GeM: Now Amazon of govt buying to facilitate MSMEs with ‘Hall of Fame’; to offer rewards, certifications

GeM is perhaps aiming to onboard more sellers and buyers on the e-commerce marketplace.

Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Government’s e-commerce marketplace for public procurement from MSMEs – GeM is looking to facilitate buyers and sellers through its new Buyer and Seller Incentivisation Programme. The registered sellers and buyers would be inducted into the ‘Hall of Fame’ and facilitated with certifications and rewards. The programme is intended to “uplift the spirits of buyers and sellers,” GeM tweeted even as MSMEs are looking to recover from the Covid impact on their businesses. The marketplace currently has over 4.78 lakh sellers out of which more than 1.2 lakh are micro and small sellers.

While GeM hasn’t shared more details but it is perhaps aiming to onboard more sellers and buyers on the e-commerce marketplace through this. “It is one of a kind opportunity for the buyers and sellers! #GeM introduces an invaluable program for sellers and buyers that will help them get GeM HALL OF FAME. If you haven’t registered yourself yet, register now,” the marketplace tweeted last week. The initiative is announced ahead of soon to be launched an advanced version of the marketplace.

Dubbed as GeM 4.0, the revised portal will “offer a unified system that is smarter, better unified, more intelligent and inclusive. This involves a technology roadmap that enhances each and every step of the user experience on the portal – creating unified and seamless user journeys for buyers and sellers. GeM 4.0 represents one of the largest uses of advanced technology on any government platform in the world,” GeM CEO Talleen Kumar had said at GeM-CII national public procurement conclave recently.

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The portal has already enabled ‘staggered delivery’ feature for buyers to schedule their order deliveries for up to 1 year at the time of bid creation itself, Department of Commerce had tweeted last month. The portal’s MSE sellers have a majority share of 58.18 per cent in the total order value, as per data available on the GeM portal.

Earlier in August, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had cautioned GeM sellers against selling goods of inferior quality or charging high prices. The minister had said that such sellers will be blacklisted not only from the GeM portal but from the “entire government ecosystem.”