GSA relaunches online shopping system

The General Services Administration launched a new version of its online shopping system Monday based on feedback from federal customers.

The revamped GSA Advantage, which has more than 28 million products and a broad user base, improves service to federal employees and their agencies, said Liz DelNegro, chief information officer of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service.

The "whole reason [for the change] is to help the government buyer get what they need . . . easier and faster," she said. The site had been used primarily as a research tool. GSA estimated that on the former website, there was one purchase for every three browsers.

The updated site streamlines the purchasing process. Previously, vendors would offer the same products multiple times and shoppers had to search individually for the best value. Now, "rather than see[ing] the product 20 times, you will see [the] product once and then . . . all the vendor offerings," DelNegro said.

One of the biggest complaints from users on the old site was they could not view any pictures of the products, she said. Now, the site features high-resolution photographs of the offerings.

The revamped website also lets users track orders online. In a centralized message center, agencies can follow the progress of their purchases and view tracking numbers from the delivery company, said Keith Machen, GSA Advantage program manager. "[GSA] took a product-centric approach, similar to [the online seller] Amazon," he said.

The new tool took 18 months to build and after internal testing, GSA received positive feedback, DelNegro said. "We are extremely excited. It's something we've been working on for a while."