U.S. General Services Administration
GSA Expands Verified Products Portal, Improves Catalog Data for Customers
Post filed in: Acquisition
As GSA continues to work towards our goal of providing a superior buying and selling experience as part of our Federal Marketplace Strategy, we have exciting progress to share regarding improved quality of catalog information for Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) products.
Since launching in November 2020, GSA’s new Verified Products Portal (VPP), a manufacturer and wholesaler-facing portal for authoritative product content and supplier information, has expanded to include more than 300,000 products, representing data from over 1400 manufacturers. GSA buyers will soon see this enhanced product data on GSA Advantage!, making it easier to make buying decisions for many commonly purchased items.
We’re pleased to announce that the VPP is now connected to GSA Advantage!, making this high quality product content available to GSA’s customers. Advantage users will now see new and improved information directly from authoritative sources whenever available, including product descriptions, photos, and PDFs such as user manuals and installation guides. This will vastly improve the quality of product information available to customers, and ensure reliable, consistent information for purchasing decisions.
GSA uses the VPP supplier authorization information to reduce supply chain risk by ensuring products are offered by authorized vendors. This will decrease a buyer’s risk of purchasing counterfeit or otherwise non-compliant products, and buyers can make purchases with increased confidence that products are legitimate.
The VPP also makes it easier for our industry partners to manage catalogs. GSA recently updated the Letter of Supply requirements so that VPP supplier authorization information can be used in lieu of a traditional LoS, reducing the burden on industry to manage individual letters.
In the long term, GSA intends to make VPP data available to contractors to populate and standardize their catalogs. This will reduce the effort associated with managing catalog details and will ensure customers see consistent representations of products across the marketplace.
GSA is still expanding the VPP. Manufacturers and wholesalers who are interested in improving the representation of their items within the federal marketplace should visit GSA.gov/VPP.
The VPP is a cornerstone of the broader Catalog Management modernization, a multiyear effort to improve the systems, processes, and policies used to manage catalogs with the ultimate goals of reducing user burden and improving quality of data. To learn more, please visit Catalog Management’s Interact Page.