Everything you need to know about Salesforce B2B Commerce Data Model

The intensive competitive e-commerce market statistics show B2B eCommerce expanding its market share at a CAGR of 18.7% from 2021 to 2028 with a vision to touch USD 25.65 trillion market valuation by 2028. This valuation is over five times higher than the B2C eCommerce market. These statistics show a paradigm shift in market dynamics and the necessity of a robust Salesforce B2B Commerce Data Model.

The Salesforce B2B Commerce solution emphasizes a unique buyer experience with specific buyer configurations and ease of customization. It uses Lightning Web Components to enable over-the-top configuration and customize what is preloaded. Various permissions and access level configurations ensure the security of user data. But, with these added advantages, one may ask, ‘why is this solution the best?’ ‘Why should one prefer this?’ The answer is simple. It is effective due to its robust data model that acts as the backbone of the Salesforce B2B Commerce solutions.

With the above precise answer, let us start by understanding and exploring the Salesforce B2B eCommerce Data Model.

What is a Data Model?

In our context, we may define a data model as a relation or mapping between the Salesforce commerce cloud data model standard objects and their properties.

What is the Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud Data Model?

Before exploring data models, we need to understand that, Salesforce consists of standard objects and these objects are nothing but tables in the Salesforce database. Apart from the Standard Objects available with all Salesforce solutions, few are specific to B2B eCommerce solutions.

Let us concentrate on each of the B2B Commerce solution entities and explore the relationship among them.

• Store: All commerce data reside in a unique entity called a store. Stores allows the admin/manager to manage the commerce data like Catalog, Categories, and Products. This commerce data enhances the buyer experience via Experience Cloud sites. The Salesforce Experience Cloud is the best way to create a frontend digital experience.
• Catalog: A Catalog envelopes the ordered structure of categories within a Store. Products in a store can be associated with the various Categories. A Catalog is a must to view products within a Store.
• Category: Products available in-store are available in different Categories. Each Category can have subcategories- up to five category levels.
• Products: Products are the entities available in B2B Commerce stores as items or services to be sold to the buyer.
• Product Media: Pictorial data, documents, or URLs related to the product are associated with Product Media. Product Media helps in providing enriched data about the product.
• Product Variation: A parent product with different variations from a child product is called product variation. Consider a mobile handset with different colors and different specifications. A parent product is categorized as a Simple Product when it has no other variation to offer. When a child product exists, the parent product is just the representation of the category product. Parent products are not available to be sold to the buyers.
• Price Books: The price of each product is available in Price Books.
• Price Book Entries: The listed product in a price book with a price is a Price Book entry.
• Price Adjustment Schedule: It provides discounts based on bulk orders to buyers. It allows different discount levels on different quantities ordered.
• CMS Workspace: With the help of the channel, CMS Workspace maps to different stores. A CMS Workspace allows admin to create, share, and organize content to meet particular goals.
• Orders: These are the organized list of items or services purchased by the buyer.
• Buyer Account: A buyer account is responsible for the buyer purchasing access. When enabled as a Buyer, it adds to the buyer group.
• Buyer Group: Collection of buyer accounts enjoying the same access and entitlement.
• Profile/Permission Set: Profile/Permission Set defines the access level to the Store.
• Search: It enables users to search for products available in the Store.
• Search Index: It is mandatory to build the search index when the store administrator configures changes to the Store. The search index is responsible for making the changes active.
• Entitlement Policies: Based on the Buyer Group policies, product, and product-related information are available to the buyer. These policies are called Entitlement Policies.
• Checkout: Checkout is responsible for bringing all external integrations and internal store information together.
• Cart: The cart holds the list of products that the buyer will proceed to checkout.
• Order Summary: It is available on the order confirmation page that contains a summary of the buyer’s recent purchase.

Let’s understand the mapping amongst the Business-to-Business Commerce objects.

• A Store is related to a Catalog in a one-to-one relationship. A Store can have only one Catalog.
• A Catalog is related to a Store in a one-to-many relationship. A Catalog can be a map to many stores.
• A Catalog is related to Categories in one-to-many relationships. A Catalog can be related to many Categories.
• A Category is related to Catalogs in one-to-one relationships. A Category can be related to one Catalog.
• A Store can contain many Buyer Groups. These Buyer Groups can be related to multiple Price Books. A Buyer Group consists of many Buyers, and a Buyer can relate to many Buyer Groups.
• A Buyer Group can be associated with different Entitlement Policies and Stores.
• Entitlement Policies can be associated with multiple Buyer Groups and Products.
• Products can be associated with many Price Books, Entitlement Policies, and Categories.
• Price books can contain multiple products.

These robust mapping on the Salesforce Lightning Platform ensures modernized goods and service purchasing. Hence, Lightning Salesforce B2B eCommerce Solution powered by data models enables admin to build, manage and configure advanced experiences for their business clients and buyers. With different levels of Salesforce B2B Commerce Licenses, administrators can enhance the scalability of the business.