You should make sure that federal clients can find your goods and services quickly if you are a GSA Schedule contractor. Although GSA provides some platforms for contractors to list their products and submit bids for contracting opportunities, GSA Advantage! is the most crucial website for the sale of goods.
Like Amazon for the government, GSA Advantage! Government agencies can use the website to immediately make orders for millions of products at GSA-approved pricing. Government customers frequently use GSA Advantage! because it's a quick and convenient way to buy goods, making it an essential marketing tool for GSA contractors.
Make sure your product listings on the website are optimized. We've put up a list of best practices for GSA contractors to adhere to because many of our clients ask us questions about GSA Advantage!
Advantage GSA! Uploading photos to GSA Advantage is the best practice!
A key component of your GSA Advantage! listing are the photos. Uploading crystal-clear, top-notch photographs boosts revenue, visibility, search engine ranking, and client loyalty. Government organizations want to know precisely what they are getting and whether it meets their requirements.
With a few exceptions, you must include a photo for each item when you upload your catalog if you are listing your products on GSA Advantage! GSA advises contractors not to upload the same image for several goods or a logo to replace it. Use the lookup tool on the Vendor Support Center to see if the Special Item Number (SIN) you are selling under has an exception or requires a photo. More Contracting Officers (COs) now want unique images for every item on GSA Advantage!, and some COs specifically point out certain things that would benefit substantially from distinct photos rather than a logo. Consult your CO to determine the best course of action for your contract catalog.
When you upload your electronic catalog using the Schedule Input Program, you can add your product images (SIP). If you already have products listed on GSA Advantage, great! We'll get into SIP a little later in this post. Most likely, you have experience with SIP.
When it comes to uploading images, GSA has a lot of requirements, including the file name, the number of characters in the name, the file size, and the type of file.
Make use of Specific Product Names and Descriptions
If you were searching for a product to buy on Amazon, you probably wouldn't make a purchase from a listing with scant details and an ambiguous name. For instance, if you were going to purchase a camera, you would want to know about the camera's size, type of lens, processing speed, and any other accessories it has. Likewise with governmental organizations.
If they are looking for a product, they must locate the ideal one that accomplishes their goal. Government buyers need to be sure they are finding exactly what they need because they frequently seek a specific item under certain laws using American tax dollars.
Make sure your GSA Advantage! listing has a thorough product description and product name, with an emphasis on employing the appropriate keywords. You should make sure to include each of these components in your listing since the GSA Advantage! search engine ranks results in the following order:
Product name and part number
Business name
Merchandise description
Choose the Correct Keywords
You should choose popular and focused keywords if you've ever done any search engine optimization (SEO) research for your website. The same rules apply to your GSA Advantage! listing. Make sure your product description has the appropriate keywords so that customers from the government can find your products with ease.
For instance, you should use keywords like "COVID-19" or "PPE" in your product description if you are selling any PPE equipment, such as masks, gowns, or goggles. You may always change your product description to incorporate new keywords to better align your listing with government client searches if you discover that your products aren't selling as well as you would want through Advantage. You can submit your revised product description by using a technological modification to achieve this.
How Does GSA Advantage Upload Your Product Information?
GSA offers a free program called the Schedule Input Program if you've never submitted your catalog to GSA Advantage! or if you need a refresher on how to add photographs or other features (SIP). If there are any changes to your GSA Schedule contract, such as pricing adjustments or contact information changes, you can use this tool to update your product information. You can also use it to alter your product information and photographs. Some contractors choose to forego SIP in favor of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), but to complete the file submissions, you will need to engage a Value-Added Network or software supplier.
You must finish a SIP upload if you want to add your product information for the first time or make any modifications to your present listings. After you've downloaded and installed the SIP software, you'll need to import and upload your catalog, complete with images, descriptions, and prices. SIP is GSA Advantage backend,! thus once the files are processed, they will often appear on the site within 24 hours.
Need More Information About GSA Advantage?
You must optimize your product listings on GSA Advantage! so that they are more noticeable and appealing to government clients. GSA Advantage! is a vital tool for GSA contractors. There is a vendor start-up kit available in the Vendor Support Center if you want to learn more about how to get started with GSA Advantage! Any questions you may have regarding GSA Advantage! or your GSA Schedule can be answered by one of our advisors.
Comments