Selecting a Product Information Management system is one of the bigger technology decisions an ecommerce or manufacturing business will make. Get it right, and you centralize product data, reduce errors, and speed up time to market. Get it wrong, and you’re stuck with a system that doesn’t fit, an implementation that drags on, and a budget that spirals.
The RFP is where this process either succeeds or fails. A vague or incomplete RFP leads to vendor proposals that underestimate the work. You end up with lowball bids that explode once the real complexity becomes clear. A thorough RFP forces you to think through what you actually need and gives vendors the information they need to price accurately.
This post walks through each section a solid PIM RFP should contain. Follow this structure, and you’ll get proposals you can actually compare.
Company and Project Background
Vendors can’t give you a realistic estimate if they don’t understand your business. Start the RFP with context. Include your company size, industry, annual revenue, and number of employees who will touch the system. Describe your product catalog: how many SKUs, how many product families, how complex your attributes are.
List your current technology stack. What ERP do you run? Which ecommerce platform? Do you have a DAM already? What other systems will the PIM need to connect with? Be specific. Saying “we use an ERP” is not helpful. Saying “we run SAP S/4HANA with custom extensions for inventory allocation” is.
Explain the business problem driving this initiative. Are you replacing a legacy system? Launching new sales channels? Struggling with data quality issues that hurt customer experience? The more honest you are about your pain points, the better vendors can tailor their response. Being transparent about your “dirty laundry” (messy data, spreadsheet chaos, inconsistent processes) helps vendors give accurate estimates instead of lowball numbers that blow up later.
Current State of Product Data
This is where many RFPs fail. They describe a beautiful future state without explaining the mess they’re starting from. Vendors cannot estimate data migration, cleansing, and enrichment work without knowing what exists today.
Document where product data lives right now. Is it in Excel files scattered across departments? A homegrown database? Multiple ERPs from acquisitions that were never consolidated? Be specific about the sources and how they overlap or conflict.
Describe your data quality issues. Are there duplicate records? Missing attributes? Inconsistent naming conventions? Products with no images or incomplete descriptions? Estimate the percentage of your catalog that meets your quality standards today.
Identify who owns and touches product data across the organization. Product managers, merchandisers, marketing, warehouse teams, and IT often all have a hand in maintaining product information. Understanding these roles helps vendors propose appropriate workflows and permissions.
Functional Requirements
This is the core of your RFP. Break functional requirements into clear categories so vendors can respond systematically.
Data Modeling
Your PIM needs to accommodate your product structure. Specify whether you need support for simple products, variants (size, color), bundles, kits, or configurable products. Describe your attribute requirements: how many attributes per product, whether they vary by category, and whether you need custom fields.
Address hierarchy and taxonomy management. Can you create multiple classification schemes? Can products belong to multiple categories? How flexible is the data model when your business needs change?
Data Governance
Data quality is the whole point of a PIM. Ask about validation rules that can enforce data standards at the point of entry. Can the system check for completeness, flag missing required attributes, and prevent bad data from getting published?
Inquire about duplicate detection and resolution. Ask about data quality dashboards that show completeness scores, attribute fill rates, and trends over time. These tools help you measure progress and identify problem areas.
Workflow and Collaboration
Product data moves through many hands before it’s ready for customers. Specify your workflow needs: approval chains, task assignment, progress tracking, and notifications. Different teams need different permissions. Marketing might edit descriptions while warehouse staff can only view logistics data.
Ask how the system handles collaboration across departments and even with external suppliers. Can vendors submit product data through a portal? Can agencies access assets for marketing campaigns?
Versioning and Audit Trail
You need to know who changed what and when. Ask about version history: can you see previous values, compare versions, and roll back changes if needed? This matters for compliance, for troubleshooting data issues, and for accountability.
Localization
If you sell in multiple markets, specify your localization requirements. How many languages do you need? Do you need regional variations (different product names, descriptions, or attributes by market)? How does the system handle translation workflows? Can you manage currency and unit conversions?
Digital Asset Management
Decide whether you need DAM capabilities built into the PIM or whether you’ll integrate with an existing DAM. If built-in, ask about asset types supported, metadata management, rendition generation, and storage limits. If integration, specify the DAM system and ask about the connector.
Syndication and Distribution
The point of centralizing product data is to distribute it efficiently. List every channel you need to feed: your ecommerce site, marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart, mobile apps, print catalogs, distributor portals. Ask about export formats, channel-specific transformations, and scheduling.
Integration Requirements
Integration is often the most underestimated part of a PIM project. It’s also where costs balloon when the RFP wasn’t specific enough.
List every system the PIM must connect with. For each integration, specify the direction of data flow. Does product master data flow from ERP to PIM (one way)? Or do enriched descriptions flow back from PIM to ERP (bidirectional)? These details change the complexity significantly.
Common integrations include ERP for master data and inventory, ecommerce platforms for product publication, DAM for asset management, and marketplace connectors for syndication. You may also need CRM, PLM, or supplier portals depending on your business.
Separate required integrations from nice-to-haves. Identify which must be live at launch versus which can come in later phases. This helps vendors phase their proposal and gives you flexibility if budget constraints arise.
Technical and Architecture Requirements
Specify your deployment preferences. Do you want SaaS (multi-tenant or single-tenant), managed hosting, or on-premise? Each has trade-offs for control, cost, and maintenance burden.
Ask about API capabilities. Is the system API-first? What protocols and formats does it support? Can all functionality be accessed via API, or are some features UI-only? This matters for automation and custom integrations.
Address scalability. How does the system handle growth in SKU count, user count, and transaction volume? What are the performance benchmarks?
Cover security and compliance. Ask about SOC 2 certification, GDPR compliance, data encryption, access controls, and disaster recovery. Request uptime SLAs and understand what happens if they’re not met.
User Experience and Adoption
The best PIM does nothing if teams won’t use it. Many implementations fail not because of technology but because users stick to their spreadsheets.
Ask about the user interface. Is it intuitive for non-technical users like product managers and merchandisers? Can users accomplish common tasks without IT help? Request screenshots or demos that show the actual workflow, not just marketing materials.
Specify how many users will need access and at what permission levels. Ask about training and onboarding support. What documentation exists? Are there training programs? What does ongoing support look like after go-live?
Vendor Qualifications and Support
You’re not just buying software. You’re entering a relationship with a vendor. Ask about their company: years in business, financial stability, customer count, and employee count. A small vendor might offer great technology but lack the resources to support you long term.
Request customer references, specifically in your industry or with similar complexity. Ask for references you can actually call, not just logos on a slide.
Understand their partner ecosystem. Who implements the system? Do they have certified partners with relevant experience? Will the vendor do the implementation directly or through a partner?
Ask about the product roadmap. Where is the product headed? How do they gather and prioritize customer feedback? You want a vendor that’s investing in the future, not just maintaining what exists.
Implementation Approach and Timeline
Ask vendors to describe their implementation methodology. Do they follow agile, waterfall, or a hybrid approach? What are the typical project phases? What milestones mark progress?
Request a realistic timeline based on your scope. Ask them to break down the estimate by phase so you can see where complexity sits. A vendor who says “12 weeks” without knowing your data complexity is guessing.
Clarify resource requirements from your side. How many hours per week will your team need to commit? Which roles need to be involved? Implementations fail when the buyer underestimates their own workload.
Ask specifically about data migration. How will they handle extracting data from current systems, cleansing it, mapping it to the new model, and loading it? This is often the riskiest part of the project.
Pricing and Commercial Terms
Structure your pricing request so you can compare vendors fairly. Ask for license or subscription fees broken out by tier or module. Understand the cost drivers: is pricing based on users, SKUs, channels, or some combination?
Request implementation costs separately from ongoing fees. Ask for a breakdown by phase or work stream. This helps you understand where the money goes and where there might be room to negotiate or defer scope.
Ask about ongoing costs: annual maintenance, support tiers, and what’s included versus extra. Inquire about hidden fees: data storage overages, API call limits, additional environments for testing.
Be skeptical of the lowest bid. Underestimated implementations always cost more in the end. A vendor who understands your complexity and prices accordingly is often a better partner than one who lowballs to win the deal.
Evaluation Criteria and Process
Close your RFP by explaining how you’ll evaluate responses. List your criteria and their relative weight: functionality fit, technical architecture, vendor strength, implementation approach, total cost, and references.
Provide a timeline for your decision process. When are proposals due? When will you shortlist? When will you hold demos or proofs of concept? When do you plan to make a final decision?
Being upfront about how decisions will be made helps vendors prioritize what matters most to you. It also sets expectations and keeps your process on track.
Conclusion
A well-structured RFP takes effort, but it pays off. You get vendor proposals that reflect reality, not guesses. You can compare options on equal footing. And you reduce the risk of an implementation that drags on, goes over budget, or delivers a system that doesn’t fit.
The cost of a failed PIM implementation far exceeds the effort of writing a thorough RFP. Invest the time upfront. Involve stakeholders from every team that touches product data. Be honest about your current state, even the messy parts. The vendors who respond well to that honesty are the ones worth working with.
