Amendment 4 - AMENDED Attachment 3 - LTD Questions.pdf

ATTACHMENT 3

Live Test Demonstrations Guidance for Business-to-Business Online

Platforms

Proposals which move on to the Phase II evaluations and the Live Test Demonstrations (LTDs) must successfully demonstrate the business-to-business (B2B) objectives listed in Attachment 2.

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. Market Research:

○ Demonstrate the user experience for conducting market research on your platform.

Product descriptions / images

○ 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?

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

○ If additional suppliers participate on your platform, can they pay to have their product offered higher in the results? If so, how is this fee set?

Product Reviews

○ Does your platform offer reviews, why or why not?

○ If applicable, identify the types of ratings and/or reviews offered on your portal.

For example, product reviews, vendor reviews, other? What is the source of these reviews?

○ If applicable, what recourse is there for a supplier (or product manufacturer) to refute or respond to a negative review?

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

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

‘essentially the same’ items?

Socioeconomic Capabilities and Filters

○ Where applicable, what capabilities do you offer to filter on socioeconomic or small business status? What about product markings for items sourced from small businesses?

○ How does your platform identify environmentally-sustainable (“green”) products?

○ What is the source of environmentally-sustainable information?

○ Demonstrate your capabilities related to promote agency buyers’ compliance with the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act (JWOD) buying mandate.

○ What processes are in place related toto ensure “Essentially the Same” (ETS) items? Aare items restricted or appropriately marked, or are buyers are notified of a restricted ETS item?

○ If offered by authorized sellers, how will AbilityOne procurement list items be identified? The Procurement List may be accessed at: http://www.abilityone.gov

○ As applicable, hHow will the platform restrict listings of AbilityOne products by non-authorized distributors? (Authorized distributor list is available here:

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

Inventory Availability

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

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

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

2. Purchase Process:

○ Demonstrate the purchase / checkout process on your platform.

○ Demonstrate the ability to share shopping carts and/or saved lists on your platform.

○ 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 canceled, is this allowed within a certain timeframe (i.e. before processing/shipment)?

○ How are orders with large quantities handled?

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

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

○ Does your platform support a custom field at the time of purchase to support agency-specific requirements?

Shipping Addresses

○ Does your platform allow the buyer to change the ship-to address at the order level at checkout?

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

3. Post Purchase:

○ Demonstrate the post-purchase capabilities, to include order fulfillment information, invoicing, customer service, and the return process.

Order Fulfillment

○ 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?

○ Are packing slips included with every shipment?

Invoicing

○ What order summary data is provided to the customer to assist them with reconciling GPC statements?

○ What are your capabilities to provide both email and self-service access to order summary information for buyers?

Customer Service

○ Describe how GSA program administrators can have access to customer support to assist with issues related to platform administration (e.g., account management, data extracts)

○ Demonstrate the communication options (e.g., email, phone, live chat) available to buyers who need to gather information or ask questions about account management, order status, etc.

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

○ If applicable, 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 are your customer service standards?

Returns

○ Demonstrate the return process on your platform.

○ Who is responsible for handling the return, exchange, and / or refund process? If applicable, is the process the same for third party sales?

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

○ What is the process to address damaged products?

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

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

4. Administration:

○ Demonstrate the user / account administration capabilities on your platform, including the account hierarchy structure(s).

○ Demonstrate how users can be easily identified and added/removed either in bulk, or individually.

○ What is the process for migrating existing Government customers who already have consumer accounts to a B2B account?

○ Demonstrate your capabilities to prevent use of a consumer account when a

Government account is available.

○ If available, demonstrate your platforms workflow capabilities, within both the initial account setup and purchasing process.

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

5. Spend Data and Analytics

○ Demonstrate the data / dashboard capabilities on your platform.

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

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

○ How will GPC holders access their order history?

○ What does your portal provide in the way of data extracts to B2B customers? In what format is this information available?

○ Are you able to transmit Level-3 transactional data to the GSA SmartPay banks?

○ What are dashboard capabilities in the following areas:

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

■ Types of items purchased - What categories of items are purchased by an agency?

■ Frequency of purchases - How often were the same items purchased by an agency?

■ Cost Savings - What savings were achieved versus prices offered on your consumer platform?

■ Orders placed - How many orders placed as well as the average order sizes?

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

6. Pricing

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

○ How often are prices updated on your platform?

○ Do you offer the ability to ‘lock in a price’ for those shoppers that have external order-approval requirements?

○ Is shipping included in the product price? If not, is that clearly stated on the product page?

○ Is a free-shipping or other ‘membership’ program offered? What does that program include?

7. Supply Chain Risk Management:

○ How do you proactively manage supply chain risk?

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

○ If applicable, what capabilities does the portal possess to restrict certain suppliers from participating?

○ If a buyer suspects that an item is a counterfeit in the shopping process, how do they report it?

○ If a buyer suspects they’ve received a counterfeit item, what is the reporting process and who is responsible? What actions are / will be taken to prevent this from occurring in the future?

○ If applicable, how does your platform manage the third party suppliers that fulfill the orders to ensure they aren’t selling counterfeit items?