Sample RFP Template: ecommerce Platform

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Bridgeline Whitepaper SerieS

Sample RFP Template:

eCommerce Platform

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Organizations often issue a request For proposal (rFp) to begin a search for a new

web eCommerce platform to power their new enterprise-grade web store. But before

we dive into what good looks like in terms of rFps, let’s quickly provide an overview to

the selection process – what an eCommerce platform is, what questions to ask potential

vendors, whether a rFp is even necessary in your search, and how to structure the

document to meet your needs.

What is an Enterprise-Grade Web Enterprise-Grade eCommerce Platform?

in its most simplistic purpose, a top-tier, enterprise-grade eCommerce platform isn’t just a shopping cart plug-in, it’s an integrated, end-to-end solution paired with a Content Management System (CMS), which empowers non-technical users to manage every aspect of a robust web store – from the product catalog and design to the checkout experience and fulfillment process. the primary goal is to arm non-technical business users with a solution to manage how content appears on a company’s website.

RFP vs. RFI

depending on who you talk to, the debate of how an organization should solicit

eCommerce vendors vendors to engage in a project is varied. there is a growing contingent who believe a request For information (rFi) will save both your organization and the software vendors you are reaching out to a considerable amount of time.

While you can certainly limit your search from 15-20 vendors to just 3-4 through an rFi, eventually a scope will have to occur, on both sides; consequently, developing an rFp

is far from a fool’s errand. again, so long as it’s understood that your team is strictly establishing a baseline. (in other words, we can all agree specifics about a vendor’s ability to deliver under budget for your vague, yet-to-be discussed web project seems rather unreasonable.)

the optimal outcome here is productive follow-up conversations aided by a mutual understanding forged by the rFp. and that starts here. this rFp template will help you gather information you need from vendors to determine whether or not they can meet your project’s requirements.

Introduction: How to Use the

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How to Structure Your RFP

Creating an effective rFp is an introspective process. Your team has a 2015 plan for

growth. Start there. look inward, across every level of your organization, in order to

figure out how your new web store will help achieve the goals linked to your plan. the

more granular the better. initially, the task may seem arduous, but the exercise will help

establish critical Key performance indicators (Kpis) and results you ultimately need this

project to produce.

Developing Dealbreakers

to reiterate, the whole point of a rFp is to eliminate vendors from the courtship process. everyone has bells and whistles that they’d like to see a vendor show off, but more pressing is the shortlist of requirements that this project needs to be a success. this is where you should dig through internal pain to showcase the primary – and essential – needs your new website should address.

Establishing Business Goals

Your selection committee must determine an optimal

Return On Digital Investment (RODI) that your

software purchase should yield to justify cost. this can be predicated a number of factors – some may be intangible – but your business goals should be predicated on black and white results.

examples of Business goals may include: • increase revenue by 25%

• increase up-sell conversions by 15% • increase new customer acquisition by 10%

these projections are not all directly related to your project, but your team should reconcile corresponding metrics that your website must produce to support these goals. What type of traffic can a vendor assure their eCommerce software will produce? are there case-studies of post-launch success? how does their software cater to existing customers by personalizing the web experience?

Understanding Operational Goals

remember how we stated that rOdi can be measured through intangible terms? Well, more often than not, companies find themselves in a market for a new eCommerce software because their outdated legacy system has created a great deal of headaches.talk to the marketing and it departments to figure out what they need out of a new platform to make their lives easier (and drive results).

Put Marketing Back In Control

Contemporary marketers understand that technology and software plays a critical role in making their ideas come to life. and while every member of your marketing department shouldn’t have to be experts in htMl or api development, the software that powers their website should empower them to control the message – without having to call it. to that point, learning curves can exist, but eCommerce platform software should be intuitive, not a hindrance.

Custom Development

Marketing shouldn’t have all the fun, though – right? Of course not. Your organization is unique, and thus, your website requires special considerations and functionality to optimize rOdi. this is where your rFp should ask for similar case studies or references of previous custom development done for customers that is similar to your needs

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Creating a Timeline

this is the beginning of a relationship. You’re not just buying software, you’re forging a

partnership, and building a quick timeline will provide all parties involved with transparency.

Moreover, it will help weed out the pretenders from the contenders.

Milestone

Date(s)

distribute rFp

rFps must be returned

Select Short list of Vendors

Meet with Short list of Vendors

Conduct evaluation of Short list Vendors

Select and purchase eCommerce platform

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The RFP Template

now that you’ve established the requirements, goals & timeline for the eCommerce

developement project, you can develop your rFp. Below is the order in which you

should insert these essentials in the beginning of your rFp. Following the introduction, a

more granular and intensive questionnaire begins, which features questions about web

experience management capabilities all the way to eCommerce-centric capabilities.

Critical Requirements

Business Goals

Operational Goals

RFP Timeline

Roadmap to Success: Open-Ended Survey

describe how your software and services solve real-world business issues for clients.

What is your overall value proposition?

in terms of competitive vendor analysis, detail key differentiators that your software and services provide. please provide your technology roadmap over the course of the next few years.

Client Refrences

please list clients in our industry. Where appropriate, include at least one case study of a client within our industry.

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Common Questions About

Software Capabilities

Capabilities and Requirements

Vendor Response 1- Out of the Box 2-Customer Implementation

Additional Vendor Details

Content Creation and Editing

does the CMS support content editing, including support for rich text with htMl and style (CSS) enforcement?

does the CMS support “in-line editing” via a WYSiWYg editor which displays how potential edits will appear in the resulting Web page(s)?

does the CMS allow editing from Microsoft Word, including stripping of special characters and other formatting issues that typically occur with content originating in Microsoft Word? does the CMS provide the ability to create and maintain shared assets that are used throughout one or multiple websites? does the CMS provide a means to browse reusable content available in the content repository?

does the CMS provide common “library services” including revisions and versions?

Which of the following content types are supported out-of-the-box? rich text plain text htMl image File (pdF/Word/etc) Calendar events Flash Video

Meta Data Management

does the WCM support editing of metadata by content

contributors, including structured information such as publication and expiration dates, titles, and call-outs?

does the WCM provide tagging functionality to group pages, as well as site map of categories for site visitors to select from? Can these tags and categories lists be used across all site content, from blog posts, to landing pages and other pages to best promote click through from one page to the next?

does the CMS allow for meta-data tagging using the schema.org taxonomy?

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Product Configurations

Single product product with options Collection products Bundles

gift cards (as a product) egift cards (as a product) Kits

pre-order

tax Category Management SKU-level tax exempt

Currencies

does the software support multi-currency transactions?

Inventory Management

does the software support various SKU-level inventory? if so, please explain pricing and organizational structure?

Wish List and Gift Registry

permanent Shopping list gift registry

gift Messaging by SKU gift Wrapping

deliver On Specified date Share list Via email or Social Search by list

gift Certificates

Promotions Management

Unique promo Code One-time Use promo One-per-customer promo

Testing and Dynamic Content

does the platform support a/B testing with content & template capabilities?

Common Questions About

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Promotions Management

Unique promo Code One-time Use promo One-per-customer promo

Merchandising

Cross sell Upsell Bundled products recommended products

people Who Bought this Bought that Collections

Blogging

does the CMS provide a built-in, integrated blog? does the CMS allow multiple blogs within one website? does the CMS allow rSS feed generation for blogs?

does the CMS allow for comments and comment moderation on any page?

does the CMS allow blog content to be intermixed with other site content, pages and related link lists?

Social Media

Can the CMS display external social site content?

does the CMS allow for external rSS feeds to be displayed inline? does the CMS have social sharing widgets?

does the CMS allow for comments to be used on any site page? does the CMS provide the ability to generate polls?

Common Questions About

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Common Questions About

Software Capabilities (continued)

SEO

does the CMS ensure that page title, page Summary and other critical SeO elements can be created even by casual content contributors?

does the CMS identify pages that are missing critical SeO elements? does the CMS provide marketers the ability to create and track Urls that are SeO-friendly?

does the CMS provide marketers the ability to retain Urls when changes are made to avoid broken links from search engines? does the software support rich product descriptions?

does the software allow for SeO-friendly product images? does the software have an out-of-the-box module for Customer reviews?

does the software have an out-of-the-box module for product ratings

Analytics

does the CMS provide out of the box integration to analytics platforms? please specify.

does the CMS allow marketers to determine how content publishing activity impacts site traffic?

does the CMS allow marketers to determine where on the site to publish new content?

does the CMS allow marketers to determine how frequently to update or create new content based on site traffic goals?

Design and Templates

does the CMS provide a page building and layout environment where users can select or drag and drop from a palette of page elements (or modules) to change page designs?

does the CMS provide out-of-the-box, responsively designed templates?

does the CMS provide the ability to create a design by modeling it on an existing site or design?

Can designs from third-party designers be imported?

Can design changes be easily applied to existing pages across the website?

Can designers preview what pages will look like on various mobile devices?

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Navigation

does the CMS provide the ability to create lists of pages based on directory, tag or category that update automatically as new content is created?

does the system provide support for mega-menus?

does the system provide support for navigation when viewed on a mobile device?

Roles and Users

how are users and user authentication managed?

are there limits to the number of users that can be added as content contributors?

Can you create a workflow environment with custom roles and associate users to roles through an easy-to-use administrative interface?

Can a given user be assigned to multiple roles?

Common Questions About

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Workflow and Governance

does the system provide the ability to define workflows through an easy-to-use administrative interface?

does workflow include the ability to determine which roles have access to perform which actions at each step of the workflow? does the CMS support multiple workflows to support multiple sites or sections of the site?

Can workflow be highly granular, meaning that workflow could be as detailed as a specific page?

how does the CMS automate notification to users and roles when there is content for review?

does the CMS provide a full revision history of changes made and who performed them?

does the CMS allow older versions of content to be rolled-back and promoted to the live site?

does the CMS provide validation on content and metadata, such as required fields or allowable types of content by field (email verification)?

does the CMS provide a means to bulk upload content such as files and images?

does the CMS provide a preview function so users can see page content before it is approved?

Can different sites be published to different web servers? Can content be published to a database?

Integration

does the system provide integration to marketing automation systems such as eloqua, Marketo, hubspot, etc? please describe how page tracking can be implemented.

does the system provide integration to analytics platforms?

does the system provide ability to integrate third party applications on a page?

does the system provide the ability to integrate with calendaring applications?

Common Questions About

Software Capabilities

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Shopping Cart & Order Management

Functionality

Order Management

Standalone Order Management System integrated Order Management System

Order Modifications

Order lookup (order number, date, customer name, email, phone, billing address, payment type, source, order status, website) Order review details

Order Modification audit (time, date, and stamp by user)

Returns (RMA) Functionality

return processing

Shopping Cart

pull down Cart persistent Cart

Cross-sell/Upsell in Cart alternative payments in Cart promos in Cart

gift Messaging in Cart gift Wrapping in Cart Shipping Calculation in Cart

Checkout

Single page Checkout guest Checkout

returning Customer Checkout promo in Checkout

address Verification Support gift Card Support

paypal Support

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Vendor Response 1- Out of the Box

2-Customer Implementation

Shipping Options

Fixed Fee Shipping Calculations Calculated rate Shipping

percentage of cart shipping calculation deliver on customer specified date UpS integration

Fedex integration USpS integration

Shopping Cart & Order

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Critical Questions About Project

Implementation Processes

Capabilities and Requirements Vendor Details

Implementation

describe the template creation, definition, and edit process required to deploy your product for our web site(s) including skills, any code or markup languages required, tools used or required. describe the process used to define Site navigation or “information architecture.” Who can move site sections and subsections, what skill is required to rearrange sections in a site? When site sections are moved or reorganized what impact does this have on templates, design and markup or other site code?

What skill is required to make changes to site functionality? does this involve changing CMS code? What Qa and deployment processes are recommended when changes to site functions are made?

describe the upgrade process for the CMS? do all site functions continue to work on all upgrades without re-implementation?

how frequently are releases? how many releases per year contain new functionality vs. patch updates?

implementation Services: describe your implementation services offerings and typical

implementation plan. if partners are used, please provide information on your partner strategy, and specifically how you view the role of partners in the successful use of your software. implementation time: describe the time to implement that is typical for customers with a site or Web presence (site functions, channels, etc.) similar to ours.

implementation Budget. describe the typical ratio or multiplier for implementation services relative to license cost for customers with a website comparable to ours.

redesign implementation. describe what’s required for a redesign post-implementation. is new custom development required? What skills are needed to implement a redesign? how is content migration completed?

System Requirements and Architecture

What operating systems are required?

does the CMS ship with a content repository?

What browsers and client/desktop operating systems are supported? (e.g. ie, Firefox, Windows, MaC)

do the Web delivery and Content Management tiers share the same software? does your Content Management software run on our Web delivery tier?

Can other Web delivery code and Web applications share the Web delivery environment? does your Content Management system become our Web server and Web application server? What Web servers are required and/or supported? how many web servers are required in a multi-tiered model?

What Web application development environments are supported? (Java/JSp, .net/aSpX, laMp, etc.)

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Capabilities and Requirements Vendor Details

Services and Support

please list all training and documentation that is offered around your system.

describe your technical Support model, escalation procedures, communication, time zones, forums.

Pricing

please describe your license methodology or structure.

do you offer additional components that incur additional cost? please list all components whether they are relevant to our project or not.

are there maintenance and support fees associated with your system? What do customers typically spend on re-implementation of your software? how long is the renewal cycle?

Critical Questions About Project

Implementation Processes

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End-to-End Award-Winning eCommerce Development

at Bridgeline digital, we’ve developed the iappS platform, an award-winning product

suite with capabilities in content management, eCommerce, email marketing, analytics, and social media.

in its 2013 Vendor landscape report, info-tech research group recognized the iappS platform as a “Champion”, touting its ability to equip enterprise businesses with easy-to-use tools that optimize digital assets and capitalize on growing trends in digital engagement.

if your organization needs a marketing platform to power its web store, you’re undoubtedly sifting through copious amounts of research and analyst reports about various products. if your business is considering a .net-based solution and SaaS licensing options, the iappS platform should be on your shortlist.

Award Winning iAPPS Product Platform

iAPPS Content Manager is a part of Bridgeline’s iAPPS® platform, a digital Marketing solution that deeply integrates Web Content Management, eCommerce, eMarketing, Social Media management, and Web analytics to help marketers deliver online experiences that attract, engage and convert their customers across all digital channels. Bridgeline provides end-to-end digital engagement solutions and boasts an award-winning team of interactive services professionals across our 11 offices worldwide.

About Bridgeline Digital’s

integrated iAPPS Platform

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