GSA Catalog Management

The Catalog Management team is sharing  some news about a related project, the Verified Product Portal (VPP), which will be a critical piece of the long term Catalog Management solution. 

The VPP will be a manufacturer and wholesaler facing portal designed to host authoritative product content, including standardized manufacturer names, part numbers, and specifications. This syndicated content, provided directly from the manufacturers and other verified sources, includes images, product videos, and pdf documents for commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products. 

In addition, the VPP will capture supplier authorization information, which will enable automated supplier authorization enforcement and reduce the burden on authorized resellers to provide individual letters of supply. The data populated by participating manufacturers and wholesalers in the VPP will be used to standardize vendor catalogs, ensuring products across GSA marketplaces are accurately represented. 

To support this work, GSA recently awarded a Data Enrichment Service Contract to XSB on 5/28/2020. This contract will include the development of the VPP, which will be transformational in how GSA is able to populate and standardize key product attributes and product images and videos

 Benefits for Manufacturers/Wholesalers to participate include:

• Ensuring their products are accurately represented to their customers - they can control the product details and product specific marketing content!
• Eliminating variability among identical products through standardized catalog data coming directly from the manufacturer or a trusted source.
• Improving the customer’s buying experience by providing rich syndicated product content such as videos and product manuals.
• Allowing manufacturers and wholesalers to authorize and deauthorize products and resellers in near-real time to protect against supply chain risks and ensure product and reseller authenticity.
• Reducing the burden on resellers to provide letters of supply and product specifications -  control of who can sell specific product lines and what product lines they can sell will be established directly from the manufacturer. 

GSA is aware that success of the VPP will be heavily dependent on maximizing industry participation. In the next few months, we will seek feedback from various manufacturers and wholesalers who provide commercial products to GSA resellers including:

• Willingness to provide product and supplier authorization data
• Critical fields to collect
• Challenges with providing this content
• Feasibility/frequency of maintaining this data

 GSA will be targeting several manufacturers to pilot the new portal prior to a full-scale expansion. If you are a manufacturer or wholesaler that is interested in participating and providing feedback, please reach out to VPP@gsa.gov with your company and contact information.