The Department of Defense E-Mall provides a "one stop shopping" environment for servicemen and women. The customer can quickly and easily locate, order and provide a payment method for items available on commercial electronic catalogs.

This is accomplished through a "point, click, and ship" system that eliminates the traditional labor-intensive process of identifying sources of supply and allows purchase through a Government Purchase Card, a commercial credit card issued to individual offices and organizations for official purchases.

The E-Mall shifts acquisition strategy away from contracting for things "one at a time" to establishment of broad purchasing arrangements that leverage DoD’s buying power. This makes an entire vendor catalog available on-line for direct ordering by the warfighter at prices lower than could be obtained individually. As a result, the procurement process for many commercial items has now been streamlined from weeks (and even months in some cases) to mere hours; direct shipments from industry vendors can arrive within 24 hours.

Currently there are 19 commercial vendors offering electronic and hardware products as well as 2.3 million Defense Logistics Agency managed commodity items.

Also on-line are reutilization items from the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office…

…along with clothing and textiles from the Defense Supply Center ASCOT catalog…

…and computer hardware and software from the Navy’s ITEC Direct catalog.

Any of these items can be purchased with a government purchase card.

The future of the E-Mall represents an unlimited number of storefronts and will include all the DoD electronic catalogs throughout the Military Services. As the Performance Scorecard for E-Malls shows, tremendous progress has already been made as year-to-date cumulative sales have increased from $14.3 million in August 1998 to $19.6 million in December 1998. Next year's annual cumulative sales are expected to increase to $25.5 million.

Related Sites:
* Emall