B2B commerce platforms are transitioning from exclusive physical presence to online and offline selling. While most businesses have already established their brand name in the autonomous retail market, their online counterparts are gaining significant traction and expanding exponentially. Thus, it has become inevitable for pre-existing B2B brick-and-mortar business owners and beginners to adapt to the changing trends and implement a suitable eCommerce platform to grow their business. With Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud, B2B businesses can now effortlessly achieve their digital goals easily and effortlessly.
According to a report, the business-to-business market size is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.7% from 2021 to 2028. And this growth rate can be seamlessly achieved with Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud, which is one of the best solutions that can be easily put into practice to establish a friction-free digital platform for B2B businesses.
8 competitive Salesforce B2B Commerce platform features
Wholesale businesses differ from B2C businesses immensely in terms of their end customers, the complexity of their buying and selling models, operational and administrative processes, and number of new and repeat customers. Secondly, B2B businesses going digital is comparatively a modern trend and most enterprise owners are still exploring the various eCommerce solutions that can best suit their B2B business model and help them grow profit margins.
Here’re the top 8 B2B Commerce Salesforce platform features for B2B businesses that can help them boost their sales and revenue and ensure a smooth transition to the eCommerce ecosystem.
#1: Authoritative purchase process
Salesforce features allow B2B business owners to have complete control over the purchases made from their eCommerce site. This authoritative management enables them to offer self-service tools to their customers. B2B clients are often repetitive customers; however, they might want to modify some of the order details before placing the same order again. With Salesforce B2B eCommerce, businesses can provide their customers with an opportunity to change specific details of the order, negotiate current rates of products, alter shipping details, and more.
The Salesforce B2B commerce features that facilitate their customers with these services are an AI-powered search bar, order tracking facility, placing and citing requests, product request status monitoring, efficient re-ordering, and viewing order history.
#2: Precise and descriptive product catalogs
The Salesforce commerce cloud features allow B2B business owners to place illustrative pictures and explanatory descriptions of their products on the eCommerce site that interests their customers and improves customer engagement rates. Wholesalers can integrate product catalogs with client contracts and their order details seamlessly with the Salesforce platform features, giving them the liberty to view complete customer details in a unified view. A well-structured and precise product catalog ensures better conversion rates and; also provides customers with a good understanding of the business offerings so that they can make an informed buying decision within no time.
#3: Customized pricing
Salesforce B2B implementation enables businesses to offer customized pricing for their products for a different set of clients. Offering discounts to esteemed customers or legacy clients is a common practice in the case of physical stores. But, with Salesforce commerce cloud features, businesses can provide the same functionality to their online customers and create an exceptional online buying experience for them. Salesforce platform features enable enterprises to update the prices of their specific products for a particular group of customers.
#4: Optimized inventory management
Inventory management is a crucial task in the eCommerce industry that can streamline the business flow and help businesses offer an omnichannel shopping experience to their customers without disruptions and delays. With the Salesforce B2B eCommerce platform, wholesalers can achieve a seamless order fulfillment process and have a clear and unified view of their inventory for their online and offline stores. Additionally, they can track and place orders for inventory stock based on the product order history, the product availability in the inventory, the sales generated by a product, and its shelf life.
#5: Omnichannel shopping experience
An omnichannel shopping experience is an added advantage not only for B2C buyers but also B2B customers. The convenience of browsing a product on a device, adding it to the cart, and viewing the updated cart on a third device offers a consistent shopping experience across touchpoints. An omnichannel shopping platform also allows them to add more products to the cart before the final checkout process. With Salesforce platform features, B2B businesses can offer mobile responsive websites, flexible ordering, an organized checkout process, and a seamless shopping experience to their customers.
#6: Integrated CRM
A CRM software integrated with an eCommerce platform strengthens customer relationships and builds a trust that helps B2B businesses register a significant increase in their sales and brand affinity. Salesforce B2B Commerce implementation provides an integrated CRM that allows B2B business owners to connect with their customers speedily on a personal level rather than delaying the answers to their queries. The Salesforce B2B eCommerce platform comes with an automated CRM solution to enhance the productivity of the sales team and helps them avoid mundane tasks. The Salesforce B2B features a sales cloud tool called CPQ (Configure, Price, and Quote) that helps salespeople reduce their sales cycle and negotiate the pricing and discounts effectively using online channels.
#7: Out-of-the-box product requests
While B2B companies list specific products on their website, a few of their customers might want some more products or products with some modifications. These out-of-the-box product requests can be easily met with a Salesforce B2B Commerce platform. A Salesforce platform features a configurable product panel and enables B2B businesses to showcase personalized store design based on the customer visiting their eCommerce store. A Salesforce B2B eCommerce solution that fulfills customers’ customized product requests can excel in digital sales channels and earn customer loyalty.
#8: Customer satisfaction
The Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud features enable B2B merchants to offer the following benefits to their clients:
Automated order renewals
Personalized product recommendations
Single-click bulk order placement
Multi-language and currency support
Orderly shipment details
Unified view of order history
Support for multiple payment options
Multi-channel buying options
Splitting product delivery to many addresses and dates
With these and many more functionalities that Salesforce offers to B2B businesses and clients, the customer satisfaction rate enhances tremendously, which benefits the company and its reputation in the long run.
Salesforce B2B eCommerce implementation examples
Here’re a few examples of B2B companies that used Salesforce commerce solutions and expanded their online business.
#1: Ex-Guard Industries
Ex-Guard Industries, a manufacturer of the patented Ex-Guard® bumper protection system based in Des Moines, IA, adopted Salesforce B2B Commerce and improved their customer relationships while shrinking the sales cycle.
#2: USG Boral
USG Boral, a company manufacturing innovative wall and ceiling products, implemented Salesforce B2B Commerce to achieve a highly efficient sales team and develop as a strategic and proactive company.
#3: VariDesk
VariDesk is a company that creates workspaces that elevate people and manufactures a full suite of office furniture. VariDesk aimed to reach a new B2B audience base, and they turned to Salesforce to achieve this. With the Salesforce solution, they were able to offer their buyers a seamless experience.
Is your B2B business ready for Salesforce B2B Commerce?
B2B brands are beginning to adopt eCommerce, slowly but steadily. Going digital has become essential to survive in the retail industry and have accurate control over business processes. The Salesforce platform features enable companies to create client-centric B2B commerce platforms and boosts ROI. Whether it is handling customers or managing internal products and sales records, having a digitized mechanism proves to be beneficial, and B2B companies are quickly embracing this new trend to scale their business aggressively.
