Avensia : 3 Secrets to Developing a Killer E-commerce RFP

2. Look Internally and Externally at Your E-Commerce Organization

A well thought out e-commerce RFP process needs to take both an internal and external perspective.

Looking internally will ensure that you have a clear view of your organization and stakeholders.

By conducting an inventory of all your systems, business processes, and examining how these fit together, you can understand what you need from an e-commerce platform. Bear in mind that your chosen solution needs to align with your technical roadmap and how your website's needs might change in the next few years.

It's also vital that you look externally to ensure you have a thorough understanding of your end consumer.

You can use the customer data you already have to create high-level persona profiles. This includes demographics, lifestyles, expectations, ways of engaging with your brand and so on. A customer journey mapping exercise will help you to understand key touchpoints and how to drive traffic between channels.

Again, it's important to consider how your customer base or the channels you sell through may change in the near future. With this thorough customer understanding you'll be able to develop an RFP to find the e-commerce platform and vendor that truly helps you serve your customers - today and tomorrow.

3. Always Be Specific in Your E-Commerce Needs

It can be easy to end up creating a checklist of desired e-commerce capabilities and features for your RFP vendors.

While you may find this useful, retailers often fall into the trap of being too open-ended or too general when listing what they want.

If a vendor can simply reply 'yes' or 'no' to a request, few are likely to say 'no' given that they're in competition for your business. Yet, they may not be able to deliver what you really need. Being specific with your demands will be much more likely to get you what you want.