RFP # A ecommerce Electronic Commerce System

Transcription

1 RFP # A ecommerce Electronic Commerce System Time and Place for Filing Due Date: On or before August 1, 2014 at: 2:00 P.M. PDT Exactly RE ADDENDUM NO. 1 The following questions were asked and responses issued pertaining to this solicitation: 1. We understand that you re looking for the contract estimate to include all software, installation, downloads, documentation, maintenance, operation, and all back-office processing as may be required. With regard to the ongoing maintenance and operation after the initial installation and training, do you Federal have Way any direction/expectation as to how this is structured? Seems like maintenance, operation, and all back-office processing as may be required could be fairly open ended. Could this be structured as an hourly support fee as requested? [KCDA Response] KCDA has a fully staffed IT team skilled in maintaining back-office operations including server maintenance, backups, installing software and OS updates etc. The ongoing maintenance plan with ECom site development team would involve a support agreement for addressing any questions regarding the software, training requests, bug fixes, change requests and requests for enhancements. The terms of the support agreement may be discussed post interview and pre-award phase. 2. Does your current site/technology offer Ability to build intelligence into search and display by storing previous searches and tailoring presentation of products to the users historical search preferences? If so, can you provide any insights into the intelligence programming/algorithm? [KCDA Response] Intelligence building refers to: Auto-completion of words being searched by cross checking against words in key fields in Product tables. Saving a list of last few searched words so when the user begins keying in the word it comes up with a drop down list showing those search items towards the top of the list that match the word being keyed in, as in Google and Amazon searches. 3. With regard to Ability to add a wish list of products to the cart items not in product database Can you provide any insight/direction on how you see this working? We see some serious challenges with users being able to add items to their cart/wishlist that do not existing in the product database! Are we misunderstanding your intent here? [KCDA Response] Current KCDA Ecom site provides a free form data entry field on the shopping cart where users can enter a description, part number and quantity required for items they see on other competitive businesses websites. (See pic below). This allows the item to be added to the shopping cart and KCDA

2 customer service receives an , with relevant details, when such a cart is checked out to alert us that a customer wishes to order an item that we do not carry in our inventory. We would like to maintain and enhance this feature to serve our customers better. 4. With regard to Ability to import a sales order via Excel spreadsheet with similar fields as express shop and required fields for user identification can you provide insight on the required fields for user identification aspect? RE [KCDA Response] KCDA Customers are primarily school districts. Often the purchasing lead is given multiple excel spreadsheets of tall orders to be placed on to KCDA website for various ship to locations within the district. If these spreadsheet templates have fields to identify ShipTo and MarkFor information and a few other relevant fields to identify the Order Header information then the logged in user can efficiently import all orders in without having to manually enter any header information. 5. There are a couple references, as with the earlier RFP; to soft delete can you tell us what you mean by that? [KCDA Response] Soft delete refers to flagging the record as deleted without purging the data from the database for permanent deletion until thus intended. 6. With regard to Ability to save favorite settings for site user experience can you provide examples of what this may include? [KCDA Response] Customers should be able to save settings for their area of work within their website they most frequently work with. As an example this could include but not be limited to, the Admin User to automatically be directed to the User Admin page, Reports page (a daily report even), Approval of carts Tab, My Carts tab. A Science teacher could save settings to always have the Science Category as the Page they land on upon logging in instead of having to navigate to it each time. 7. As to the CHAT solution are you open to 3 rd party provider options (ie, Live Person)? [KCDA Response] Yes, KCDA is open to reviewing proposed 3 rd party options. 8. Can you shed any light on the admin ability to merge user records and user groups? In our experience this could be a can of worms! [KCDA Response] In many cases users auto-register twice using different user IDs and before we realize it they have carts under both users. They are merged under one name so we don t lose history. ShipTo locations are dropped so that location is merged with another location under the same Bill To. 9. It appears that you re looking for a responsive design solution one that adapts to web and mobile devices, correct? Or is a separate mobile site (driven from the same dataset) acceptable?

3 [KCDA Response] KCDA Customers Our preference is to use an adaptive design. KCDA is open to reviewing other options. 10. You mention that the site Support Flash, Mobile Devices (apple, droid, and win), Silverlight, Etc. As I m sure you know Flash is not supported on ios devices, thus our approach would be to utilize html5/scripted solutions is that acceptable? [KCDA Response] Yes that would be acceptable. 11. With regard to Solution must be extensible to OS upgrades and feature enhancements this is a pretty RE open statement. Can this be narrowed/refined/clarified in any way? It s not uncommon for us to see School some Dist. issues 410 arise as browsers and OS update, and we can typically fix the issues fairly easily, but we certainly can t predict what the future will hold and some upgrades/updates may present more problems than could be reasonably anticipated. [KCDA Response] We realize the unpredictability in OS upgrades. We would require solution provider to offer immediate assistance as a part of service agreement in instances which offer such challenges so that KCDA business is not adversely affected over a long period of time. 80% of our business is done over the ecommerce website. 12. As this is your second round at this RFP process I m assuming that you had some responses to the initial RFP and the end result was not acceptable. Can you provide any insight on the shortcomings of that initial process/results? Did the estimates come in too high? Can you shed any light on what you would see an acceptable price range being? As you can imagine there will be a significant amount of work on our part to put together this proposal and we d like to know that your budgetary expectations are reasonable. [KCDA Response] KCDA did not receive significant number of responses owing to a very tight project timeline. We have since relaxed our timeline and hope to receive more responses this time around. 13. Provide references from five customers that have implemented Vendor s electronic commerce solutions within the past 3 years. References must include a contact person s name, name of organization, and phone number and link to their currently functioning website or working demo version of the same. Question: We typically provide references a little closer to the end of the evaluation process. Are these references going to be checked right away? We usually give our customers advanced notification that they might be called, etc. Comment [TM1]: We typically provide references a little closer to the end of the evaluation process. Are these references going to be checked right away? We usually give our customers advanced notification that they might be called, etc. [KCDA Response] We are ok with provision of references at a later time. 14. Vendor must provide brief resumes or bios for the key personnel who will work on this project. Include certifications if any. Vendor to provide a link to their company website if it exists. Question: We don t assign resources until we have a signed contract. We can provide a representative sample of our personnel. Comment [TM2]: We don t assign resources until we have a signed contract. We can provide a representative sample of our personnel. [KCDA Response] We are ok with provision of this information at a later time.

4 15. SECTION 6 A 1) f) 2. User Management Ability to setup reminders, settings for receiving notifications, order confirmations and other configuration settings. Question: Reminders for what purpose? [KCDA Response] Orders are placed with future requested dates, back order reminders, reminder to follow up on Non-standard quote requested items etc. Ability to setup reminders on order would be desirable feature. RE 16. SECTION 6 A 2) 4) System Requirements Solution must be PCI compliant. Question: iapps is certified PA-DSS compliant. The hosting site is PCI. [KCDA Response] Thank you, we appreciate your clarification. 17. With respect to requirements in Section 6, A. General, Item 3) Infrastructure Requirements. Points a) through d) imply that KCDA will be responsible for running and maintaining the solution. Will KCDA consider a model where the vendor supports the application on KCDA s servers? Or a solution delivered as Software-as-a-Service? Comment [TM3]: Reminders for what purpose? Comment [TM4]: iapps is certified PA-DSS compliant. The hosting site is PCI. [KCDA Response] KCDA would require a vendor supports the application on KCDA servers model. We will be hosting the application and the database in-house on KCDA servers. 18. With respect to requirements in Section 6, A. General, Item 6) Solution Development Requirements. Point d) states that KCDA to own DB, webserver and developed application code. Will KCDA consider a software license model, where the vendor retains ownership of the source and application code? [KCDA Response] KCDA would prefer a software ownership with support model, as stated in the RFP, however we are open to reviewing a license model as well if it meets KCDA business requirements and offers a better return on investment. 19. Is a USB drive acceptable for the electronic submission, or will only a CD will be accepted? [KCDA Response] Yes, USB drive for electronic submission will be acceptable. 20. What is your estimated maximum number of users for the System? How many employees does KCDA have? [KCDA Response] KCDA has about 45 employees who will all be internal users however the KCDA customer count who shop on our current website is upwards of 25,000 and growing. 21. Has KCDA appropriated a budget for this System? Can you share what the allocated budget is for & ?

5 [KCDA Response] Unfortunately at this time we cannot share the budget amount for this system. We would like to get a broad range pricing from the responding vendors and we are open to discussion during the interview phase. 22. Can you share KCDA s general budget and procurement spend information? [KCDA Response] That information will not be made available as a part of this RFP process. 23. By what date is KCDA expecting the system to go live? Can you share a more extensive timeline than that offered in the Electronic Commerce FP # A? RE [KCDA Response] KCDA desires to have the code ready for beta testing by April Extensive in-house testing will be performed by KCDA users between April and September and wish to go-live by October However the go-live window may be adjusted according to project initiation date and meeting with vendor team regarding project development cycle and team availability. 24. Can KCDA explain to Perfect Commerce the way they manage their catalog content with the existing Federal process? Way [KCDA Response] KCDA stores all catalog content in proprietary SQL server database. KCDA IT admins and employees manage the data in-house. [KCDA Response] See response to Q25 33 after Q Do suppliers provide their catalogs to KCDA today? If so, how are catalogs provided? How does KCDA process them? 26. Is KCDA expecting their suppliers to provide their catalog as part of the process or is KCDA expecting to manage the catalog content on behalf of their suppliers? 27. How many suppliers does KCDA manage? 28. Will the KCDA customers purchase from the warehouse catalog only? 29. Are items sold only from inventory? 30. Will products and services be listed in a catalog even if they are not ever kept in the warehouse? 31. Are items drop shipped from suppliers? 32. Does KCDA own all goods before they are sold? 33. Does KCDA sell services as well? [KCDA Response] KCDA is a purchasing cooperative owned by the Washington State School Districts. Its primary function is to acquire products through bid contracts for ultimate dissemination to its members. It used to be a more simplified process whereby certain products where acquired, accumulated, repackaged and distributed out to (or picked up by) participating members. These days KCDA has its own warehouse filled with regularly sold items that can be acquired online through its ecommerce site. In addition, KCDA does bid contracts for items that are more conducive to the drop ship or direct ship process, such as portable classrooms, track and field installations, and furniture, to name a few. KCDA manages its own catalog in conjunction with the main ERP system. KCDA does not sell through supplier catalogs out of its warehouse. Because of the vagaries associated with the contract bid process,

6 the composition and number of suppliers/vendors that do business with KCDA changes from year to year. KCDA will order and acquire product directly from awarded suppliers. Product is shipped into and out of the warehouse in a fashion similar to a wholesale distributor. The only catalog that is available to KCDA s customers is for items that are primarily for purchase out of the warehouse. KCDA does, however, currently list items that can be acquired through KCDA, but not through the check-out process. These items generally will have a redirect to another part of the website where additional product and acquisition detail can be accessed. This mechanism is a procedure that KCDA wants to continue with the new E-commerce package. There are a handful of items, such as some furniture related products, that can be acquired both out of the warehouse and through the direct ship process. All of the items KCDA sells out of the warehouse are owned by KCDA. The products sold via the direct ship process are not owned by KCDA. And, the only services transacted by KCDA are those that are attendant to a direct ship product; for instance, the installation of carpeting. RE 34. Will all of the products or services that KCDA customers purchase be listed in an online catalog or will customers have the ability to create special requests for items not listed? [KCDA Response] Customers will be able to create special requests. Current KCDA Ecom site provides a free form data entry field on the shopping cart where users can enter a description, part number and quantity required for items they see on other competitive businesses websites. (See pic below). This allows the item to be added to the shopping cart and KCDA customer service receives an , with relevant details, when such a cart is checked out to alert us that a customer wishes to order an item that we do not carry in our inventory. We would like to maintain and enhance this feature to serve our customers better. 35. Is cxml PunchOut with pending purchase order return the only e-procurement integration requirement? [KCDA Response] So far, yes. End of Addendum 1 Addenda must be signed and returned in their entirety with the RFP response. Company Printed Name and Title Phone Fax Signature Date