Governments will often negotiate agreements with producers of various goods and services to supply the goods on special, favorable terms, which typically include deep discounts. The producers will then often appoint special distributors as “resellers” so as to facilitate marketing and supply to government agencies as well as tracking sales of products to ensure that they are only supplied on the agreed terms to government agencies.
When appointing a distributor in the United States, particularly for software, it may be wise to determine the extent of the distributor’s experience in acting as an authorized government reseller to the Federal Government’s General Services Administration or GSA. See GSA Schedule.