buy side

buy side (plural buy sides)

1. (finance) The sector of the finance industry that assists investors and investing institutions in purchasing products from the sell side.
   • 2003, Larry Harris, Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners, →ISBN:

     The sell side exists only because the buy side trades before we can understand when the sell side is profitable.

   • 2009, Richard Goldberg, The Battle for Wall Street, →ISBN:

     Like their buy-side counterparts, the sell side will welcome entrepreneurs with open arms for no other reason than to regain the home court advantage: to reconnect to the buy side.

   • 2013, Turney Duff, The Buy Side, →ISBN:

     I stand by the door, playing the role of greeter, accumulating lipstick impressions on my cheeks and, occasionally, a small gift -- a perk of the buy side.

2. (e-commerce) A model of e-commerce in which an institution uses a software application to electronically streamline the purchasing process.
   • 2001, Syed Mahbubur Rahman, Robert J. Bignall, Internet Commerce and Software Agents, →ISBN, page 116:

     It provides a discussion of various e-commerce business models from differing persepectives and presents a taxonomy based on criteria such as sell side versus buy side, system orientation, penetration level, and organizational structure.

   • 2008, J. Botha, C. H. Bothma, Pieter Geldenhuys, Managing E-commerce in Business, →ISBN, page 414:

     The buy side model has one company buying products and services from many sellers.

   • 2014, Zheng Qin, Yang Chang, Shundong Li, E-Commerce Strategy, →ISBN, page 224:

     On the buy side, e-commerce strategy aimed at carrying out the whole negotiation process on the web and performing transactions electronically with GE's suppliers.