Weighing up whether to finally build or overhaul your B2C or B2B eCommerce store? As with any new business venture, there are important decisions to be made before you commit, and finding the right platform for your digital future is essential.
So, why use Salesforce Commerce Cloud?
Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a powerful, scalable eCommerce platform with a variety of native capabilities centred around (but definitely not limited to) merchandising, multiple store management, internationalisation, and customer segmentation.
Online retailers can build their stores with little-to-no coding required, which is invaluable to those who don’t have any development experience or an in-house development team.
Here's a brief look at what Salesforce Commerce Cloud encompasses:
Social media integration
Instore extensions
Content management
Inventory & product management
Artificial Intelligence-based product recommendations
Targeted ads & promotion management
One-touch payment options
Pricing management across a substantial range of countries & currencies
Retailers can sow the seeds of success by connecting a customer’s whole shopping experience via digital channels – from marketing to successful purchase and retention campaigns. By attaining information about each customer’s interactions with your brand and shopping activities, it’s then much simpler to analyse and personalise their journey and offer tailor-made product recommendations to boost sales, conversion and loyalty.
Connect with and convert more customers with personalised shopping experiences and obtain informed insights through SFCC's connected marketing, sales, service and IT departments.
eBook, 2023., Salesforce Commerce Cloud x Sherwen Studios
Commerce Cloud tackles modern business challenges such as high traffic, deep data storage, vast amounts of goods, and high transaction volumes, with ease. Implement new technologies and automatic scalability to easily manage high-traffic spikes and any unforeseen issues with an unrivalled mobile-first approach.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers everything a business needs to announce their inventory to the online masses, and it can be used by both B2B and B2C users to maximise the overall efficiency.
Build a branded eCommerce site with no coding required
There are a few B2C eCommerce platforms available that are designed with the agility and simplicity of creating a branded store.
Many retailers fall victim to spending a sizeable amount of money hiring a developer to build a site from scratch and part with even more finances to maintain it as the business grows.
Ask yourself the following before choosing a SaaS that requires in-house or external development support:
Will employing a full-time developer (or development team) be enough support for your workload?
Will they have the capacity to complete all of the work needed, and within budget?
Do they possess the knowhow to mitigate and manage integration and risk?
Can you afford for the time to market to be delayed?
With SFCC, there’s no requirement to build your site from scratch. Everything is integrated, so you can focus on growing your business with all the tools and features you need with no coding required, instead of solely building and maintaining your store.
Create your own customer data warehouse
There's a number of SaaS platforms that possess a closed ecosystem, meaning the platform is self-contained without the option to connect with other SaaS solutions or data warehouses.
This can be extremely problematic when trying to gather or migrate data from your website, as you cannot do so without hiring potentially expensive developers to construct the necessary integrations.
The unified commerce platform integrates all business functions, channels and client data onto a single platform. Instead of customers interacting with your brand across multiple channels, SFCC provides them with a seamless end-to-end shopping experience within one agile channel that incorporates all other channels and their relevant data.
eBook, 2023., Salesforce Commerce Cloud x Sherwen Studios
Commerce Cloud services have a closed ecosystem and a customer data warehouse, which is essentially an avenue to collect data and insights directly from your site without needing to hire an external developer.
Read more on Salesforce Einstein, the native, predictive artificial intelligence that effectively removes the need for manual data analysis and third-party extensions, ultimately providing an unparalleled personalised customer experience in our Top 5 Features of Salesforce Commerce Cloud article.
Build, Launch, Adapt and Grow at pace.
Building an eCommerce platform from scratch can be challenging, especially if you don’t have any experience. This involves hiring a developer, building the site from scratch, and testing and launching it.
Commerce Cloud is built from the ground up to allow users to get the cogs in motion quickly.
For B2C & B2B businesses who want to stand out in a congested digital market, Commerce Cloud is the ultimate tool for optimising business processes and delivering a best-in-class customer experience for consumer brands and retailers.
eBook, 2023., Salesforce Commerce Cloud x Sherwen Studios
This platform has features that let you move quickly, such as a single sign-on, prebuilt integrations, and many out-of-the-box visualisations. These features let you get started in a snap and focus on building your eCommerce business, without worrying too much about launch dates, although having a Statement of Work and a Risk Management Strategy in place is invaluable to the implementation process.
Why not hire a Salesforce Consultant to handle all the paperwork and heavy lifting for you?
Salesforce is constantly evolving with the times
Salesforce is constantly evolving its Cloud Platforms with new features, functionality, and integrations as consumer and business demands alike rapidly change. This is a great incentive for businesses looking to usurp those with ageing legacy architecture that run the risk of losing footing in a competitive online market.
Salesforce achieve this through frequent releases, both scheduled and unscheduled, so you won’t have to worry about running outdated software while they're in the safe hands of Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
Why join Salesforce?
As the world's leading customer relationship management system, Salesforce is the home of trailblazing customers, expert partners, and elite business software platforms — including Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, and Sales Cloud.
Each platform seamlessly integrates with Commerce Cloud to power the whole customer lifecycle from awareness to purchase, implementation, growth and retention.
By joining the Salesforce ecosystem, businesses are granted access to a thriving community of fellow Trailblazers. Salesforce boasts an abundance of service partners that aid integration and development endeavours for eCommerce projects.
As a certified Commerce Cloud Consultant, Sherwen Studios empowers retailers to leverage Salesforce Commerce Cloud's vast potential and tools to achieve new levels of growth and success with unparalleled agility.
If you're still not convinced, read our in-depth ebook The power of Salesforce Commerce Cloud for more information, or get in touch with Sherwen Studios with any questions you have regarding how Salesforce Commerce Cloud could be exactly what your business needs to thrive and grow online.