The Modern Commerce RFP Builder

What is the GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) range of your customers?

What is the median GMV range of your customers?

Please explain your "typical" customer in a few sentences:

What verticals do you most often sell to? What's your most common vertical? What are some verticals you don't often sell to?

In what year was your platform first commercially available?

Is your platform meant to be purchased as part of a larger suite, or as part of a best of breed collection of products?

How is your company structured? (Public / Private, Partnership, Joint Venture, Subsidiary, etc.)?

Please outline your company's strategic vision / roadmap for the next 5 years:

How many people do you employ and in how many locations?

What selling channels do your customers typically sell through?

What delivery models are supported (on-premises, managed hosted, single-tenant SaaS, multi-tenant SaaS, etc)?

Do you have to provision environments for new customers? If so, how long does that take per environment?

What parts of your platform are auto-scaled? What parts require manual scaling?

Internally, how are new instances of your platform provisioned? Please describe your architecture.

How many separate independent microservices (own database, own application, own teams) does your platform have?

Internally, do microservices read/write from each other's datastores? Or is access strictly through APIs/events?

Internally, does your platform have a way of separating reads from writes using an architecture like CQRS?

To what degree do you use eventing internally? What's exposed externally?

What kind of datastore(s) do you use? Why?

To what extent does your platform conform with each of the 12 principles listed in Twelve-Factor App Manifesto?

What Open Source do you use? What do you contribute back to the community?

What cloud vendor do you use for hosting your platform?

Which cloud region(s) do you serve your platform from?

Internally, do you leverage fault domains/availability zones to ensure your application is as available as possible? If so, how many regions? Please describe your architecture.

Are customers able to choose which region they use?

Does data ever leave a region?

Where are your data centers or servers physically located?

Internally, do you deploy to two or more data centers? If so, is it active/active or active/passive?

Explain your process for releasing new versions of software. How often are major/minor versions deployed? What do customers have to do to uptake those new versions of software?

Are individual microservice teams able to release independently, or is the entire platform released as one atomic unit?

What is your support policy for older versions of software?

Does your platform have scheduled downtime when updates are made?

What monitoring data does your platform expose?

Over the past two years, how much planned and unplanned downtime has your platform had?

How are outages communicated?

How quickly can you provision new instances of your platform to meet a sudden spike in demand that cannot be met using currently provisioned capacity?

Is there a plugin system for creating own extensions?

Must extensions/customizations to your platform be deployed to a specific cloud vendor/location?

Describe how the software can be monitored (at all tiers) for availability and performance?

Describe how the platform supports containerization?

Does every single administrator within your company have individual user accounts to every system?

Does your platform log changes made by individual administrators? What data is captured and how long is it retained?

What measures do you take to keep bots and other malicious actors out of your system?

Have you experienced any security breaches that caused any outages or data leaks? Describe.

Do you conduct whitebox testing? If so, at what frequency?

Do you conduct blackbox testing? If so, at what frequency?

Do you hire a third party to conduct penetration testing? If so, what type of testing is performed and how frequently?

In the event that a security issue needs to be fixed, how quickly can the change be pushed and adopted by users?

Please describe your platform Backup & Restore capabilities?

Are there options to encrypt data at rest in your platform?

Describe the resiliency models or strategies applied in the product. E.g. Fault Resiliency, Latencies, Limiting expensive resources

What measures are employed to ensure business continuity in case of major incidents or disasters?

Does your platform comply with SAS 70?

Does your platform comply with SAS 90?

Does your platform comply with SOC and SOC2?

Does your platform comply with SSAE16?

Does your platform comply with ISAE 3402?

Does your platform comply with HIPAA?

Does your platform comply with ISO 9000?

Does your platform comply with ISO 27001?

Does your platform comply with PCI-DSS 3?

Does your platform allow you to comply with GDPR?

What forms of authentication are supported for APIs?

Are pluggable identification/authentication providers supported for APIs? If so, which are available as pre-built integrations?

What forms of authentication are supported for business user tooling?

Are pluggable identification/authentication providers supported for business user tooling? If so, which are available as pre-built integrations?

Is multi-factor authentication supported for business user authentication?

How is authentication for GraphQL handled?

How are roles and privileges used to authorize access to APIs? Please describe your approach.

Can roles and privileges for APIs be externally managed? If yes, where?

Can roles and privileges for API authorization be hierarchial? Can they be inherited?

Is the OAuth 2 protocol supported for API authorization? If so, are scopes supported too? How granular are they?

How are roles and privileges used to authorize access to business user tools? Please describe your approach.

Can roles and privileges for business user tools be externally managed? If yes, where?

Can roles and privileges for business user tools be hierarchial? Can they be inherited?

Is 100% of data encrypted while it is "in motion" throughout your platform? If so, what types/levels of encryption are employed between each system?

Is 100% of data encrypted while it is "at rest" in storage? If so, what types/levels of encryption are used?

Besides when it is actively being processed in-process, is there any time that data is not encrypted?

How is data secured in transit between your enterprise applications and the commerce platform?

What third party companies have access to personally identifiable information? Please explain what data is available and what types of data processing agreements you have in place.

Does your platform allow to delete customer data on a request, including from backups?

Does your platform provide APIs? Please describe your general approach to APIs.

What percent of the functionality of your platform available through APIs? Is there any functionality only available through a UI, script, or by accessing a database directly?

What functionality and data is not accessible over APIs in your platform?

What percent of your customers only use your APIs to access your platform's functionality and data?

Do your platform's APIs conform to a third party specification like RAML or Open API? Is your specification published publicly?

Was your platform built from the start to be API-first?

What Richardson Maturity Model Level are your REST APIs compliant to? Why?

Do your REST APIs support multiple formats (XML, JSON). If so, which one(s)?

Which CDNs and load balancers front your APIs?

Are all of your API calls idempotent?

As you add new functionality, do your APIs evolve in a backwards-compatible manner or are they versioned?

Do you offer a web-based UI or IDE where developers can try executing APIs against your platform?

What type of API metrics are exposed? For example, does vendor expose number of API calls, average response time, etc?

What means do developers have to inject custom logic before/after API calls are made?

Does your platform allow you to take actions in response to API calls? For example, do you support eventing, calling serverless functions, web hooks, etc?

Can the data model of objects (profiles, products, carts, etc) be extended/configured using APIs?

Can your API store/retrieve arbitrary JSON data/custom objects?

What native SDKs do you offer over your APIs? Please list the supported programming languages (including version numbers).

How is each SDK supported? Is it commercially supported as part of the product, or is it unsupported open source?

How are SDKs updated over time? How frequently are they released? How do customers uptake new versions?

Does your platform API support GraphQL?

What percent of your platform's data and functionality is exposed over GraphQL?

Do you support GraphQL mutations, or just queries?

What protections do you have in place against malicious queries?

Do you have any special integrations with GraphQL clients like Apollo and Relay?

Are GraphQL endpoints supported the same as traditional REST APIs?

How long do B2C implementations typically take? What's a cost estimate for implementations?

What is your company's general approach to implementation support? Are systems integrators responsible for implementations or do you do them yourself?

What types of professional services does your company offer?

What percent of your company's revenue comes from professional services?

Do you retain ownership of code and other intellectual property created as part of a professional services agreement?

Can your platform be consumed in smaller granular pieces or does it have to be purchased and implemented as one indivisible platform?

Who are your top five implementation partners?

Do you have a formal certification program for partners?

How many certified implementation partners do you have per region in which you operate?

Do you have any blueprints or step-by-step guides for implementing your product?

What training and enablement programs are provided for initial and ongoing training for developers, administrators and business users?

How can the data be imported into your platform? Which connectors do you offer?

How are new product features publicized? For example, are there quarterly workshops or webinars?

Do you support access to your platform to develop a POC or MVP during the selection process?

State the processes and procedures for managing and resolving support tickets:

Does the platform offer 24/7 365 support?

Does the platform have a mature and stable support model? Are there any plans to apply changes to the support model within the next year?

Is documentation available to our technical support teams? Explain how this documentation is delivered.

Does the platform provide adequate notice of maintenance windows (advised at least 7 days in advance)?

What is your SLA (for the platform and content delivery)?

Provide your SLA response and resolution times:

Does the platform define acceptable SLAs? Please specify response, resolution and availability SLAs. What remedies are available for breach of these SLAs?

Why do companies renew their contracts with your business?

How often are service reviews conducted and what data is provided for review?

Does your platform include a dedicated PIM?

What percent of customers use your product as a standalone PIM for the whole enterprise?

Did you build or acquire your PIM? Please explain its heritage.

Is your data versioned (a mutable copy of each object being edited)?

How can the data model be customized/extended?

Can physical goods be modeled as products?

Can digital goods be modeled as products?

Can services be modeled as products?

Can different product catalog data be maintained per country?

Can different product catalog data be maintained per language?

Can different product catalog data be maintained per channel?

Can a single product exist in multiple categories without it being duplicated?

How are product images managed in your platform?

Are Custom Product Attributes supported?

What third party ERPs have you integrated with?

What third party PIMs have you integrated with?

Does your platform offer product reviews?

Can multiple changes be grouped together into an atomic unit, like a "Project"?

Please explain how changes are deployed from the authoring environment to the production environment.

Can deployments be scheduled?

Can deployments be rolled back? Please explain your strategy for reverting changes.

Can restrictions be put in place to forbid specific users from publishing?

How many total items (categories, products, SKUs, etc) can be in your catalog without suffering performance degradation?

What is the maximum number of SKUs that can belong to a single product without suffering performance degradation?

What is the maximum number of attributes/properties an item can have?

Can your platform set validity dates/times for prices?

Does your platform support individualized pricing (per customer)?

Does your platform support segment-based pricing?

Does your platform support geographic pricing (per country, per region, per state, per city, etc)?

Does your platform support channel pricing (mobile, web, in-store, etc)?

Does your platform support tiered volume discount pricing?

Does your platform support bundled product pricing?

Does your platform support pricing by customer group?

Can your platform get prices from an ERP system, standalone pricing engine, or some other source?

What is the maximum number of prices per product/SKU that your platform supports?

Can an order be constructed and placed with one API call?

Do you offer a one-click checkout (like Bolt, Bold, Fast, etc.)?

Can carts be persisted? For how long? Is cart persistence a scalable feature?

Is guest checkout supported?

Which currencies are supported out of the box?

Does your platform allow for split payments?

Which payment gateways are supported out of the box?

Does your platform support wallets like Alipay, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay?

Does your platform support cash on delivery as a payment method?

Does your platform support purchase orders as a payment method?

Which countries does your platform provide the ability to calculate sales tax?

Does your platform support VAT calculation?

What third party tax calculators does your platform integrate with out of the box?

Does your platform support VAT ID validation?

Does your platform perform address verification?

Does your platform support shipping cost calculation?

Does your platform support estimated delivery date based on shipping calendar/time in transit?

Does your platform support multiple shipments in a single order based on delivery address?

Does your platform support ship to store?

Does your platform support customer-initiated returns?

Does your platform support re-opening orders for amendment?

Does your platform support fraud integration to third party system?

Does your platform support holding orders based on fraud score for review?

Does your platform provide support for the implementation of third party fraud software?

Do you have a dedicated OMS solution in your commerce platform?

Which third party Order Management Systems have you integrated with?

How can business users model promotions? Is there a user interface?

Can promotions be templatized? How does that work?

Does your platform support order-based promotions?

Does your platform support promotions based on tender used to pay for the order?

Does your platform support product-based promotions?

Does your platform support BOGO (Buy One Get One) promotions?

Does your platform support tiered price break promotions?

Does your platform support gift with purchase promotions?

Does your platform support brand-based promotions?

Does your platform have ability to show available coupons applicable to the cart/products?

Does your platform support time-based product discounts?

Does your platform support promotion tied to geography or excluded by geography?

Does your platform support promotions by channel including web, mobile, affiliate and social?

Does your platform support shipping promotions?

Does your platform support discount codes?

Can discount codes be auto-generated by the platform?

Can discount codes be auto-generated by business users from an administrative user interface?

What is your front-end strategy? Does the platform have full content management capabilities, or is the platform expected served headless?

Are front-ends typically built or bought (packaged CMS, WCMS, DXP, etc)?

Do you work with any headless content management vendors (like Contentstack, Amplience, Contentful, etc)?

Does your platform offer date/time-based preview?

How does your platform provide support for modes of mobile delivery such as mobile web, mobile and tablet applications?

Does your platform provide PWA support?

Does your platform offer a Swift or Android SDK?

Does your platform support integration of push services?

Does your platform support remarketing tag integration?

Does your platform adjust images to be SEO friendly?

Can the platform render URLs using slugs?

Does your platform provide A/B testing capabilities?

Does your platform provide multi-variate testing capabilities?

Can product catalog data be managed individually per retailer?

Can your platform create and maintain individual assortments per retailer?

Can your product catalog data be exported to 3rd party marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, etc?

Does your platform have ability to consolidate marketplace orders with orders from other channels?

Does your platform have ability to track order status from the admin console?

Does your platform have ability to manage returns and replacement?

Does your platform have ability to allocate inventory by marketplace?

Does your platform have the ability to consolidate marketplace inventory reporting to a single view?

Does your platform have ability to report sales by marketplace?

Does your platform have ability to report sales by product category?

Does your platform support in-store (POS) sales?

Describe the in-store solution. Can this be purchased as a standalone module?

Does your platform support buy online, return in store?

Does your platform support exchanges?

Can customers begin a transaction online and complete in store or vice versa?

Can store associates view inventory by store?

Does your platform provide a single source of truth for promotions across channels?

Does your platform provide a single source of truth for products across all channels?

Does your solution allow the following types of payments: cash, credit card, digital wallet, gift card, store credit?

Is it possible to scan items to cart and send the customer a link to pay with their mobile phone?

Does your solution offer cash management capabilities (cash counts, add/remove cash, safe deposits)?

Where is the solution hosted?

Does your solution support SSO?