The GDS has spent the past six months developing the Digital Marketplace to replace CloudStore as the online home for purchases through the G-Cloud framework.

And yesterday it announced that the two platforms would run in parallel during September before CloudStore is turned off at the end of the month.

A blog by Ivanka Majic, service manager at GDS, said: “Digital Marketplace is reaching a stage which allows us to consider making it the route for G-Cloud purchases.

“We are considering a staged approach to its launch and will be making sure there is a four week transition period during which people will be able to choose whether they buy through CloudStore or Digital Marketplace.”

The GDS has been testing a private beta version of the site since July with suppliers, using G-Cloud 4 and G-Cloud 5 catalogues, less the supporting documents.

Majic encouraged suppliers, upon launch, to try out the final version of the Digital Marketplace and provide feedback, as well as updating their bookmarks.

The news comes days after the government extended its existing digital services framework (DSF) for an extra six months to give itself time to get the second iteration in place.

The framework was launched in November last year and was originally planned to last nine months – expiring on 10 August.

However, the Crown Commercial Service has included the framework in the scope of its work on the new Digital Marketplace, which is unifying public sector procurement for digital services and products.