"Area","Requirement","Why it matters","Default priority","Question to ask the vendor","Your priority","Weight","Vendor A score (0-3)","Vendor B score (0-3)","Vendor C score (0-3)","Notes"
"Data model and B2B product structure","Product families with their own attribute sets","A cable, a pump and a fitting need different attributes, and new groups keep coming","Must","Can a business user add a product family with its own attributes, without a developer?","","","","","",""
"Data model and B2B product structure","Variants on several axes","B2B ranges vary by length, voltage, thread, finish and pack size at once","Must","Model one of our product lines with all its variant axes, live in the demo.","","","","","",""
"Data model and B2B product structure","Typed technical attributes with units","A value without a unit and a type cannot be filtered, converted or exported correctly","Must","How are units stored, and can an export convert millimetres to inches per channel?","","","","","",""
"Data model and B2B product structure","ETIM, ECLASS or GS1 classification","Wholesalers, distributors and data pools ask for data in these standards","Must if your customers ask for it","Which ETIM and ECLASS versions do you support, and how do you handle a version upgrade?","","","","","",""
"Data model and B2B product structure","Several classifications per product","Your own web taxonomy, ETIM and a customer's classification live side by side","Must","Can one product sit in our taxonomy and in ETIM at the same time, with a separate attribute mapping each?","","","","","",""
"Data model and B2B product structure","Relations: accessories, spare parts, replacements, successors","Compatibility and spare parts drive aftersales sales and fewer wrong orders","Must","Show a spare part that fits five machines and replaces an older part.","","","","","",""
"Data model and B2B product structure","Bills of materials and kits","Assemblies and sets need their component structure","Must if you sell assemblies","Is the BOM mastered in the PIM or read from ERP or PLM, and how does it reach the web?","","","","","",""
"Data model and B2B product structure","Customer-specific assortments and article numbers","B2B customers see their own range and their own article numbers","Must if you run a B2B portal","Can we store customer article numbers and export an assortment per customer?","","","","","",""
"Data model and B2B product structure","Packaging and logistics levels","Unit, inner pack, case and pallet each need dimensions, weight and often a GTIN","Must","How do you store packaging levels with their own GTIN, dimensions and weight?","","","","","",""
"Data model and B2B product structure","Documents: data sheets, certificates, manuals, CAD files","Buyers need the right document per language and version, and certificates expire","Must","Can a certificate carry a language and an expiry date and link to many products?","","","","","",""
"Data model and B2B product structure","Lifecycle status","New, active, phase-out and discontinued decide where a product is visible","Must","Can a status change remove a product from the webshop but keep it in the spare parts catalog?","","","","","",""
"Supplier onboarding","Import of supplier files with saved mappings","Every supplier sends a spreadsheet in its own layout, again every season","Must","Import our worst supplier file live and save the mapping for the next delivery.","","","","","",""
"Supplier onboarding","Import of BMEcat with ETIM or ECLASS","Many technical suppliers deliver catalogs in BMEcat","Must if your suppliers deliver it","Which BMEcat versions can you import, and how are ETIM features mapped to our attributes?","","","","","",""
"Supplier onboarding","Validation on import","Bad data should stop at the door, not in the webshop","Must","What happens to a row that fails validation: rejected, quarantined or imported with a flag?","","","","","",""
"Supplier onboarding","Staging before approval","Supplier updates must not overwrite approved content unseen","Must","Can supplier data land in a staging area and be approved field by field?","","","","","",""
"Supplier onboarding","Supplier portal","Suppliers enter and correct their own data","Nice","Is the portal included, how are suppliers licensed, and do they see the validation errors?","","","","","",""
"Supplier onboarding","Quality report per supplier","Shows which suppliers cause the rework","Nice","Can you report completeness and error rates per supplier over time?","","","","","",""
"Integrations","ERP integration with ownership per field","The ERP owns article numbers, prices and stock; the PIM owns content","Must","Which fields come from our ERP, how often, and which system wins when both changed a field?","","","","","",""
"Integrations","Maintained connector for your ERP","Lowers build cost and risk","Nice","Is there a connector for our ERP version, who maintains it, and what does it cost?","","","","","",""
"Integrations","PLM integration","Engineering data arrives earlier and with fewer typing errors","Must if you run a PLM","Which data do you take from PLM, and at which lifecycle stage?","","","","","",""
"Integrations","DAM built in or connected","Images, drawings and documents belong to the product record","Must","Built in or a connector? Show renditions per channel.","","","","","",""
"Integrations","Commerce and B2B portal connectors","The shop or portal consumes the product data","Must","Which commerce connectors do you maintain yourselves, and which come from partners?","","","","","",""
"Integrations","Punchout catalogs (cXML, OCI)","Procurement customers order from their own e-procurement system","Must if your customers ask","Do you deliver punchout catalogs or the data for our punchout provider, and in which formats?","","","","","",""
"Integrations","Open, documented API with stated limits","Every integration, and every future AI agent, depends on it","Must","Show the API documentation and the rate limits. Are API calls part of the price?","","","","","",""
"Integrations","Events or webhooks on change","Other systems update on a change instead of waiting for a full export","Nice","Can a change to one product trigger an event or webhook?","","","","","",""
"Integrations","Scheduled bulk import and export","Large catalogs need reliable bulk jobs","Must","How long does a full export of our catalog take, and how are failures reported?","","","","","",""
"Channels and syndication","Channel-specific selections and exports","Each channel needs its own selection, attributes and order","Must","Show one product exported to two channels with different attributes and texts.","","","","","",""
"Channels and syndication","Print catalogs, price lists and data sheets","B2B still prints, and every product needs a data sheet","Must if you print","Show the route from record to finished page: built-in templates or a connector to print software?","","","","","",""
"Channels and syndication","BMEcat export","Wholesalers and procurement platforms ask for it","Must if your customers ask","Which BMEcat and ETIM or ECLASS versions can you export, and is the file validated?","","","","","",""
"Channels and syndication","Data pools and GS1 GDSN","Some retailers and industries require delivery through a data pool","Nice","Do you deliver to GDSN through a certified data pool, and who maintains that link?","","","","","",""
"Channels and syndication","Marketplaces and distributor portals","Industrial marketplaces and distributors want feeds in their format","Nice","Which marketplace connectors do you maintain, and which need a syndication partner?","","","","","",""
"Channels and syndication","Completeness per channel before publication","An incomplete product should not reach a channel","Must","Can publication to a channel be blocked until its required attributes are filled?","","","","","",""
"Channels and syndication","Structured data for AI search and agents","Answer engines and agents read attributes, not brochures","Nice","Can you expose complete, structured product data through the API or a feed for AI channels?","","","","","",""
"Governance, roles and workflows","Permissions by role, attribute group and language","Marketing edits texts, product management edits specs, translators only their language","Must","Can we limit a user to one attribute group in one language?","","","","","",""
"Governance, roles and workflows","Configurable workflows and approvals","New products and changes need review before publication","Must","Build a three-step approval for a new product live in the demo.","","","","","",""
"Governance, roles and workflows","Completeness and validation rules","Quality has to be measured to be managed","Must","Can completeness differ per channel and per language?","","","","","",""
"Governance, roles and workflows","Audit trail and version history with rollback","You need to know who changed what, and undo a bad bulk edit","Must","Show the history of one attribute and roll back a bulk change.","","","","","",""
"Governance, roles and workflows","Ownership per attribute group","Data without an owner decays","Must","Can we assign an owner per attribute group and see open tasks per owner?","","","","","",""
"Governance, roles and workflows","Dashboards and reports","Management needs progress and quality in one view","Nice","Which reports are standard, and can we build our own without a developer?","","","","","",""
"Languages and markets","Languages with fallback","A missing translation should fall back, not show an empty field","Must","How does a missing value fall back between languages and between markets?","","","","","",""
"Languages and markets","Translation workflow","Export to translators or a translation service, import and review","Must","Is there a connector to a translation service, and can translated texts be reviewed before release?","","","","","",""
"Languages and markets","Market-specific values","Regulatory texts, assortments and some specifications differ per country","Must","Can one product have a different value per market for the same attribute?","","","","","",""
"Languages and markets","Local units and formats on export","Decimal separators and units differ per market","Nice","Can the export format numbers and units per market?","","","","","",""
"AI features","Content generation with human review","Saves writing time, but output must be checked","Nice","Show generated texts for our products and the review step before publication.","","","","","",""
"AI features","Attribute extraction from supplier PDFs and data sheets","Much B2B data still sits in PDFs","Nice","Extract attributes from one of our data sheets live. Where does a person confirm them?","","","","","",""
"AI features","Classification suggestions","ETIM or ECLASS classification takes time per product","Nice","How are classification suggestions made, and how is a wrong one corrected?","","","","","",""
"AI features","Machine translation in the workflow","Faster first drafts in export languages","Nice","Which translation engine is used, and is terminology respected?","","","","","",""
"AI features","Controls on AI output","You need to know what AI wrote and who approved it","Must if you use AI","Is AI output labelled, logged and blocked until approved?","","","","","",""
"AI features","Data use and model terms","Your product data and supplier data are business assets","Must","Is our data used to train models? Which model providers process it, and where?","","","","","",""
"Non-functional requirements","Performance at your volume","A demo with a few hundred products hides problems with large catalogs","Must","Demo with our product count, attributes and languages, and show a bulk edit on all of them.","","","","","",""
"Non-functional requirements","Hosting options and EU data residency","Many EU companies require data to stay in the EU","Must","Where is our data hosted, and can we choose the region?","","","","","",""
"Non-functional requirements","GDPR: data processing agreement and subprocessors","The PIM holds user and supplier contact data","Must","Can you share your data processing agreement and list of subprocessors?","","","","","",""
"Non-functional requirements","Security certifications and reports","Shows that security is audited, not only promised","Must","Which certifications and audit reports, such as ISO/IEC 27001 or SOC 2, can you share?","","","","","",""
"Non-functional requirements","Single sign-on and multi-factor authentication","Access has to follow your identity policy","Must","Do you support SSO through SAML 2.0 or OpenID Connect, and is it in every edition?","","","","","",""
"Non-functional requirements","SLA: uptime, support hours, response times","Downtime stops publication to every channel","Must","What uptime do you commit to, what are the response times, and what happens if you miss them?","","","","","",""
"Non-functional requirements","Backup, restore and disaster recovery","You need to recover from mistakes and outages","Must","How often is data backed up, and how fast can you restore one product or the whole catalog?","","","","","",""
"Non-functional requirements","Test and staging environments","Changes to the model and integrations need a safe place to test","Must","How many environments are included, and what does an extra one cost?","","","","","",""
"Non-functional requirements","Exit: full export in an open format","You should be able to leave with your data and history","Must","How do we export all data, assets and history if we leave, and at what cost?","","","","","",""
"Vendor and partner","B2B references with a comparable catalog","Proof from a company that looks like yours","Must","Give us two references with a comparable catalog that we can call without you on the line.","","","","","",""
"Vendor and partner","Implementation partner with capacity","The partner often decides the project more than the software","Must","Which partners know our industry and ERP, and who will be on our team?","","","","","",""
"Vendor and partner","Licence model and price drivers","The price can grow with SKUs, users, channels, languages or API calls","Must","What drives the price over five years, and what happens when we double our catalog?","","","","","",""
"Vendor and partner","Roadmap and ownership","Acquisitions and new owners can change priorities","Nice","Who owns the company, and what on the roadmap is committed, with dates?","","","","","",""
"Vendor and partner","Support language and time zone","Your team needs help in its own hours","Nice","In which languages and hours is support available?","","","","","",""
"Vendor and partner","Total cost of ownership","The licence is only part of the cost","Must","Give us licence, implementation, connectors and running costs for three to five years.","","","","","",""