As a part of your overall brand strategy for selling products online, doing a comparison of traditional e-commerce websites such as Amazon with Government e-Marketplace(GeM) makes a lot of sense. 

With this article, I’ll list out the top 3 differences between GeM and Amazon, so that you get a good sense of how these two are different and understand which suits you better(or maybe both will!)

Differences Between Government e-Marketplace(GeM) And Amazon

#1 Government e-Marketplace(GeM) is ONLY for Government buyers while Amazon is aimed towards the consumer market.

This one is obvious but I still wanted to spell it out for you so that you clearly know that you’re attracting two different markets on each platform. Start thinking about the ideal buyer for your product on GeM and Amazon. 

On Government e-Marketplace, he or she is likely going to be an officer in a Government department. How can you make someone who pores over various products on GeM routinely, stop at your product listing and select it? Start thinking on more strategic things that’ll help you attract the Government buyer. 

In our experience, optimizing your listings on Amazon is a much harder task, simply because Amazon allows sellers so many different ways to optimize their listings. On GeM, the listing templates are extremely basic.

#2 More diverse range of products on Government e-Marketplace(GeM).

You’ll find your everyday commercial items- things like water bottles and diapers on both Amazon and Government e-Marketplace. 

However, there are many Industry specific products that won’t have a big market on Amazon, but will be on GeM.

For instance- calibration and testing equipment for railways, or anti tank simulators for the Army. 

Traditionally, such products had to be marketed offline- by repeatedly meeting with the buyer departments in Government and following up continuously. 

Now, for the first time, Government e-Marketplace has provided the convenience of selling even these sort of Industry specific products online.

#3 No ‘add to cart’ functionality in Government e-Marketplace(GeM).

Government procurement is regulated by General Financial Rules(GFR) which lays down the procurement processes. 

Unlike Amazon, unless a department buys items worth 25,000 Rs or less, they have to follow the ‘L1’ or ‘Bid/RA’ process

 

Author:

Col.(Retd) Sanjay Pande(Managing Director, Kshemin Global)

Combat veteran, spent 25 years in the Indian Army. Post retirement, founded Kshemin in 2012. Kshemin Technologies develops products for ‘Frontline Combat Casualty Management’ and Kshemin Global helps clients sell their products and services to the Government. 

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