5 Reasons Commerce Cloud is the right e-commerce decision for a CIO

The continuously evolving landscape of the e-commerce ecosystem is currently undergoing a major change. With the emergence of new functions like predictive analysis, community engagement, and transactional technology, these platforms have steadily begun to expand their horizons.As per figures collated by Statista, the number of digital buyers around the world is all set to rise from 1.92 billion in 2019 to 2.14 billion in 2021!In order to accommodate this gigantic increase while at the same time to ensure that the user experience remains seamless across different mediums, e-commerce platforms will have to make provisions for agile, scalable, and omnichannel solutions. Right from marketing and inventory management to logistics and back-end accounting - all business processes and operations will have to be efficiently integrated under the scope of a single umbrella. However, traditional e-commerce architecture is entirely incapable of handling this surge.Therefore, in order to deal with the rising competition, your organization will need to keep pace by adopting more productive, innovative, and dynamically structured techniques. These are precisely the kind of services that the Salesforcecommerce cloud is designed to render.

What Is Salesforce Commerce Cloud?

Previously known as Demandware, Salesforce commerce cloud is essentially a cloud-based platform that offers a highly optimized, multi-functional, and user-oriented e-commerce experience. Working on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) regime, it provides customized B2B and B2C solutions, replete with scalable technology and an omnichannel presence.Here's a detailed explanation of how Salesforce connects your e-commerce business to different channels -

This enterprise-grade e-commerce cloud computing platform helps meet complex business challenges by furnishing a host of smart features that include:

  1. Quick Upgrades - Being a SaaS platform, Salesforce rolls out a plethora of new features from time to time. These features, largely available on the administration panel, internally upgrade your products and applications, without requiring any form of external technical assistance.

  2. Increased Space- The storage space provided by the Salesforce commerce cloud is simply extensive. This doesn't just increase the agility of the organizational server system but it also helps you manage traffic spikes and lags without incurring any downtime whatsoever.

  3. Business-specific Integrations- Salesforce offers a massive range of SaaS services which can be easily molded to integrate with your business specific needs. Be it marketing, core functionalities, or CRM, the software tools provided by this commerce cloud are highly targeted and incisive.

  4. Predictive Intelligence- Einstein, the AI tool of Salesforce commerce cloud offers deep, data-driven insights into the trends and patterns of your business operations. Such predictive intelligence helps deliver an enhanced user experience across multiple channels. Want to know what more Einstein can do? Here is a demo -

  5. Pre-designed Road map - Depending on your specific needs and requirements, Salesforce offers a pre-designed road map that can equip your business to chart a detailed course of revenue generation while ensuring that flaws, if any, are reduced to a bare minimum.These five features can also be thought of as the reasons why e-commerce is right.Apart from the aforementioned, this commerce cloud also offers a variety of exclusive features which help it stay one step ahead of the competition. These are:

Third party integration and in-store extension

  • Continuous engagement with marketing, sales, and community clouds

  • RESTful APIs with multi-site management

  • Opportunity tracking via site search

  • Responsive channel designs and endless commerce cloud aisle

  • Localization, customer segmentation, and AI-powered personalisation

  • File collaboration and marketing campaign designs

  • Promotion, pricing, catalog, and order management

  • A/B testing with real-time reports and payment options.

How Salesforce Commerce Cloud Simplifies The E-Commerce Journey

The unified e-commerce platform of Salesforce primarily works on a user-centric model which provides unparalleled freedom and flexibility to both, customers and businesses.By creating a streamlined & interactive experience, this commerce cloud offers benefits which are significantly better than any other off-the-shelf platform. It simplifies the e-commerce journey by:- Delivering strategic shopping experiences on all touch-points.- Reducing delays and disruptions throughout the commerce cycle.- Unifying digital commerce with inventories, pricing, products, and promotions.- Maximizing productivity by automated and centralized deliveries.- Offloading all IT operations to a scalable, reliable, and robust cloud.- Providing a huge wealth of reports and data to measure performance.- Enabling the management and sharing of content across different categories.- Working with multiple currencies and languages to expand the base.- Connecting customers to the right product, assortment, and price.- Providing cloud adoption and advisory services.In the longer run, Salesforce enables your business to increase the average order value, optimize conversion rates, drive brand loyalty, and reduce dependence on external technical support.

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Conclusion

The Salesforce commerce cloud can prove to be an extremely viable option for CIOs who are looking to make a competent e-commerce decision. Through this platform, the benefits of both, the B2B and B2C worlds can be reaped within a multi-tenant, integrated and cloud-based architecture.In a transforming retail environment, security and scalability are the primary instruments which can help deliver true value. With Salesforce's in-built intelligence and open innovation model, you don't just get to unleash the full potential of e-commerce - you also begin to taste lasting success!

Learn more

Please visit official Salesforce Commerce Cloud portal for all required and further reading:  https://www.salesforce.com/products/commerce-cloud/resources/what-is-ecommerce/

Abhinav Gupta

First Indian Salesforce MVP, rewarded Eight times in a row, has been blogging about Salesforce, Cloud, AI, & Web3 since 2011. Founded 1st Salesforce Dreamin event in India, called “Jaipur Dev Fest”. A seasoned speaker at Dreamforce, Dreamin events, & local meets. Author of many popular GitHub repos featured in official Salesforce blogs, newsletters, and books.

https://abhinav.fyi
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