25 an hour.

Against an account buying £30,000 a year at a 25% gross margin (£7,500 gross profit), year one takes 77% of the profit on that account. Against an account buying £150,000 a year at 22% (£33,000 gross profit), it takes about 18% in year one and under 13% in year two. To keep year one under a tenth of gross profit at a 25% margin, the buyers on that connection need to spend about £232,000 a year with you between them.

When is punchout worth it for a small dealer?

It is worth it when:

• A named account big enough to carry the cost makes it a condition of the contract or the tender.
• One connection serves many buyers. A PECOS connection, once built, can be used by other organisations on PECOS at no additional charge, so its cost is spread across every Scottish public body that buys from you.
• It is scored in a tender you are serious about, and you have priced the connection into your bid.

It is not worth it yet when the buyer would merely prefer it, when the account is small or occasional, when a hosted catalogue file would do, or when you would be paying every month for a connection one person uses twice a term.

Before you spend anything, ask the buyer six questions:

1. Which purchasing system do you use, and does it use cXML or OCI?
2. Is punchout a condition of the contract, or a preference?
3. Would a hosted catalogue meet the need?
4. Roughly how much do you expect to spend with us a year, and how many staff will order?
5. Does your network charge suppliers, and who pays?
6. How will purchase orders reach us, and how do you want to be invoiced?

What do buyers often accept instead of punchout?

Plenty of buyers who ask about punchout will take something simpler if it gives them the same control over who orders and at what price.

• A hosted catalogue file, refreshed when prices change.
• An account on your website. Their staff sign in, see their contract prices, order within a spending limit you have agreed, and you invoice the organisation against its purchase order. For many schools and smaller councils this is what they were really asking for. Our guide to trade accounts and contract pricing covers how dealers set these up.
• A purchase card at checkout for small, one-off orders.
• Email or phone orders against a purchase order, as many accounts buy today.

Where does Orbit fit?

Orbit is ours, so read this with that in mind. If a buyer insists on punchout, you need one of the platforms or connectors built for it, compared in the guide linked above. If the buyer will take an account on your website, Orbit’s Enterprise plan (£999 a month, or £749 a month billed yearly, ex VAT) has company accounts: several users under one company, each with their own permissions, and trade sign-up with approval. Each company can have its own price catalogue, with fixed prices or percentage discounts per product and rules for whole categories or brands, and each buyer can have a spending limit that is checked at checkout. The detail is on B2B on Orbit, and how it fits a dealership is on Orbit for office supplies dealers and the wider office industry page.

Questions dealers ask about punchout

Do I need punchout to sell to schools and councils?

Usually not for small orders. Schools and councils also buy by purchase order, purchase card or through an account, and punchout tends to come up with larger buyers whose purchasing system already supports it, such as PECOS users in Scotland or schools on IRIS Financials. Ask whether it is a condition or a preference before you pay for anything.

Is punchout the same as EDI?

No. EDI is the exchange of structured documents such as orders and invoices between two companies’ systems, while punchout is a shopping session on your website that sends a basket back to the buyer’s system. cXML can do both jobs: its order confirmation and ship notice documents are the equivalents of EDI 855 and 856 messages (cxml.org, checked 29 October 2026).