Comparison grid — 15 checkable criteria

Compare your suppliers on facts, not on brochures

There is no comparison service for hotel guest amenities. Every brand declares itself the most environmentally sound and the highest quality. The only reliable method: ask each of them the same questions, and compare the answers side by side.

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No supplier is pre-filled, and that is not an oversight. A grid filled in advance by whoever publishes it is a sales pitch in disguise. This one is empty: you ask the questions, you record the answers, you decide. Nothing you enter is transmitted — it stays in your browser.

Criterion Supplier A Supplier B Supplier C

The criteria, and what a good answer to each contains

The grid above is filled in by you, supplier by supplier. Here are the criteria it contains and, for each, what separates a checkable answer from a sales answer.

Product

  1. Place of manufacture — A known, documented site, not just “made in the EU” on the label.
  2. Certification and expiry date — Checkable in the certifying body's register. Ask for the number and the expiry.
  3. Published composition (INCI, allergens) — Available without having to ask. Useful when a guest asks the question.
  4. Formats and capacities offered — Bedroom, lobby, VIP miniatures. The catalogue has to cover your actual uses.
  5. Container material and recycled content — Ask for the exact material and the recycled percentage, not the claim.
  6. Decoration method — Hot stamping rather than a stuck-on label: it survives bathroom humidity.

Logistics and commitment

  1. Minimum order quantity — A supplier who will not state it before quoting has already told you something.
  2. Quoted lead time — In weeks, and in writing. Check whether it holds for resupply as well as for the first order.
  3. Stockout policy — What happens if a product runs out in high season? Is a substitute planned?
  4. Exit terms and exit cost — Commitment period, committed stock, notice. This is what decides whether you stay by choice.

Commercial

  1. Price per litre in bulk (€ excl. VAT / L) — Per litre, not per container — it is the only basis comparable between suppliers.
  2. Price per unit in single-dose (€ excl. VAT) — At equal capacity. A 30 ml and a 40 ml bottle do not compare directly.
  3. Holders supplied, and anti-theft? — Bottle holder included or charged for? Is an anti-theft version available for exposed properties?
  4. Co-branding: possible, and from what volume? — The minimum volume matters as much as whether it can be done. Across several properties it is the consolidated volume that unlocks the threshold: groups and multi-site →

Relationship

  1. A named contact, and responsiveness — A named person, or a web form? Test it before signing: send a question and time the reply.

How do you compare two guest amenity suppliers?

On checkable facts, not on scores. Place of manufacture, certification and its expiry date, capacities, container material, decoration method, minimum order quantity, quoted lead times, exit terms. Every one of these can be verified — or the supplier declines to answer, which is an answer in itself.

A certification is authenticated with the body that issues it, not on the supplier's brochure. Most publish a public register of certified operators, with expiry dates. That check is what separates a criterion from a claim.

That assumes all three suppliers answer the same questions in the same format, which is the job of the RFP template — its fifteen questions feed the columns above directly.

What if a supplier will not answer?

Record “no answer” and move on. A supplier who states neither their order minimums, nor their lead times, nor their exit terms is telling you precisely what the relationship will be once the contract is signed. The grid counts those cells separately from the score, because they do not say the same thing as a stated “no”.

Why is the exit cost in the grid?

Because it decides whether you will stay a customer by choice or by constraint. Minimums, committed stock, commitment period, co-branding minimums: no supplier raises them unprompted at the sale, and they are what set your room for manoeuvre in eighteen months.

Label or hot stamping — why ask?

A stuck-on label in a bathroom eventually lifts in the humidity, and it is the whole bottle that gets replaced. Hot stamping lasts. The criterion looks cosmetic; it drives replacement frequency, and so cost.

Should you insist on local manufacture?

Not necessarily, but knowing where the production site is remains the first filter on a supply chain. A supplier producing for dozens of brands does not have the same agility as an integrated manufacturer — nor the same lead-time constraints.

The other two pieces of the file

This grid tells you who to choose. The diagnostic tells you whether your current decision holds up, the calculator tells you what it costs, and the switchover plan picks it up once the supplier is chosen.

Eight-question diagnostic →

Real cost calculator →

Method

Fifteen criteria in four families: product, logistics and commitment, commercial, relationship. Each answer is worth 2 points (yes, verified), 1 point (partial) or 0.

  • Scored out of 30 — it separates, it does not decide. Two suppliers three points apart are equivalent.
  • “No answer” cells are counted separately and flagged in red. They are what to look at first, before the score.
  • No criterion is weighted. The weighting is yours: depending on your property, certification may matter more than lead time, or the other way round.
  • Verify before you tick. A certification claimed is not a certification verified — the certifying body's register is what counts.

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