Digital commerce is here to stay. Utilizing the full economic potential of the online sphere, businesses are using online platforms to promote and sell their products and services to other companies and the general public. However, choosing the right platform can be a challenge.
In this article, we will explain why Salesforce is the right eCommerce cloud solution for your company, as well as the different benefits and features it offers to B2B and B2C business arrangements.
What is Salesforce?
To put it simply, Salesforce is a customer relationship management platform (CRM). This means it helps you understand who your audience is (through analytics), how they can reach you, how you can communicate with them, and how you can maximize conversions and deals you make.
Salesforce is the CRM global leader, and the numbers show it. In 2021, this company made $19.98 billion, an increase of almost 25% compared to the previous year. It has, by now, acquired 69 companies and employs 56.606 employees across the globe.
B2B or B2C
The best way to start thinking about these features and differences is by having a clear idea of your core objective. For example, if you’re a business-to-customer company, you want to get a ton of shoppers, and you want them to reach your website. Then, you want them to make a purchase.
In this instance, we are talking about a large number of visitors to an online store, tons of traffic, and potentially many smaller purchases, all happening at once. Salesforce B2C commerce cloud is there to help you with its scalability, its ability to handle high traffic and activity on a website.
This scalability can help you prepare for special holidays accompanied by intense traffic, like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving, etc. Instead of crashing and missing out on sales, the Salesforce platform will help you rise to the challenge.
On the other hand, business to business means having a small list of customers who make large purchases, either in actual volume or in terms of funds. So, you might be manufacturing a specific product that you then sell to other vendors, stores, and outlets.
Large orders need to be organized and set up properly. They need to take into account multiple legal and logistical issues. With Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud, you can do just that.
The Benefits of B2B and B2C Salesforce features
There are, of course, many features that overlap between B2B and B2C Salesforce options. While making the most of them means getting appropriate Salesforce Commerce Cloud development services, you don’t have to be a developer to understand their benefits.
Third-Party and Multi-Channel Support and Integrations
One of the best benefits of the Salesforce B2C platforms is that you can easily connect with third-party software and platforms and get specific integrations that make your life that much easier. So, things like integrating third-party systems for easier email, better tax and payment processing, all of which are made available with just a couple of clicks.
On the other hand, you should know that B2B third-party integrations also exist within the Salesforce platform. So, when you’re marketing and selling to your customers, you can connect Amazon, eBay, and third parties like those with your catalog and sell through them.
Your Audience, Your Analytics, and your Platform
Understanding your audience, i.e., your target demographic, is vital if you want to have an acceptable percentage of conversions. Similarly, you need to understand the businesses, the industry you market to as a B2B business, as much as a B2C company has to have an understanding of its potential customer base. So again, the tools are similar, but where you direct your focus differs.
An eCommerce model centering on B2B can rely on Salesforce. You need a scalable platform that can handle user permissions, test to production migrations, as well as robust and complex order management systems. Salesforce offers solutions to all of that, as well as tools that help with product entitlement, contract pricing, and a very powerful system that helps you keep a grip on your orders.
The B2C Salesforce system has you covered here as well. Since you’ll be dealing with exponentially more people when marketing to customers, you need an extensive database. This database needs to include a considerable amount of demographic information, age, gender, nationality of your potential customers.
Now, B2C Salesforce can help you gather this information, organize it properly, and sift through it better. It has advanced analytics, better security, user management, and all things needed to analyze your potential customers and make a sale. Furthermore, it has its own “Einstein AI” that allows for intuitive insights, predictive product sorting, and targeted product recommendations.
Payment systems
Another important way B2B and B2C businesses differ is in the payment options they offer. Here, too, can Salesforce help you.
So, in a B2C market environment, you want a streamlined and straightforward process that helps your customer get from point A (the product they want) to point B (actually making a purchase). It needs to be quick, easy and automated as much as possible. This is especially important because, unlike B2B systems, you will have to deal with many more orders at a single point in time.
Salesforce has things like simpler credit card processing, integrated subscription options, automated clearing house transactions, and many more features that help your customers buy something quickly and safely.
On the other hand, when it comes to B2B eCommerce, you deal with multiple corporate accounts. Each of these accounts, and the transactions surrounding them, need to include things like compliance, extra checks, extra security, etc. So B2B has you covered here as well.
Conclusion
And there you have it, folks, a quick overview of the differences between B2C and B2B systems when you use Salesforce. With high-quality differencing features and some minimal overlap, you can clearly see how useful this eCommerce platform is no matter what your business is looking for.
Author bio
Travis Dillard is a business consultant and an organizational psychologist based in Arlington, Texas. Passionate about marketing, social networks, and business in general. In his spare time, he writes a lot about new business strategies and digital marketing for FindDigitalAgency.
