PSA: It’s RFP Season. Again. The average ecommerce brand receives fourteen agency decks per year. *Fourteen. *stats may differe from reality, but it is high. Post truth disclaimer comment :) That’s fourteen PowerPoints. Fourteen “strategic frameworks.” Fourteen slide sevens that all say the same thing about “unlocking growth.”
The average number that actually get implemented?
Three. On a good year.
Somewhere out there, eleven agency decks are sitting in a folder called “To Review FINAL (2)” gathering digital dust and emotional baggage.You are not alone. There are support groups. I’ve seen the folding chairs.
Here’s what nobody says out loud about RFP season:
The process is broken before the first deck lands. Most brands go to market without a clear internal brief. They know something isn’t working, CAC is climbing, retention is flat, the site feels stale, but the RFP goes out as “we need a new agency” instead of “here’s the specific problem we need solved.”
So fourteen agencies respond to a vague brief with a vague pitch. And the brand picks the one with the best fonts.
Then three months in, everyone’s frustrated because the deliverables don’t match the expectation that was never written down in the first place.
The RFP isn’t the problem. The absence of a proper scope is. The brands that get this right do the hard work before they open the process. They define what’s broken. They set measurable outcomes. They ask agencies to respond to a real problem, not a PDF beauty contest.
RFP season doesn’t have to feel like speed-dating at a conference where everyone’s wearing the same lanyard and saying “omnichannel” like it’s a personality trait.
This is a PSA from myself and the team at Sumoblue because fourteen decks is a symptom, not a strategy. If your RFP process needs fewer decks and more decisions, give them a shout.
