The General Services Administration‘s Federal Acquisition Service has rolled out the latest version of its government purchasing website GSA Advantage with version 12.0.

The website gives government agencies access to more than 18,000 Multiple Award Schedule Program contracts and more than 28 million products, services and solutions at the best value, according to GSA.

The redesigned site – released this week – makes navigation and search easier, adds more product details and adds features like brochures, installation instructions and demonstrations of the product, said Liz DelNegro, chief information officer for the GSA’s FAS, in an interview with the DorobekINSIDER.

“Our mission is to save the government money and time and to help them conduct the business of government that much faster,” DelNegro said.

The two-year redesign began with FAS talking to customers and conducting surveys and focus groups.

“It really has become part of [agencies’] daily procurement operations and in fact we hear it if anything is going wrong,” DelNegro said.

The site rivals what Amazon does, she said. In the past, multiple results for the same item would appear. Now, the user can search for an item and see the different vendor offerings for that one item, she said.

Vendors are submitting new prices everyday. The new version of GSA Advantage allows users to look at the history of the items’ pricing.

It’s also easier for users to click on the Message Center on the site to see their purchase history.

With version 12.0 complete, GSA’s FAS is already looking at improvements for version 13.0.

“We’re continually trying to improve the process,” DelNegro said. “Certainly between the vendor community and the customer community, we’re working hard to make it better all the time.”

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