Frequently known as the “Amazon” of the government contracting world, GSA Advantage! is an important tool that government contractors use to publish their pricelist and market their approved GSA products. Within GSA Advantage!, you can find a wide variety of contractors who offer anything from printers and shredders to drones used to map the world. Government agencies frequent this site because they can easily search for and order products within a few clicks, meaning it’s a crucial site for contractors to learn how to navigate.
It also means that you should be keeping your pricelist, a list of your offerings as well as your terms and conditions, updated. Just like you expect the items you purchase on Amazon have all the correct specifications such as size and color and look like the photos, the government expects the same from GSA Advantage!. So here’s what you need to know about your GSA Schedule pricelist.
Your GSA Advantage! pricelist or, in more technical terms, your I-FSS-600, is the file that every GSA contractor must upload in GSA Advantage! and GSA eLibrary. GSA has pre-determined the format for you in a list of terms and conditions and formatting of the language. These terms and conditions are a write-up of how and what terms are associated with your contract. Within these terms and conditions, you can find all sorts of information, such as below.
If you are offering products, you’ll have a section listing all the products you are planning on offering or already offer on your GSA Schedule along with the Special Item Number (SIN), manufacturer, product number, part name, product description, GSA price, any discounting, and country of origin (COO). If offering services, you’ll fill out a matrix with the SIN, labor category title, minimum education (if applicable), minimum experience (if applicable), and a pricing table. All this information is important to keep up-to-date and accurate for potential buyers looking to procure your products or services on schedule.
Did you know you are required to update your pricelist regularly? This is because old catalogs/pricelists may have discontinued items or outdated pricing, and no government agency wants to order something that reflects the wrong pricing or product specifications. Plus, you are required to honor the pricing listed in your published catalog/pricelist. If you fail to do this, your catalog could be suspended, restricting access to not only GSA Advantage!, but GSA eBuy as well. So, it’s important to maintain your pricelist and keep it up-to-date with all of the changes you make to your offerings.
Once your GSA Schedule is initially awarded, you have 6 months to upload your pricelist to GSA Advantage! and eLibrary. After you submit a modification that has changed any aspect of your GSA-offered pricelist, you must make those updates to your online catalog and pricelist/textfile within 30 days. This can include your terms and conditions or changes to your products or services. If it’s not fully updated within 30 days, then your pricelist is at risk of being taken down. If there is no action on your Schedule, it must be updated at minimum every 2 years.
To properly maintain your GSA pricelist you need to be sure to update it in the Schedule Input Program (SIP) first and then to GSA Advantage! and GSA eLibrary. SIP, which can be downloaded in the Vendor Support Center (VSC), is the backend to these sites. Once your pricelist has been approved, your new data will be on display within 24 hours.
There are two main reasons to keeping up with your pricelist: compliance and sales. Compliance is the obvious reason, because you must keep up with your pricelist in order to maintain compliance with your GSA Schedule. However, you can use your pricelist as a marketing material too.
Your GSA pricelist served as the one consistent benchmark between all contractors on GSA Advantage!. Government procurement officials use it to directly compare contractors to their competition. Keeping this in mind, you can place some marketing information within your pricelist/textfile to bring more business through your contract. These marketing materials can include capabilities statements, experience in the field, or any way you think you can best represent your business and what it offers to the government.
Maintaining your GSA pricelist or I-FSS-600 can be a complicated and confusing process. Ensuring that your terms and conditions are up to date, including any pricing information, can be overwhelming, especially because SIP is not an intuitive or easy to use program. However, it’s crucial to your success as a GSA contractor. If you need any help with this or have any questions about what can and can’t be in your pricelist, please feel free to reach out to one of our consultants.