Vendor registry

A vendor registry is a database of suppliers maintained by a buying organization: firms self-register with their capabilities, codes, and certifications, and the buyer's sourcing searches — and below-threshold quote lists — draw from it. Public bodies run them at every level of government; large private organizations run the same structure under names like approved-supplier list.

Registries are where the invisible half of the market is won. Most purchases below competitive thresholds never reach a tender notice; the buyer searches the registry or calls known names, collects the quotes policy requires, and buys. A firm not in the registry does not exist for that process, and one registered under wrong codes exists only for searches it cannot fulfil. The maintenance burden is real but small: keep certificates current, codes accurate, and banking details valid, because a registry entry silently expires rather than loudly failing. Free aggregators such as pubsec.pro complement registries by surfacing the notices that do get published, but the registry is the entry ticket to everything that does not.

@misc{pi-2026-definitions-vendor-registry,
  author = {{The Procurement Institution}},
  title  = {Vendor registry — definition},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://procurementinstitution.org/definitions/vendor-registry},
  note   = {Release 2026.10}
}