Vendors air complaints about GSA e-commerce site

The complexity of the GSA Advantage! online ordering system has some industry representatives questioning the overall benefit of posting their wares on the government's oldest and most successful e-commerce outpost, according to a new General Accounting Office report.

In a letter to the two subcommittee chairmen who had requested an investigation of IT industry complaints, GAO identified excessive data requirements and incomplete orders as issues of concern to the vendors.

"The IT industry representative estimated that Advantage! sales typically have accounted for less than 1 percent of IT vendors' total [GSA] schedule orders," GAO officials wrote to Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., and Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Calif., who both chair House Government Reform subcommittees. "The vendors we contacted indicated that given their resource investment in Advantage!, sales were disappointing."

Ironically, the same technology that allowed the government to take a bold, early step into e-commerce in 1996 has proven the most difficult product to market in this field.

Because high-tech packages are so volatile in price and personalized to the needs of individual customers, vendors would prefer to be able to provide only reference information and a link to their respective Web sites, where configurations and prices can be hashed out.

In response, Ed O'Hare, chief information officer for the Federal Supply Service, the parent agency of GSA Advantage!, promised to finalize criteria for such links by September 2000. In the meantime, FSS is allowing temporary links to be set up for hundreds of products.

Nearly 30 percent of the 7,875 vendors on GSA schedules participate on Advantage!, which offers nearly 1 million products and services. As of May 31, fiscal 2000 sales totaled $64 million.

The problems reported in the June 28 correspondence, variations of which were first cited in a 1998 GSA inspector general report, come at a time when private sector firms are gearing up to challenge GSA's dominance of federal e-commerce.

In response to dot.com competition, Advantage! is retooling its search engine and adding features. Still, the GSA site has a valuable edge over its competitors because it is government-run and therefore is guaranteed to adhere to federal procurement rules.