When procurement opens an RFP for merch
When your company's branded merch spend crosses $200K annually, procurement starts paying attention. By $500K, they've usually opened an RFP. By $1M, they've assigned someone to actually own the category.
That's when the gap shows up. Most procurement teams have well-developed playbooks for evaluating IT vendors, professional services, and commodities, but the playbook for branded merchandise is usually a thinner version of the office supplies process. Cheapest unit price wins. Three quotes. Done.
That works for buying 500 t-shirts once. It doesn't work for engaging a vendor to run a multi-year, multi-region branded merchandise program.
This checklist is what we wish every procurement team would actually evaluate.
1. Operations
Can you see real-time inventory across all your locations?
A vendor who can't show you a live dashboard of your inventory isn't running operations, they're running a relationship. At scale, that's a problem.
What's your fulfillment infrastructure?
"We ship from a warehouse" is a vague answer. The real questions: How many warehouses? Where are they located? Do they operate them, or do they outsource? What's their SKU-level capacity?
Can you handle individual-recipient fulfillment, not just bulk?
For onboarding kits, executive gifting, and remote-team programs, individual fulfillment is table stakes. Bulk-to-office shipping is 1990s vendor architecture.
What's your QC process?
Every order should be quality-checked before shipment. Ask: who does the QC, what do they check, what's the documented brand-compliance step?
2. Brand & Compliance
How do you document and enforce our brand standards?
The answer should involve a documented brand reference in the vendor's system, PMS specs, logo placement rules, prohibited combinations, sub-brand handling. If the answer is "we have it in an email somewhere," your brand standard isn't being enforced.
What's your reprint guarantee?
A vendor without a reprint guarantee is telling you they aren't confident in their compliance step. Standard for enterprise programs: brand compliance guaranteed or reprinted at no cost.
Can you handle multiple sub-brands and licensing relationships?
For companies with multiple product brands, acquired companies, joint ventures, or athletic/institutional licensing, this is a deal-breaker. Vendors who handle one brand at a time can't run an enterprise portfolio.
3. Procurement & Integration
Do you offer PunchOut catalog integration?
For any program flowing through your procurement system (Coupa, SAP Ariba, Workday, Oracle), PunchOut is required. Off-system spend is an audit problem at scale.
Do you support SSO?
SAML 2.0 and OIDC integration with your identity provider isn't optional at enterprise scale. SCIM provisioning for automatic user lifecycle management is the next layer.
Can you integrate with our ERP for invoicing and PO transmission?
cXML-compliant transactions, PO acknowledgments, invoice reconciliation. Required for clean GL flow.
What's your reporting capability?
Monthly reports covering order volume, fulfillment performance, popular SKUs, spend by department, budget utilization, brand compliance pass rate. Exportable to your BI tools.
4. Security & Data
Do you have a current SOC 2 report?
For any vendor handling employee or customer data (which any kitting or fulfillment program does), SOC 2 Type II is the minimum bar. Ask for the full report under NDA, not just an attestation.
How do you handle PII?
For programs touching employee or customer addresses, ask: where is the data stored, who has access, how long is it retained, what happens at end-of-engagement, are there sub-processors?
Are you GDPR / CCPA compliant?
For international programs or California-resident data, this matters. A vendor that can't explain their compliance posture is a vendor that hasn't built one.
Do you sign a BAA for healthcare programs?
For health systems and AMCs, this is required for any vendor touching patient-facing fulfillment.
5. Sustainability
What certifications do your manufacturing partners hold?
WRAP, BSCI, SA8000, Sedex/SMETA. These are third-party-audited labor standards. A vendor that can't name their factory certifications is a vendor without diligence.
Can you provide materials disclosure?
For programs with ESG reporting requirements, materials breakdown (organic content, recycled content, certifications) per SKU is required, not nice-to-have.
Do you support take-back or end-of-life programs?
For sustainability-focused companies, this is increasingly a requirement. What happens to end-of-program inventory? Are there textile recycling partnerships?
Can you provide Scope 3 emissions estimates for our program?
Increasingly common in supplier diligence questionnaires.
6. Financial & Commercial
What's your engagement model, project, retainer, or hybrid?
A vendor that only sells one-off projects can't run an ongoing program at scale. A vendor that only does retainers can't help you with a one-time event. Look for both, structured properly.
What's the cost structure?
Transparency matters. Ask specifically how they price: are they marking up production, charging program management fees, both? At enterprise scale, this should be documented in the contract, not opaque.
What's the contract structure?
Standard for enterprise programs: MSA + SOW. MSA covers the general relationship, SOWs define each scope. Avoid vendors who only do per-PO contracts at scale, it's an audit and procurement nightmare.
What's your exit clause?
A vendor confident in their work doesn't fight termination. Standard terms: 60–90 day notice, transfer of inventory and brand assets, no penalty fees. If the exit terms are restrictive, that's the vendor telling you they expect you to want to leave.
How to use this checklist
In an RFP, this gives you the substance to write evaluation criteria that actually surface whether a vendor can run an enterprise program, not just sell merchandise. Score each question 0–3 (3 = strong, 2 = adequate, 1 = weak, 0 = absent or evasive). The vendors who score 18+ across these 25 questions are the ones who've operationalized for the scale you need.
If you're evaluating your current vendor and they score below 18, you're carrying operational risk you may not have priced in.
Want a Word or Excel version of this checklist formatted for RFP scoring? Get in touch, we'll send the editable version.