The data provides an overview of over 400 South African business characteristics, demographic and experience factors, procurement strategies, and policies and procedures. The data also identifies a number of constructs, viz. preference of suppliers’ salespeople, Black Economic Empowerment status; service quality; relationship; environment sustainability; culture, employment equity and affirmative action; personal relationships, the provision of gifts; access to management and exceeding expectations, which were used to propose a new supplier preference model.