The General Services Administration ran a pilot test of a new monitoring process for the GSA Advantage! shopping platform in an effort to safeguard federal buyers against suppliers and offerings that pose a risk to the government supply chain.
GSA said Tuesday it found approximately 75,000 products from unauthorized sellers on the government purchasing website through the use of data from the Verified Products Portal, which went live in 2020 and is being used by original equipment manufacturers to submit supplier authorization and product content details.
The agency is encouraging the manufacturing and wholesale trade industries wholesalers to update product representation for commercial off-the-shelf products that are available to the federal government.
“We’ve reduced the risk of customers purchasing counterfeit, fraudulent, or otherwise illegitimate products,” said Sonny Hashmi, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at GSA and a previous Wash100 Award recipient, the highest honor in all of government contracting (GovCon).
“This promotes fair competition in the federal marketplace, and improves our customers’ ability to purchase with confidence.”