Commerce keeps happening everywhere, be it in the form of e-commerce or retail. Both these formats enjoy a formidable share in the global commerce market, and require ways to be managed and streamlined, given the sheer rates and volumes at which they happen. Salesforce Commerce Cloud forms a potent way to deal with the worldwide commerce taking place every moment. Irrespective of the product-line or the geography that your business deals in, commerce cloud is going to help you by leaps and bounds in managing your product commerce, bring success to your customers and fetch ROI on your technological investment.
Commerce involves recognition of a product requirement by the customer, followed by research and survey of the different apps, sites or physical stores offering the product. The customer then zeroes in on one of them basis the specific matching product characteristics, and proceeds to purchase the same through online or physical ordering. The onus then lies on the e-tailer or the retailer to deliver the product to the customer within the timeline committed. It’s noteworthy that service commerce is somewhat less common as compared to product commerce, and that retailing follows a process similar to e-tailing, except that the selling platform becomes physical instead of online.
There are 2 types of commerce basis the nature of the client, the product, the platform and the purchase that your organization deals with.
- B2B Commerce: Businesses too need to make purchase in addition to individual consumers. Most often, their product requirements are in bulk and of high value. They often need to stock non-perishables for the entire season, and their product volume requirement runs into hundreds, and sometimes even into thousands. B2B Commerce Cloud includes specific functionalities such as sites designed for large carts, individual visitor authentication, easy re-order provisioning, custom storefront themes, specific product catalogues, negotiated / contract pricing, custom shipping options and multiple payment types available.
- B2C Commerce: Consumer-oriented commerce beckons brands to optimize their online or retail shopping experience by giving them extra reasons for delight apart from the product purchase transaction. Consumer brands can present innovative e-commerce platforms and physical retail stores that have creative and appealing storefronts, shopping cart, checkout as well as complete customization capabilities. Commerce Cloud lets e-commerce platforms and retailers launch multiple sites or storefronts across brands, consumer segments and geographies. Moreover, e-commerce and retail aren’t enough as consumers also interact with your brand through mobile, social media and e-mail. Commerce Cloud lets you integrate your mail systems and social media presence with your e-platforms and offline retail stores to enable a unified, holistic, wholesome experience for all your customers. Commerce Cloud can also bring e-commerce into your retail store through digital kiosks as well as store associate applications.
Moving ahead, there are certain application features provided by Salesforce Commerce Cloud that ensure your customers get a rich commerce experience with you and your brand.
- Einstein for B2C Commerce: This cloud feature allows merchandisers and marketers to leverage data analytics and AI capabilities of B2C Commerce Cloud. It’s directly embedded into the Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and eliminates the need for brands to hire a data engineer or a data scientist. Brands can use Einstein to use their real-time product commerce data across algorithms, filters and other user-behaviour characteristics to gather relevant insights, make smarter decisions and personalize consumer experience across their commerce journey. Einstein is equally relevant for B2C Commerce across e-commerce and retail store formats.
- Salesforce Order Management: This commerce cloud feature brings together all the elements from each stage of the order lifecycle (people, systems, products, processes) and makes them available on a real-time basis in a unified, centralized system. Order management lets you automate and streamline processes and operations across the order lifecycle, thus bringing satisfaction and delight to both your employee and the customer. It lets your business see a bird eye’s view of the complete order lifecycle across commerce channels, and manage order capture, fulfilment and delivery in a centralized manner. It gives you access to a master repository of all order-related information and also covers service orders in addition to product orders.
- Endless Aisle for B2C Commerce: This Salesforce Cloud feature allows brick-and-mortar brands and retailers the ability to offer shoppers unlimited product choice by extending their physical product aisle with its digital counterpart. It thus eliminates lost sales by extending digital commerce into the retail store. Brands and retailers can sell and ship any product to their shoppers irrespective of its physical presence / absence and regardless of its actual location. Thus, endless aisle blends digital with the physical and e-commerce with retail to bring the best of both worlds. In the process, your store associates too feel empowered with real-time access to digital inventory.
All in all, Salesforce Commerce Cloud brings together the best of e-commerce and retail to benefit your business, brands and products in a multi-fold manner. With commerce cloud, you get much more from what you already have. Salesforce.com is a proven CRM-on-cloud provider to myriad businesses, and Commerce Cloud is one of its premier, time-tested offerings that has adapted itself well with the changing tides of economy and proven itself to be more-than-successful across industries.
ABSYZ is a premier Salesforce consulting and implementation partner that has helped several businesses tide over their challenges and bottlenecks by leveraging the power of cloud. We also specialize in consulting, implementation and support for Salesforce Commerce Cloud and time stands testimony to this effect.
To know more about how ABSYZ can help you leverage Salesforce Commerce Cloud to meet your business ends, contact us.
