Why should you use Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud and how to start?

If you’re looking for a solution that will allow you to handle the whole sales cycle and create a 360-degree view of your B2B business, then we believe that there’s no better option than Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud. In this article, we’ll discuss its main benefits and give some advice on how to implement it seamlessly, based on our experience.  

How did Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud originate? 

B2B Commerce Cloud was formerly known as Cloud Craze, before it was acquired by Salesforce in 2018. Before the acquisition, Cloud Craze was successfully deployed in multiple companies, including such brands as Coca-Cola, Cummins, Ecolab, Land O’ Lakes, and WABCO. It was distributed as a managed package and introduced many custom objects. However, that wasn’t in line with the Salesforce approach. Salesforce decided to create a brand new B2B commerce based on Lighting Experience.  

Salesforce got rid of custom objects and integrated the commerce solution into the Customer 360 experience. The new B2B Commerce uses standard Product2 objects and PriceBooks. The intention is to have a seamlessly integrated solution no matter where the B2B customer interacts with Salesforce. Both direct and indirect channels end with a standard Order object.  

This is very important for customers who already have Sales Cloud deployed. The new B2B Commerce Cloud is built entirely on Experience, which benefits from Lighting Communities and CMS. It is effortless to change the look and feel. Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud can be  used widely by organisations that want to enable the indirect commerce channel. It can be launched quickly thanks to a flexible pricing model that can support different B2B scenarios.  

How to start with Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud? 

It is worth mentioning that the philosophy of the new B2B is different compared to Cloud Craze. In Cloud Craze, everything was easily customisable, but it took time to set it up.  

The new Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud is almost immediately ready to go. Many plugins are available on the Partner Community, and Salesforce provides basic LWC components on Github. Salesforce constantly introduces new features into their product to cover the gap between Classic (Cloud Craze) and the new B2B Commerce Cloud. Before starting, you should go through Salesforce documentation or contact our experts to make sure current limitations will not impact your business case.  

We have seen projects where implementation partners tend to customise instead of discussing the detailed requirements and then try to fit them with an out of the box solution. Customisations are done according to best industry practices and re-use Connect API as much as possible (to make sure upgrades work smoothly).  

Based on our experience, we have created a framework that can be used to check if Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud is the right solution for you. Based on the workshops, we will map your requirements into customer journeys and show you how B2B Commerce Cloud fits in the process and where it needs updates.  

Which commerce platform should you choose? 

If you use Salesforce, there is no better choice than Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud. Integrating different systems is always a pain (whether there are connectors available or not). The benefit of having everything on the same platform is unbeatable.  

If you do not have Salesforce – consider where you want your business to be in one, three, and five years. Create a roadmap. Salesforce is a leading CRM platform and offers several tools that various industries can use.  

Our experts will help you implement Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud and tailor it to your needs.