Retail is one of the most competitive industries where companies are constantly looking for new ways to stay on top of the market. With the increasing number of online sales, retailers are willing to introduce new channels to drive more clients and fulfill their needs. Since the number of global digital buyers is expected to reach 2.14 billion by the end of 2021, ecommerce businesses should take a closer look at the existing digital solutions aimed to help companies gain a competitive edge. Salesforce Commerce Cloud is one of such solutions tailored specifically to the needs of online retailers.
What Is Salesforce Commerce Cloud?
Commerce Cloud is an ecommerce solution created by Salesforce to cover the needs and challenges of online retail businesses. The solution is based in the cloud and can be used both for B2C and B2B purposes. Commerce Cloud platform was designed to help retailers deliver unique shopping experiences to their customers no matter what channel they are using.
Whether your customers prefer shopping online with the help of their smartphones, desktop browsers, social media, etc., the Salesforce solution offers a variety of features to enhance the connection between the brand and its clients.
Commerce Cloud Key Solutions
Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers a number of ready-to-use solutions for ecommerce businesses. Since Salesforce solutions are customizable, you can pick specific functionalities and services to suit your business needs.
B2C Commerce
Salesforce B2C Commerce is a cloud-based solution aimed to transform the digital shopping experience for all customers across all channels. Its main goal is to connect the brand and customers whether they are buying online or in one of the local stores. B2C Commerce functionality covers everything from managing order lifecycles to creating customer-oriented promotion and marketing campaigns. With the help of these solutions, business executives can improve their customer support teams, increase customer satisfaction rates, personalize the customer experience and provide them with the information they really need before and after the purchase.
Just like any other Commerce Cloud solution, B2C Commerce applies the latest AI technology to predict customers’ behavior, thus offering personalized recommendations and helping clients to find products they need. Thanks to data collected on the customers’ experience, you can also optimize your product offers.
B2B Commerce
It might be even harder to capture customers’ attention when it comes to business buyers. B2B Commerce was created to help companies better meet their customers’ complex needs and enter the market faster across various industries. We all are operating in the world of business under the pressure of constantly growing competition and changing requirements. With B2B Commerce it will be easier to respond to all of the changes and introduce innovation into your business operations.
While business buyers are used to requesting product catalogs and business offers before they make the actual purchase, B2B Commerce aims to provide those buyers with an online self-serving buying experience. It means customers can now make business purchases just like they do in their personal life. Besides, B2B Commerce helps to simplify online buying by automating reorders, invoicing and billing operations, and much more.
Order Management
When it comes to online sales, one of the most important steps every company needs to pay attention to is proper order management. Salesforce Order Management solution helps to automate numerous operations related to inventory management, order fulfillment, payments, etc. The solution also covers challenges associated with return and refund policies to make your customers feel more comfortable when buying online. Order Management can be easily integrated with the B2C and B2B solutions to give your customers even more purchasing options.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud Features
Salesforce Commerce Cloud features include:
- Product management to help product teams efficiently manage product inventory, optimize product bundles, and offer customers only products tailored to their needs.
- Customer management to allow the customer support team better respond to requests and challenges faced by clients.
- Content management to provide customers only with relevant information on your products, special offers, order policies, and much more.
- Pricing management to help unify pricing across multiple regions, sites, and currencies.
- AI for ecommerce is made to automate common operations, as well as to personalize customers’ buying experience and help them find products they want and when they need them.
- A multi-channel management solution allows managing multi-language websites via a single dashboard.
- Marketing and promotion solutions to drive more customers and make them return for more purchases.
- Real-time reports to better understand your customers.
Commerce Cloud Benefits for an Ecommerce Business
The above-mentioned features bring an array of Salesforce Commerce Cloud benefits that online retail companies can leverage to grow their business.
Predict Your Customers Behavior
Salesforce CRM applies comprehensive artificial intelligence known as Salesforce Einstein. Thanks to a set of integrated AI technologies, Einstein eliminates the need to manually analyze collected data and doesn’t require integration with third-party analytical applications and services. Einstein predicts customers’ behavior in real time, suggests personalized product offers, and saves time and money by automating repetitive tasks. Special offers, discounts, loyalty programs, and other exclusive deals are now available for customers thanks to Salesforce Einstein, thus improving customer experience and increasing their satisfaction rates. With the help of artificial intelligence, online retailers get more chances to see their customers coming back for another purchase.
Enhanced Marketing Management
Salesforce Commerce Cloud can be perfectly combined with the Marketing Cloud features helping product marketers create powerful marketing and promotion campaigns to drive more clients. The marketing solution allows managing everything from email marketing and social media campaigns to paid promotions and reporting. With the help of data on campaigns’ performance, marketing teams can customize and adjust their campaigns to make them better reach out to key customers. Another powerful tool within the marketing package is the ability to run A/B tests to optimize conversions. These tests don’t require any additional technical knowledge.
Enriched Mobile Experience
It’s no longer a surprise that millions of people are using their smartphones for online shopping (the number of mobile buyers in the US overcame 167 million in 2020). Mobile-friendly websites or online shopping applications with an intuitive design are a must for most retailers willing to stay on top of the competition. Commerce Cloud aims to deliver the best possible shopping experience for mobile customers no matter what device they use.
From the business perspective, Commerce Cloud applies a mobile-first approach to let its users access features anytime and anywhere. Your business won’t stop running if you don’t have access to the desktop version of the solution.
Enhanced Multi-Channel Functionalities
If you have multiple sites or need to serve different markets and regions, the Salesforce ecommerce solution makes it possible to manage all of these multiple channels within a single platform. You can easily streamline and standardize basic operations such as order and inventory management, payments, marketing and sales tasks to make sure all of the key elements of your business are working perfectly under any circumstances. It helps to save time and focus more on growing your business results.
Improved Customer Support
Nothing spoils the impression so much as poor customer support. Enable flawless five-star customer support to make sure all of your client’s requirements and challenges are properly covered, in time. Besides, Salesforce itself aims to keep its customer support at the highest possible level which means any of your issues as a platform user will be solved as fast and professionally as possible.
Customization and Scalability
Once you decide to enter new markets or reach a certain level of business growth when more capacity is required, Commerce Cloud will grow together with you. All of the Salesforce solutions are customizable and scalable once you need it. You can start with basic features and enable more functionality on the go. It also means that from the very beginning you are paying only for solutions that you need, no useless features will be included.
Valuable Insights and Real-time Data
One of the most powerful tools in Salesforce is its analytics. The platform will gather data on staff performance, customer behavior, KPIs, and much more to give you the full picture of your business’s current state. Use this data wisely to optimize internal and external processes, update products, introduce new ones, thus fully satisfying your customers’ demands.
Seamless and Regular Updates
Since Salesforce Commerce Cloud is based in the cloud, all of the updates will be automatically introduced to your system once they are released. No need to check on the latest upgraded editions, Salesforce will do it all for you.
Other Salesforce Integrations To Drive Your Ecommerce Business Growth
Commerce Cloud is only one of the dozens of solutions offered by Salesforce aimed to help your business grow and evolve. For instance, if you want to put even more effort into improving your customer experience, Service Cloud will help you build stronger engagement with clients. If you need to get deeper insights into your sales records, enable the Sales Cloud solution to help you out.
To get more options beyond the Salesforce expertise, visit Salesforce AppExchange, a cloud-based marketplace that features numerous ready-to-use applications and extensions aimed to power up existing Salesforce solutions. The marketplace offers app collections tailored to the retail industry so it will be easy to find a solution tailored to your specific needs.
Leverage Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Grow Your Online Retail Business
With all of the Salesforce tools on hand, retailers can significantly change the rules of the game. These solutions empower businesses of all sizes and directions allowing them to expand and meet constantly growing customer demand. If you want to stand out from the competition in the retail industry, introducing innovative solutions and driving digital transformation across the entire organization is a must. If you are looking for professional support from an experienced Salesforce consulting team, get in touch with the OMI specialists. With over 2 decades of experience in CRM services, we know exactly how to help your business grow and thrive.