Complete Guide to B2B Commerce Cloud Implementation

Exploring the Power of Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud: Boosting Sales and Streamlining Operations.

Are you juggling managing your large enterprises or e-commerce account hierarchies, buyer-specific catalogs, and order capabilities? Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud is an all-in-one solution for you!

According to a study by Builtwith, 12824 websites leverage the Salesforce Commerce Cloud globally. Also, the global market size of Commerce Cloud was recorded at $ 12.32 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach $55.67 billion by 2027, indicating a CAGR of 20.8 % during the forecast period as per Research and Market report.

From the above statistics, it’s clear that the Salesforce Commerce Cloud has become the need of the hour for large enterprises and e-commerce businesses. It offers next-level connectivity, collaboration, and an exponential growth era.

By making Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud an apt choice for your business, you will find the investment worth the potential of successive growth and high ROI.

So, let’s begin your journey with the B2B Commerce Cloud. It will empower your e-commerce business, propel your profits, and position you as a leader in the ever-evolving world of commerce.

Allow us to let you unlock the secrets of the B2B Commerce Cloud and walk through how it can revolutionize your business strategy like never before!

Understanding B2B Commerce Cloud: An Overview

B2B Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based platform that offers a suite of applications for end-to-end support for sales, marketing, and commerce activities.

With Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud, you can leverage its entire infrastructure, technology stack, and capabilities for seamless B2B operations in the digital realm. The B2B Commerce Cloud has everything you need for engagement, lead conversion, and bringing more businesses. From online storefronts, product information management, customer portals, order management, and inventory management to integration, everything is available for your ease.

In other words, this AI-powered B2B Commerce Cloud is a centralized hub where you can manage your business’s entire sales cycle, from product catalog, order processing, and pricing structure, to customer relationship management. It streamlines the online shopping experience for B2B (business-to-business), ensuring exceptional customer satisfaction and retention in the long run.

Moreover, the B2B Commerce Cloud catalyst in the digital transformation, empowering businesses to embrace the digital landscape, expand their reach, and drive growth in the highly competitive B2B marketplace.

Benefits of B2B Commerce Cloud Solutions

Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud is a game-changer in this transformative digital landscape. It offers an array of benefits that you can leverage to boost your business’s operational efficiency and maximize your sales target.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the significant benefits of Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud for your business:

1. Reduce time to market

In this technological shift, businesses are adopting new technologies to expand their brand. With traditional marketing, it’s challenging to market your product and aware the audience of your offerings, products, and services. That’s how Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud comes into the picture.

Its user-friendly interface and involuntary tools allow businesses to launch and quickly scale their online storefronts, reducing the time to market the products and services. Additionally, this process enables B2B businesses to fulfill the growing market demands and always stay one step ahead of the competition.

2. Real-time analytics

A business’s job is not limited to only launching new products and services in the market. These services are of no use if not aligned with what customers expect. However, to address the customer’s challenges, you need to comprehend the opportunities for advancement and real-time insights.

B2B Commerce Cloud provides analytics and reporting capabilities, enabling businesses to monitor, track, and check performance progress. By leveraging the platform, you can gain real-time insights, sales performance, and overall business operations.

These analytics data help businesses to make data-driven decisions, identify new marketing trends, optimize sales and marketing strategies, improve customer experiences, and boost sales.

3. Cost savings

Every business thinks about cost-cutting every possible way from the process. B2B Commerce Cloud offers exceptional functionalities of self-service portals, order management, and inventory tracking, which increase operational efficiency reducing overhead costs.

Additionally, the platform scalability allows businesses to accommodate their resources to meet dynamic demand and maximize efficiency. By leveraging the platform, a business can streamline its operations, automate manual processes, and reduce overhead costs.

4. Discounts/offers

Customer retention is challenging for businesses in this competitive era, and the only way to run a long-term journey with customers is to deliver an exceptional experience and support.

How will you do this?

Providing discounts and bulk offers is another way businesses can aid from Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud. The platform enables businesses to create and manage bulk discounts, facilitating customers to buy products and services for long-term success.

This is a win-win game for both the business and the customers. Businesses can easily sell more services, and customers can enjoy your services.

Key Features and Functionality of B2B Commerce Cloud

1. Catalog management

Salesforce Commerce Cloud allows businesses to write clear and descriptive product catalogs with illustrative pictures on their e-commerce website. With this improved user interface, you can accumulate customers’ attention and enhance customer engagement rates.

Leveraging Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud allows wholesalers to integrate product catalogs with the client contract. It helps them to tap a complete view of customer details in a unified view in the Salesforce platform.

With a well-structured and meticulous product catalog, B2B businesses can maximize conversion rates. However, customers get a clear product understanding to make informed decisions in no time.

2. Order management

Every business wants seamless order management, and purchasing an OMS (Order Management System) license separately from Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud plans, an order management system can be a cakewalk.

Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud is the right way to manage your orders. It offers reliable tools and processes to ensure timely product and service deliverables. From successful order creation, processing, tracking, managing inventory, and invoices to handling returns/refunds, everything you have with B2B Commerce Cloud.

With the endless benefits of Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud, a business can benefit from seamless integrations for streamlining other convoluted tasks, including payment gateway, inventory management, and shipping carriers.

You can also simplify the complete order management process by automating the return labels.

3. Optimized inventory management

In the e-commerce industry, inventory management is essential in streamlining the business flow and catering businesses to cater to customers with an impeccable omnichannel shopping experience without delays.

By purchasing a suitable order inventory management plan along with Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud platform, vendors can access a consolidated overview of their inventory information, encompassing their online and offline stores. It permits them to experience a seamless order fulfillment process.

Also, the B2B Commerce Cloud ensures easy tracking and order placement for inventory stock based on customers’ purchase history, stock availability, sales generated, and product shelf life.

4. Customer self-service

Customer self-service empowers businesses with an efficient online experience. Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud allows customers to access and manage their accounts centrally.

Also, they can view order history, track shipments, and initiate returns effortlessly. This will eliminate the need for manual assistance, enhance customer experience, and free up resources for more complicated customer inquiries.

Additionally, customers are flexible in quickly identifying answers to common questions with the self-service options. This improves customer service efficiency and enables a greater level of autonomy.

5. Personalization and customization

According to a study by Gitnux, 83% of B2B buyers consider personalization the primary reason for their purchasing experience. This clearly shows how paramount personalization is in B2B businesses.

Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud empowers businesses to deliver tailored shopping experiences and enhance customer engagement. With features like AI-driven recommendations, dynamic pricing based on customer segments, and personalized content, businesses can deliver tailored experiences to individual buyers.

By leveraging customer purchase history, the B2B Commerce Cloud empowers businesses to create personalized customer journeys that resonate with buyer interest. This widens the scope for targeted market campaigns, cross-selling, and up-selling to enhance customer loyalty.

6. Pricing and quoting

Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud allows businesses to easily manage complex pricing structures, including tiered pricing, volume discounts, and contract pricing.

Along with pricing, it empowers B2B businesses to let their sales teams generate accurate quotes quickly, incorporating real-time product availability and pricing information using SFCC.

Following this process, you can streamline the sales process, improve quoting accuracy, and ensure consistent pricing across channels, enhancing customer satisfaction and increasing sales efficiency.

7. B2B payment methods

B2B Commerce Cloud empowers businesses to utilize their preferred mode of payment – credit or debit cards, Paytm, Gpay, Phonepe, Paypal, Amazon Pay, and ACH transactions.

These transactions also can process large-scale amounts for handling substantial purchase volume efficiently.

With Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud, you can quickly integrate your merchant account to unlock the other payment modes tailored to your requirements.

8. Integrated CRM

Integrated CRM strengthens customer relationships and helps to win trust, enabling a 10x rise in sales and brand affinity.

The B2B Commerce Cloud comes with an integrated ecosystem, enabling businesses to connect applications for automating mundane tasks and speeding up operational processes.

With the Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud’s integrated CRM, businesses can connect with their customers at a personal level without delaying the answer to their inquiries in no time.

The platform provides a sales cloud tool i.e., CPQ (Configure, Price, and Quote) to empower salespeople to minimize their sales cycle and negotiate product pricing and discounts at their best level through virtual communication.

9. Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is the only successive key for their retention. With B2B Commerce Cloud, b2B merchants can reap such benefits including automated order renewals, personalized recommendations, order placement in a click, different payment options, shipment details, multiple shipment address options, and more to their clients.

Some Interesting Facts about B2B Commerce Cloud

The B2B Commerce Cloud market has been experiencing significant growth in recent years. The B2B market size is projected to expand at a significant compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.7% from 2021 to 2028, as indicated by a report from Grand View Research. This successive growth can be achieved seamlessly with the best CRM solutions i.e., Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud.

Following the same report, at least 80% of B2B buyers expect the same level of customer experience as B2C buyers. Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud delivers online experiences, self-service capabilities, personalized pricing, and custom pricing to meet customer expectations.

86% of buyers are ready to pay more than what businesses ask for experiencing better customer satisfaction.

A study by Forrester Research reveals that US B2B eCommerce will reach $1.8 trillion in the US by 2023.

Mobile commerce is also gaining traction in the competitive edge. According to a study by Statista, mobile commerce sales are expected to account for more than 10% of all retail sales in the United States, reflecting a growth of 7 percentage points by 2023.

B2B Commerce Cloud platforms offer extensive features and functionality to deliver customers an exceptional and personalized experience. In line with McKinsey & Company, 71% of customers anticipate personalized interactions with businesses.

The platform is well-positioned, reliable, and a go-to choice for enterprises of all sizes. While accurate statistics for 2023 cannot be predicted, we have still compiled these statistics from credible websites.

Businesses that use B2B Commerce Cloud

B2B Commerce Cloud usage is not limited to small businesses. Some reliable and well-known brands such as Starbucks, Skechers, FleetPride, PerkinElmer, and Campus Management have already embraced the potential of the B2B Commerce Cloud.

To expand the digital presence for various niches, including retail, IT, e-commerce, finance, and Healthcare, Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud covers you.

B2B Commerce Cloud is the go-to choice for chief-level executives for agile growth and high ROI, enhancing online customer satisfaction.

Discover how the Salesforce Commerce Cloud helping the retail business grow.

Case study: Real-world examples of B2B Commerce Cloud implementation

Let’s look at how Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud benefits B2B businesses.

Here’re some real cases where the B2B Commerce Cloud has changed commerce practices by turning conventional approaches upside down.

Case 1: Business juggling with product recommendation, listing, and order shipment

The business manufactures, supplies, and sells computer peripherals and personal computers. They already had a user-friendly website for selling their products, seamlessly managing product pricing and shipping details, and entertaining customer inquiries on legacy software.

All they want to manage order shipment details and add relevant products to the list, improving the user interface for customers and allowing them to track their orders, which was not occurring earlier because of the following reasons:

Challenges:

Product listing: Users receive “Result Not Found” on typing keywords not registered in their dictionary. They want to resolve this challenge and show customers products relevant to their search terms.

Enhance product recommending options: By understanding buyers’ interests, behavior, and purchase history, they want to recommend more relevant products as per their preferences.

Shipping order tracking: The current shipment service provider is not offering international product selling and shipping services. They want to sell their product overseas and track the shipment for the locations where they sell their products.

Solutions:

We have solved the client challenges by providing these solutions:

1. Optimizing search functionality

We have integrated Salesforce’s Einstein search dictionaries into their CRM for fetching relevant terms not registered in their dictionaries. AI-powered technology-based algorithms will help the system comprehend similar significant lists, ensuring 10X improvement in search results every single time.

2. Personalized product recommendation

AI-based Einstein GPT is Salesforce’s inbuilt solution that helps our clients recommend products to their customers. It automatically merchandises personalized products on each web page, eliminating the guesswork. By understanding shoppers’ interests and purchase history, AI recommends simplified products, accurate product sorting, and price.

3. Merchandised the Store

Simplified merchandising with all products and pricing consolidated across different websites ensures a better user experience. With high-quality products and an ever-changing inventory, our client has a great experience engaging more shoppers. Also, with our Salesforce AI-powered recommendations, clients win customer loyalty and maximize customer rates by 10X.

4. Integrated UPS Shipping Method

We created APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to connect UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to Salesforce CRM. Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud helps them to import orders directly from the platform and track and manage the national and overseas shipping they deliver their products. This integrated UPS shipping method adds efficiency and convenience to the shopping experience, ensuring customer satisfaction.

Result: Our efforts have led to:

• 65% boost in customer shopping experiences
• 60% increase in conversion rate of leads into active accounts
• 75% remarkable increase in overall customer satisfaction

Case 2: The business wants to deliver a better customer experience and amplify marketing impact to expand their customer base

Our client owns a fitness manufacturing company with a good European market presence (over 200 distributors). They wanted to collaborate to bring more business opportunities, sell newly launched products, and foothold a digital presence in the competitive landscape.

Challenges

1. Identifying the target customers

The client couldn’t determine the potential customers from a large audience, and gathering all website visitor data in an Excel sheet was challenging. Because of unorganized workflows and lack of management, they lose their existing customers, affecting sales rates and ROI.

They wanted a workflow setup to get data from website visitors interested in purchasing products. Also, they wanted records of all closed deals at a centralized location.

2. Improving Marketing Efforts

They wanted to expand their customer base by executing different marketing activities such as paid advertisements and on and off-page activities for optimal performance and website ranking on the SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page) page.

3. Deliver exceptional customer satisfaction

Looking to enhance customer experience by building trust and loyalty in their brand.

4. Improving customer support services

They wanted to eliminate customer wait time for their inquiries by improving their response time.

Solutions

We have implemented the following solutions to overcome the above challenges:

1. Capturing leads

We have integrated Pardot into their existing system to capture leads from various sources such as social media, website, ad campaigns, and Email. This automated setup allows data to be stored in a centralized place, assigning lead scores to every lead. Based on the lead scoring, leads can be sent to the sales team to convert them into paid customers.

Additionally, we have implemented Salesforce Engage, which helped them gain sales insights and prospects spend time on landing and product pages etc. This interaction time automatically notifies an agent who can connect and convince prospects in no time.

2. Chatbot integration

We have integrated the AI-based Einstein chatbot, developed by Salesforce, into their CRM to improve customer support time. By leveraging this technology, users get frequently asked questions automatically in no time. This has reduced the manual presence of agents in responding to customer inquiries.

Additionally, orders are automatically placed based on customer interaction via chatbot; they have to checkout only. The complete workflow has enhanced the sales cycle, allowing customers to place the same order from any chat window.

3. Maximize organic traffic

We have targeted audiences on different social channels and locations by executing various marketing activities, i.e., creating and running paid campaigns based on the sales funnel. These marketing efforts helped us improve page ranking, gain more organic traffic, and create awareness among a large audience of their offerings. Also, SEO optimization, such as product pages, categories, metadata, and infographics, helped in organic growth.

4. Merchandised the Store

Simplified merchandising with a well-organized product listing and pricing across multiple websites can engage shoppers faster. This activity will help shoppers to make their customers feel valued by building trust and gaining loyalty, helping in maximizing conversion rates.

Result:

• Revenue increased by 40%
• Improvement in customer satisfaction by 70%
• Gain in lead conversion by 70%
• Rise in visitor time on the application by 80%
• Improvement in customer inquiry response time by 70%

Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud pricing

While making Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud an apt choice for optimizing operational efficiency for your business, pricing is an inevitable part. You can choose the most prominent plan to scale your business growth by counting your business model, requirements, budget, and other exclusive resources cost.

Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud has two pricing tags: Starter and Growth.

Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud Implementation Steps

The basic steps for implementing B2B commerce are as follows:

1. Setup B2B Commerce

Choose a reliable and robust B2B Commerce Cloud-based platform that meets your business requirements. Configure the software and set up the necessary infrastructure to kickstart the platform.

2. Create a storefront

Design and develop a user and mobile-friendly storefront that aligns with your brand’s uniqueness. This visually appealing user interface of a B2B storefront can attract more and more shoppers. However, after creating the e-commerce storefront, customize its layout, colour, fonts, and overall design to deliver a seamless experience to your B2B customers.

3. Import product data

Import your data to make it accessible for your B2B customers, including product names, descriptions, pricing, images, and other crucial details. After adding details, create a catalog structure and organize categories to ensure your customers can easily find the items.

4. Setup users

Create a form or user account, capturing their credentials, including name, contact, email, billing, and shipping address, for a seamless experience. Additionally, you can define accessibility and user permissions based on their business strength and size.

5. Manage user access to products and pricing

Configure pricing and product details as per defined user controls, customer value, loyalty, etc. With Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud platform, you can ensure personalized pricing and product visibility based on user permissions.

6. Integrate with third-party platforms

You can ensure the accessibility of all services under one roof by integrating third-party applications, including customer support, inventory management, payment gateways, and more. Connecting such applications allows you to automate various processes, set up complex workflows, and experience seamless synchronization.

7. Checkout flow

Implementing a secure checkout flow can allow B2B customers to conveniently place orders of their choice. This includes configuring settings for customer feasibility, such as order review, payment options, shipping address, and order tracking.

Following these implementation processes, you can set up your business storefront and start your e-commerce site with a click.

You can also check here SEO Tips For Your E-commerce business for your Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

Why do you need Professionals in Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud Development?

Yes! Development requires skilled knowledge and mindset to develop a solution that meets client requirements. That’s why the involvement of experienced Salesforce developers comes into the picture.

Here we have compiled a list of Why a Salesforce Development Partner should hire an expert developer?

1. Diverse expertise in B2B Commerce Cloud

Highly skilled B2B Commerce Cloud Salesforce developers can understand user requirements in-depth, meeting customer expectations. Since the Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud developers are platform experts, they are familiar with the platform’s architecture, data models, APIs, and integration options. They can leverage the platform to its full potential and contribute to the high-quality, robust, and scalable solutions that users require.

2. Effective development

Since professionals understand all the tidbits and pitfalls of the platform, they can efficiently leverage it to the fullest. This familiarity helps them leverage platform features and core functionality to create a scalable, robust, and tailored e-commerce solution that meets customers’ unique requirements.

3. Customization and integration

Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud often requires integration with third-party applications, including payment gateways, inventory management, and CRM systems. Businesses can easily ensure strategic planning and product management by following these essential integrations, i.e., ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and PIM (Product Information Management).

Professional developers can seamlessly integrate with third-party software and systems, ensuring synchronized data flow and user experience. They are experts in supervising data mapping, conversion, and workflow automation, assuring seamless streamlining of B2B operations. Additionally, hand on experience in frontend and backend components customization to align with your branding and business workflows.

4. Future scalability, security, and maintenance

The B2B Commerce Cloud deals with sensitive information (business and customer data), requiring a high-end security measure. Since the professionals are well-versed with the industry’s best practices and can ensure robust security measures, such as data encryption, user authentication, and role-based access controlsGDPR (General Data Protection Regulation )

Additionally, they can ensure timely upgrades, security patches, bug fixes, and necessary enhancements as the business evolves. This keeps your site up-to-date, secure, and optimized performance for the long run.

5. Complex B2B functionality

Since the B2B Commerce Cloud is convoluted and requires a professional to handle the platform challenges. These challenges include pricing models, multiple catalogs, custom workflows, account hierarchies, contract management, and advanced order management. Professionals can address and navigate these complexities and ensure tailor-made solutions for seamless user experience.

6. Training and support

Salesforce Commerce Cloud development involves various processes. Hence individuals’ contribution may be a challenging task. To address this challenge, professionals can provide proper platform understanding to their core team members and supporters. This will allow him to reduce workload, improve efficiency, and assign roles to different team members. Additionally, B2B Commerce Cloud professionals can provide ongoing assistance, ensuring quick solutions to your challenges and seamless platform operation.

7. Setup feedback forms

Selling products and services can help you maximize revenue. But only receiving constructive and valuable customer feedback can set a benchmark for better user experience or customer satisfaction. Professionals can set up a feedback form and links where customers can give suggestions to improve the services on placing an order. This helps in better decision-making and improving customer purchasing experience.

Embrace the future of B2B Commerce Cloud – Are you prepared?

Salesforce Commerce Cloud implementation can potentially revolutionize your B2B business. By diligently following our comprehensive guide and promptly taking the necessary steps, you can unlock the immense capabilities of this platform.

By leveraging the platform’s core functionalities, you can create a scalable, customized, and flawless online store to deliver an exceptional customer experience and maximize growth revenue for your business.

Don’t let the initial hindrances of implementing Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud be huge walls that hold you back from unleashing its full capacity.

Have you decided, or do you still have reservations about your decision?

By leveraging suitable resources and receiving continuous support from a Salesforce Development Partner like Cyntexa, you can effectively tackle your business challenges, navigate complex processes, achieve key performance indicators (KPIs), and gain a competitive edge over others in the market.

So what’s stopping you from taking action? Let us convert your dream of an e-commerce site into reality!