CPG CHECKLIST: Selecting a 'Buy It Now' Vendor

Intended for consumer packaged goods (CPGs) and manufacturers in search of the best ecommerce and data insights vendor, this blog post provides a comprehensive checklist. Use this tool to ask the right questions and find the perfect vendor for your brand. 

Would you like a Digital Download format of this checklist? Download it here:

Over the past 10+ years, Shoppable® has been interviewed and responded to RFPs by CPG (Consumer Package Goods) companies looking to add a "buy it now" solution to their website, or a shoppable media component to their ad campaigns. These "buy it now" solutions are sometimes referred to as "where to buy," "embeddable commerce," or "Non-DTC ecommerce." 

These are the most frequently asked questions that your peers ask Shoppable® before making a vendor decision. Be sure to ask these questions to all the vendors that you are considering, so that you'll be fully informed and select the right vendor for your brand. 

"Buy It Now" Capabilities:

1. Do you have a solution for both brand media and our brand.com website?
   
2. If so, will both allow us full transparency into who is buying our products? 
3. Does your solution work with our preferred retail partners?
4. Do my competitors' products show up at all on the product detail pages? 
5. Can I brand the whole consumer journey from the advertisement to the order confirmation page?
6. Does your solution account for "fair & equitable" requirements?
7. Do you have product photos, prices, and inventory availability?
8. Does your technology have a solution for helping consumers make a purchase seamlessly when their preferred products are not all in stock at one retailer?
9. How short is the path to purchase with your technology? Before clicking "purchase," how many clicks does the consumer have to make?
10. Do you have the technology to allow us to integrate your ecommerce capabilities into our native mobile app?
11. Do you provide shopper support to the end consumer? Are they available seven days a week?
12. Can we use your technology for connected TV / shoppable TV ads?
13. Do you have an in-house engineering team? What is their time zone?

Media Buying Capabilities:

1. Can I BRAND the whole consumer journey from the advertisement to the order confirmation page?
2. Can I TRACK the full closed-loop consumer journey from the advertisement to the order confirmation page?
3. Are we able to track the number of orders coming in from each named campaign?
4. Are we able to track the number of orders coming in from each named campaign, while the campaign is active so that we can optimize "live" and reduce wasted media spending?
5. Can we collect first-party data?
6. What channels do you support?
7. Are we able to build custom audience types and "lookalike" audiences for media buying?
8. Do you have a solution to enable ecommerce for media campaigns (shoppable media, shoppable ads, and shoppable videos)?
9. Do you have a landing page builder tool? Can we, or our agency, build the page without engineering resources? 
10. Can you support last-minute campaigns?
11. Can you create and maintain automatically updated TikTok and social media catalog feeds for in-app video shopping ads and product detail pages?

Consumer Data & Orders:

1. Can we customize the email opt-in language?
2. Do you capture basket-level data?
3. Do you capture checkout data?
4. Can I have the option of accessing first-party consumer data?
5. Do you have an automated and secure way for the business to pull consumer data into its CRM?
6. Can you track order conversion rates?
7. How do you define a conversion? TIP: check that they are speaking about order conversion and not clicks.
8. Can you track ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)?
9. Can we cookie or add tracking to the "thank you" or "order confirmation" page?
10. Do you have a web-based ecommerce analytics and insights dashboard?
11. Do you have a web-based dashboard with real-time order reports?
    
    

Data Retention, Security & Privacy:

1. Do you follow best practices for consumer privacy & data security?
2. What options do you have for data deletion?
3. Are you PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliant?
4. Do you conduct third-party security audits? Can you provide their attestation?
5. Are you GDPR compliant?
6. Do you have the right to license the technology or are you infringing on anyone else's intellectual property?
7. What is your data retention policy?
8. Does your company have a formal security process?
9. Do you conduct third-party security assessments and vulnerability scanning?
10. Does your company have an incident response program?
11. How long have you been in business?

Integration

1. What does the setup process look like?
2. How long does it take to set up?
3. Do I need to have development resources?
4. Do you have APIs?
5. Can we automatically integrate consumer data into the brand's CRM?
6. Have you worked with other Fortune 500 corporations?

Diversity & Inclusion

1. Is your organization 51% or more owned by a woman, minority, veteran, disabled, and/or LGBT+ person?
2. What about your Board of Directors?
3. Describe your company's diversity and inclusion policy.

Would you like a Digital Download format of this checklist? Download it here: