You’ve reached the abyss’s edge and are poised to drown.
Last but not least, the eCommerce site had a severe outage. If a single error had gone unnoticed for months, it might have cost you millions (thank goodness you spotted it!). Another feature that will be prohibitively expensive to develop and will take an inordinate amount of time to finish. During the final high season, you’ll be worrying yourself to sleep over whether the infrastructure will hold up.
Switching eCommerce platforms is a must in today’s market
Instead of depending on professionals to maintain your site operationally, your firm should be free to focus on advertising and selling its products.
At this point, what options do you have?
It’s time to issue an RFP to discover the best eCommerce platform for your business. However, you will need an eCommerce RFP template. Keep reading to learn more.
A request for bids template is a pre-written request for bids.
This is about a request for bids (RFP) document that you can customize to meet your specific requirements. The nominated vendor’s B2B eCommerce or online marketplace functionalities will be evaluated.
What is the best way to get the most out of a request for proposals?
When you get your RFP replies, you can accept them as is or submit a revised RFP with the additional information. After you’ve received all of the bids, you may either begin negotiating or ask your remaining suppliers other specific questions.
Individuals that get an RFP profit from it.
This B2B eCommerce RFP template will be helpful for both B2B eCommerce projects and re-platforming your current website, as it will enable in-house teams of B2B commerce enterprises and consultants/agencies to investigate potential suppliers on behalf of their clients.
When researching eCommerce RFP templates, here are questions to ask about the company’s present situation:
- What is the organizational structure of your company? Public or private; joint venture; subsidiary; incorporated or unincorporated; incorporated or unincorporated?
- Do you know how long your business has been in business?
- Please include a list of your key rivals, as well as their share of the market. How do you see yourself in comparison to these competitors?
- What makes your e-commerce service unique?
- Would you please provide us a short description of your product (s)
- When was the last time you made a new version of your product available?
- Do a large number of businesses use your software?
- Your top five clients’ sizes and scopes should be revealed. Please make a list of three companies that are comparable in size and scope to ours.
- How many team members do you have in total, and where are they located?
- What is the price of your software? Describe the structure and strategy of your licensing program.
- What kind of clients do you wish to attract? Enterprises are classified into three types: small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), mid-market companies (MMBs), and large businesses (LMBs).
- Do you have any initiatives in place to help your clients enhance their businesses?
- Do you have a program where you can cooperate with advertising agencies?
- Detail and define the partner training and certification program (if any).
What characteristics should you look for in a traditional RFP template?
Use the questions listed above to rapidly determine whether a B2B eCommerce vendor can meet your company’s current and future B2B eCommerce requirements. Our B2B eCommerce RFP template comes as an Excel file that you can customize as needed.
RFP, RFQ, and RFI are all acronyms for requests for information, but how do they differ?
RFPs, RFQs, and other comparable papers are used to communicate between a buyer and a seller.
Before an RFP is issued, a request for information (RFI) is used to alert a company that it is interested in acquiring something. You’ll be able to work with a more significant number of suppliers this way, and you’ll be able to swiftly eliminate those who aren’t a good fit for your company.
An RFP thoroughly investigates a vendor’s organization, products, capabilities, features, price, and other factors. This is primarily a vendor assessment. The suppliers with the highest ratings will be invited to submit bids, issue RFQs, negotiate, or communicate further.
RFQs often follow RFPs. However, they can sometimes be used in place of RFPs depending on the items and services offered. This is the scenario when a potential customer is thinking about making a purchase and wants to know how much it will cost.
Questions to ask about IT and hosting:
- Please tell us about your website hosting platform.
- When it comes to backups, how do you keep track of everything? How frequently do you back up your data?
- How many servers you’ll require in case one fails?
- Make a list of the most current uptime statistics that you’ve received. How much uptime did you receive during the holidays?
- How many environments (dev/test/uat/etc.) does the average client use to monitor the deployment of improvements?
- Specifics on assessing the software’s availability and performance should be provided (from various perspectives).
- Is there a limit on the number of API inquiries you may do per second?
- Describe the program’s scalability in terms of its ability to cope with increased API and user demand.
- Describe the strategies used to assure disaster recovery and high availability in the case of a calamity.
- What protections are in place to keep harmful code at bay?
- How frequently do software updates reach consumers?
- How many of your consumers continue to use an older version of your product?
In other words, a typical eCommerce RFP looks like this:
RFPs are used by businesses to assess and select their eCommerce provider based on a set of criteria. Suppliers must respond to specific questions, and you may compare their replies to those of other suppliers to determine which platform best fits your needs.
If you want your RFP to succeed, you must carefully write your questions to meet corporate, departmental, and even individual goals. An example RFP template is a fantastic place to start in the research, drafting, assessment, and final selection processes to ensure that you cover all the areas.
In what ways does an eCommerce RFP help your organization?
Each piece of software has unique characteristics. An RFP places them on a level playing field, allowing for an apples-to-apples comparison. Because all suppliers answer the same questions, you can make an informed selection based on a fair and unbiased software review.
When picking a new platform or re-platforming, it is essential to perform an RFP project. Any eCommerce vendor may easily promote its critical advantages in the absence of an RFP. You won’t compare solutions to essential business needs, nor will you understand vendor capabilities.
