Attachment_5_-_LTD_Questions.pdf

ATTACHMENT 5

Live Test Demonstrations Guidance for Business-to-Business (B2B) E-Marketplaces

Proposals which move on to the Phase II evaluations and the Live Test Demonstrations (LTD) must successfully demonstrate the objectives listed in Attachment 3. The following list of questions is a sampling of what may be raised during the LTD. The Government’s inquiry during the LTD is not limited to the list below as more questions may be raised as the LTD occurs.

1. User Experience

(i) Account Management

○ How does the portal manage business-to-business (B2B) accounts as compared to accounts on the consumer site?

○ What is the process for migrating existing government customers who already have consumer accounts to a B2B account? Please provide those scenarios.

○ Is the portal able to connect to, or import, existing account hierarchies?

○ How does the portal support the approval of 'child' accounts within a 'parent' account?

○ What safeguards, if any, are available to prevent use of a consumer account when a government account is available?

○ What safeguards are in place to verify the card on file for the purchaser is a

Government Purchase Card (GPC)?

○ How will users be verified that they are authorized to use the portal? Is the portal able to authorize based on the method of payment (for our purposes, a

Government Purchase Card)?

○ Can a buy occur if the user is not connected to a parent account? If yes, how can these users be connected to a parent account at a later date?

○ What levels of approvals occur before an order may be placed? How configurable is that process and can it vary based on the ‘parent’ account preferences?

(ii) Search and Filtering

○ How is the order of products determined in the results?

○ Can a supplier pay more to have their product offered higher in the results? If so, how is this fee set?

○ What is the most common method a customer uses to find a product? Do you target a certain number of ‘clicks’ to get the customer to that product?

○ What capabilities do you offer to filter on socioeconomic or small business status?

○ Does your platform allow for filtering based on product reviews and rankings?

(iii) Product Information

○ Do you offer products that span multiple categories in the Government-wide

Category Management structure?

○ What standard information do you provide for each product listing? Does this include images and descriptions directly from the manufacturer?

○ What is the source of that information? For example does that information come from the manufacturer, your own content curators, other sites, or somewhere else entirely?

○ How often is product information updated?

○ How do you handle new versions of products? Do you link to the new versions? What happens to the old version?

○ How quickly can new products be added to the site?

○ What ability do you have to limit certain products? By individual item? By whole category? By supplier? By manufacturer? Or some other unlisted limitation?

○ Do you offer ‘suggested alternatives’ or ‘people also purchased’ suggestions to buyers? If so, how do these work in relation to AbilityOne products where

‘essentially the same’ items cannot be displayed?

(iv) Ratings and Reviews

○ Identify the types of ratings and/or reviews offered on your portal. For example, product reviews, vendor reviews, other?

○ Who can submit these reviews?

○ What recourse is there for a supplier (or product manufacturer) to refute or respond to a negative review?

(v) Product Availability

○ What, if any, product inventory information is displayed to buyers?

○ How is product inventory information managed and/or displayed to ensure availability (or high levels of fulfillment) at the time of order

○ Do you offer partial fulfillments and if so, what are the processes around that related to customer notifications and cancellations?

○ If a product order does need to be cancelled, is this allowed within a certain timeframe (i.e. before processing/shipment?)

○ If an item is out of stock, will the product be displayed? If yes, does the site provide an estimated in-stock date?

https://acquisition.gov/content/category-management https://acquisition.gov/content/category-management

○ Can a customer place an order for an item that is out of stock, with the site notifying them of the delayed ship-date?

○ How are orders with large quantities handled?

○ Is a minimum order quantity ever implemented on items?

○ Are tiered-pricing arrangements stated on the site for large quantity buys?

(vi) Customer Service

○ What are your customer service standards?

○ What communications options are available to customers who need to gather information or ask questions about account management, order status, etc?

○ Will the portal be responsible for resolving marketplace issues with third-party suppliers or will the buyer work directly with third-party suppliers for resolution?

○ What information is available to buyers who contact customer service? For example, product level information, order level information, account information, etc.

(vii) Order Management

○ What geographic territories does your portal support? Can you restrict orders to certain locations if asked?

○ Can one order be split amongst multiple shipping locations, either at a single customer location, or geographically dispersed customer locations?

○ What order status information is available to buyers? Is this information available on demand (e.g. self-service) or does it require contacting customer service?

○ What are the typical expected delivery times for your B2B customers?

○ Are there options to increase delivery times or have specific delivery dates?

○ What shipping and tracking information is provided to customers? Is this done through alerts via email, text, or some other means?

○ How often is this information updated?

○ If the product becomes unavailable or delayed, what actions, if any, does the portal provider take?

(viii) Returns, Refunds, and Exchanges.

○ Who is responsible for handling the return, exchange and / or refund process for

1st party sales? For 3rd party sales?

○ How is the return process managed?

○ How are exchanges handled?

○ What costs apply, including additional fees, and which party is responsible for those costs/fees associated with returns, exchanges, or refunds?

○ What is the process to address damaged products?

○ What is the typical timeframe it takes to fully process refunds, returns and exchanges?

2. Compliance & Portal Management

(i) 3rd party Supplier Management

○ How will marketplaces manage the 3rd-party suppliers that fulfill the orders?

○ How are supply chain risks proactively mitigated with suppliers?

○ How is fair competition among suppliers managed?

(ii) Small Business identification

○ How are small businesses identified and verified?

○ Does your platform display an icon next to small businesses to set them apart during the buying process?

○ Does your platform allow for filtering by small business type?

○ Will the platform identify that the supplier is a small business and/or meets a socioeconomic status, such as a Veteran Owned Small Business, Woman

Owned Small Business, Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small business, etc.?

(iii)AbilityOne and ‘Essentially the Same’ Items

○ How will AbilityOne items be identified on the marketplace?

○ How will AbilityOne procurement list items be identified? The Procurement

List may be accessed at: http://www.abilityone.gov

○ What processes are in place to ensure “Essentially the Same” (ETS) items will not be purchased on the platform?

○ What is the ability to limit AbilityOne items so that they are only sold to government users on the e-marketplace?

○ How will the provider restrict listings of AbilityOne products by non-authorized distributors? (Authorized distributor list is available here:

https://www.abilityone.gov/distributors/independent.html)

(iv) Federal Prison Industries

○ How does your platform identify or recommend Federal Prison Industry items?

○ Can your platform direct customers to UNICOR? The list of UNICOR items which can be accessed at http://www.unicor.gov

(v) Buyer Workflow

○ What workflows are available on the platform in order to ensure the appropriate approvals are received for the purchase?

http://www.abilityone.gov/ https://www.abilityone.gov/distributors/independent.html http://www.unicor.gov/

○ What capabilities does the platform offer to document the purchase decision and comparison made by the buyer?

(vi) Environmentally-Friendly Products (EPEAT)

○ How does your platform identify environmentally-friendly and “green” products?

○ What is the source of this information?

(vii) Cybersecurity Capabilities

○ What cybersecurity safeguards do you have in place?

○ How do you proactively manage the many facets of cybersecurity, including, but not limited to:

■ Protecting financial data from theft/fraud

■ Defense against cyber attacks

■ Compliance with information security standards

■ Data storage

■ Vulnerability assessments/monitoring

■ Encryption

■ Disaster recovery

■ Network monitoring

○ How is customer data protected within your platform?

○ Who within your company has access to that data, including customer order history?

(viii) Supply Chain Risk Management

○ What is the strategy for meeting the requirements of Section 889 of the 2019

National Defense Authorization Act?

○ How do you proactively manage supply chain risk?

○ What tools does your portal offer to mitigate supply chain risk?

○ What product screening capabilities do you offer to manage supply chain risk?

○ What capabilities does the portal possess to restrict certain suppliers from participating?

○ Do those responsible for order fulfillment know who the end customer is? Is there any capability to obfuscate this information?

(ix) Supplier On-boarding

○ How are 3 rd

-party suppliers reviewed prior to joining a marketplace?

○ How are 3 rd

-party suppliers on-boarded?

○ What are the top reasons why a vendor might be denied from being a 3rd party supplier on the marketplace?

○ Is there an appeal process for denied vendors?

○ What data and information is provided to suppliers on the marketplace?

3. Data Capabilities

(i) Spend Data and Analytics

○ How do B2B customers use spend data and analytics to help drive buying decision? What historic spend information is provided to customers to help them with future purchases?

○ How will agency approvers be able to access spend data by GPC holders that fall under their authority?

○ Will agency approvers be able to access multiple GPC holders’ spend data as in a parent/child relationship?

○ How will government spend data be collected and categorized, i.e. by agency, then by office, then by individual GPC holders?

○ How will GPC holders access their purchase and invoice history?

○ What is the process to provide the government’s spend data to GSA?

(ii) Data Extracts

○ What does your portal provide in the way of data extracts to B2B customers?

○ In what format do you typically send this data? How often? Is it available via an API (GSAs preferred method)?

The following data elements shall be remitted to GSA by the e-marketplace providers:

Data Element Type Data Element

Purchase Data

Order Date

Ship Date

Delivery Date

Shipping costs

Quantity of item(s) sold

Sell Price (per unit)

Total Price

Department Name

Department ID

Agency Name

Agency ID

Delivery address

Product Data

SKU / Park Number

Description of item

Product Unit of Measure

Product country of origin

Vendor Data

OEM Name (Original Equipment

Manufacturer)

Vendor Name

Vendor DUNS #

Vendor socioeconomic status

Vendor Product Service Code

(iii) Data Analytics

○ E-marketplace providers shall offer data analytics and dashboard capabilities.

Data and analytics should be able to be broken out by agency as well by bureau, office, and business unit within an agency. Dashboards should include the following information as a minimum:

(1) Spend Data - How much is an agency spending across their various bureaus and organizations?

(2) Types of items purchased - What categories of items are purchased by agency?

(3) Frequency of purchases - How often were the same items purchased by an agency?

(4) Cost Savings - What savings were achieved versus commercial prices?

(5) Orders placed - How many orders placed as well as the average order sizes?

(6) Shipping and Delivery data - How long are orders taking to ship? What are the delivery timeframes and related shipping costs?

(iv) Catalog Data Access and Analytics

○ How would your portal share product catalogs with GSA to enable compliance review of prohibited items, mitigation of supply chain risks, and price monitoring?

(v) Data Usage and Protection

○ How does your portal use B2B customer spend data?

(1) Pricing purposes?

(2) Marketing purposes?

(3) Competitive purposes?

(4) Product development purposes?

(5) Supplier management purposes?

(6) Marketplace management purposes?

○ How does your platform plan to comply with the data protection requirements identified in Section 838 of the 2019 NDAA?

4. Pricing

(i) General Pricing

○ How does your B2B platform compare to your consumer platform, if applicable?

○ How often are prices updated on your platform? Do you offer dynamic pricing?

○ Are customers able to receive a refund if the price decreases within a certain period of time? If so, how is this managed?

○ Is shipping included in the product price?

○ Is a free-shipping program offered? Would that be included at no-charge to the

Government? For an added fee?

(ii) Price Comparison

○ Are price comparisons on your portal facilitated at the item level?

○ Is the buyer able to save this comparison for later reference?

(iii) Invoicing

○ What purchase order data is provided on a customers’ invoice to assist them with reconciling GPC statements?

○ What information is provided to customers on returns, refunds, and cancellations to assist with reconciling GPC statements?

(iv) Pricing Considerations

○ What tools or techniques will be used to ensure competitive pricing?

○ How does pricing on your B2B platform different from pricing in the commercial marketplace?

○ Are additional price discounts available on bulk buys? Do you offer price discounts based on spending tiers?

○ How are shipping costs viewable by the customer on the portal?

○ How will the removal of state taxes be managed?

○ GSA intends to charge a nominal fee to portal providers participating in this program. How do you plan to cover this fee within your existing pricing structure?