Vendors must fulfil the following conditions to acquire original equipment manufacturer "OEM" status.

1. QCI vendor assessment: Vendor assessment aims to ensure product quality. The seller's vendor assessment is done by the quality council of India in 2 stages, for which sellers need to pay an assessment fee of ₹ 11,200 with 18% GST.

Exemption from QCI vendor assessment: Under GeM vendor assessment exemptions, many MSMEs are exempted individually, such as MSMEs having NSIC certificates. There are many factors on which exemptions are given to vendors click here to get detailed information on it.

Vendors must fulfil the following conditions to acquire original equipment manufacturer "OEM" status.

The benefit of the OEM panel is that it provides complete control to the original equipment manufacturer over resellers or third-party vendors for their products. Access to the OEM panel is crucial in managing and approving resellers on the Gem platform. Vendors who wish to use the exclusive features of OEM need to register themselves with the GeM portal itself.

• You can manage catalogues and resellers' authorization using the OEM panel.
• Resellers won't be able to see the authorization code once removed by the OEM.
• Once the OEM has authorized the reseller, the confirmation status will also be updated on the reseller panel.
• Resellers can request approval from any GeM OEM for their products, and once approved product will be paired with the reseller on their profile.

The OEM panel provides the following functionality as per the category of product quadrants.

1. For Q2 category products: OEMs can upload authorization codes for their products. These codes can be used by resellers on their (reseller panel) to get authorized on GeM. OEMs can also process price change requests raised by resellers.

2. For Q3 category products: Original equipment manufacturers can approve or reject catalogues uploaded by any reseller on the GeM portal. OEM can also support or leave a reseller and authorization code uploaded by resellers.

3. For Q4 category products: OEMs can approve or reject catalogues uploaded by any reseller for such quadrant categories.

Note: Q1 category products are exempted from this because resellers cannot participate in the quadrant 1 category.

OEM can handle the pairing of the reseller's request on the panel as per the respective product quadrants. Generally, OEM panel approvals and authorization are required for the Q3 and Q4 category.

1. For Quadrant (Q3): : If the reseller is pairing for the first time in the existing catalogue, then the reseller's credentials, such as name & authorization code, will go to the OEM for approval. The reseller's listing will be published only after authorization & permission by the OEM.

The listing will be auto-approved if the reseller pairs with a different catalogue in the same category with the same credentials and authorization code.

2. For Quadrant (Q4): For the resellers of brands with OEM panels, resellers can pair with the existing catalogue without approval.

The resellers of Q3 & Q4 products can upload new catalogue approval requests to their respective OEM vendors. OEMs have up to 72 hours to either approve or reject the request.

This has to be with the reasons recorded in the catalogue management system, and resellers have the right to represent the OEM directly against rejection.

If the OEM vendor does not act on the reseller's request within 72 hours, then the OEMs own products uploading process will be kept on hold until all the pending requests are eliminated within the next 72 hours.

• Login to the GeM portal using username and password.
• Navigate to the dashboard section on your Gem profile.
• Once the dashboard is opened, locate my action section.
• Now click on the OEM panel tab (This option will be only available to sellers with QCI vendor assessment or to exempted vendors).
• Henceforth click on the manage reseller button on the right-hand side and proceed further.

OEMs reserve the right to approve or disapprove any reseller for their manufactured products through the manage approval option.

• OEMs can select brands as per the category through the OEM panel.
• All the requests made by resellers, such as catalogue approval, pricing approval & authorization request under the catalogue tab, can be accessed through manage approval.
• To mark any seller as authorized or unauthorized. OEMs must select the seller's name and keep it valid or invalid.
• In the authorization tab, you can authorize & unauthorize the codes of resellers by choosing the seller & clicking valid code or invalid code.

All the activities mentioned above can be managed through the OEM panel only by authorized OEMs for their product.

Gem registration and vendor assessment are the essential requirements for the MSMEs who want to sell products to the government through public procurement. GeM provides an exclusive environment for its vendors to control their products and pricing completely via getting access to the OEM panel. However, getting an OEM status is not easy; GeM has various measures to assess manufacturers before approving their OEM status.

Therefore, it is advisable to get an expert consultant to avoid rejection during the GeM assessment process by the quality council of India.