SS17004 - Online Catalogue of Domestic Goods

Opportunity: Kent County Council’s Strategic Sourcing and Procurement Team would like to engage with the market to investigate possible solutions for an online catalogue for a wide range of domestic goods, which interoperates with the Council’s existing ePurchasing system (see details below). Information gathered through this market engagement will used to inform a future procurement strategy for the required solution.


Background: Kent County Council is the largest county council in England covering an area of 3,500 square kilometres. It has an annual expenditure of over £900m on goods and services and a population of 1.3m. The Council provides a wide range of personal and strategic services on behalf of its residents, operating in partnership with 12 district councils and 289 parish/town councils.


Requirement: The Council would like to investigate potential solutions for setting up an online catalogue (preferably with a ‘punch-out’ facility to Oracle) for a wide range of available goods, including:
• Home electrical appliances (including white goods, vacuum cleaners, kettles, etc.);
• Entertainment, sports and leisure products (particularly toys, games consoles and games, DVDs, books, etc.);
• Home and garden products, including furniture and soft furnishings (predominantly bedding, and kitchen crockery, cutlery and utensils);
• DIY products (including tools, fittings, etc.); and
• Baby and toddler products.


The Council would also like to discuss the potential for the catalogue to include pre-made baskets or packs of certain types of goods; for example, starter kitchen or bathroom packs, baby boxes, etc.
Over 12 months (April 2016 – March 2017), the Council spent over £100k on these types of domestic goods under an existing online catalogue. However, the Council may also consider expanding this catalogue to include groceries, clothing and accessories, and gift vouchers. Over the same time period, the Council spent nearly £500k on these types of domestic goods and groceries from over ten different grocery suppliers/supermarkets via purchasing cards alone. The Council would therefore also be interested in amalgamating this purchasing under a new online catalogue.


This catalogue should not include any alcohol or cigarettes. This catalogue should also exclude all IT office equipment (e.g. personal and laptop computers), as well as all stationery products.


The Council is ideally looking for a solution that delivers the following:
• A dedicated business account manager, managing an overarching ‘business account’ for the Council;
• Product prices on the catalogue to regularly updated by the supplier via an automated process;
• All purchase orders for goods to be placed via the Council’s ePurchasing system called iProcurement (which is an Oracle business application), and sent to a dedicated email address specified by the supplier;
• All goods to be dispatched for delivery prior to an invoice being sent by the supplier;
• Electronic invoicing, either by means of an XML gateway, an Electronic Data Interface (EDI), or via the Council’s eInvoicing portal called iSupplier (which is another Oracle business application).


Questions and Communication: Organisations that are interested in discussing possible solutions independently with the Council, should ‘Register an Interest’ in this opportunity by no later than 12:00 (noon) on 5 June 2017. The Council will then contact interested parties directly to arrange a meeting.