Salesforce Announces New Commerce Cloud Solutions to Propel Businesses into the Digital-First Economy

Today, Salesforce is announcing the availability of new Quick Start Commerce Solutions designed to arm B2C and B2B businesses with the ability to start selling online fast, go direct to consumer (D2C) and scale during unexpected surges in demand.

The world has transitioned to a digital-first economy, and online has become the lifeline for many businesses. According to Salesforce’s Q1 Shopping Index, in April 2020, digital traffic grew 45% year over year, which was driven by a 51% spike in mobile activity and a 50% increase in desktop traffic. Sites offering buy online, pickup in store (BOPIS) — via curbside, car, drive through, or store pickup — grew digital revenue by 27% in Q1 year over year, compared with 13% for those not offering BOPIS.

Demand for direct to consumer, curbside pickup, delivery and subscription offerings are accelerating dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, and these offerings will remain significant in the customer’s experience throughout the current crisis, into the reopening phase and beyond. However, finding success in the digital-first economy takes more than just setting up an online storefront. That storefront needs to have the speed, intelligence, flexibility and scalability required to help companies quickly grow and evolve to stay relevant with customers across channels.

To help our customers address these challenges, we created four new solutions, which include:

Quick Start Commerce for D2C Consumer and Essential Goods accelerates the path to purchase for consumer and essential goods businesses with little or no existing ecommerce by getting their new sites up live, fast. The solution includes digital commerce and order management capabilities, as well as pre-built payments, tax and shipping services integrations.

Quick Start Commerce for Grocery and Food Service enables businesses like grocery, food service and quick serve restaurants to go from “clicks to curb” by building new commerce sites fast, and allowing customers to buy online and pick up curbside. Businesses can leverage digital commerce, payments and tax integrations, order management capabilities and a simple picking and packing app for store associates to fulfill orders using in-store inventory, like how an Instacart shopper with a customer’s online order walks down aisles to pick items to pack in a box.

Quick Start Commerce for B2B helps businesses quickly launch B2B commerce storefronts that empower buyers to easily find and order items, and unlock new revenue channels with simple reordering which allows buyers to reorder items in just a few clicks. Buyers’ journeys are streamlined with AI-powered product recommendations, self-service options like FAQ pages and online communities, live chat and more.

Quick Start Commerce for Buy Online and Curbside Pickup is a complete curbside solution that helps brands to quickly move products from in-store inventories online and sell more to customers. By leveraging unified order lifecycle management capabilities from Order Management System, rich tailored customer experiences built on Commerce Portals, and payments integrations, businesses can enable convenient, safe online ordering, low- and no-contact pickup and notify customers with precise pickup times.

Everything Has Changed – The New Reality for Commerce

Although times are changing quickly, it’s inspiring to see how our Trailblazers are already evolving to embrace this shift and transform how they’re engaging with customers and growing their business. When the COVID-19 crisis started, e.l.f. Cosmetics quickly amplified their presence on social channels to connect and engage with their customers. They also launched the e.l.f. Cares page on elfcosmetics.com as a COVID-19 resource for their audience to stay safe and inspired during this time. Since then, e.l.f. Cosmetics has seen double digit growth in their online business and double the conversion through their e.l.f. Cares page.

Poppin, a one-stop solution for workspace furniture, launched a Work From Home program in response to the COVID-19 crisis, partnering with companies to offer employees discounts to set up their home offices and created customized sites for these companies as quickly as three days. Poppin experienced a 48% increase in conversions and a 25% increase in transactions in the month of April after shifting their selling strategies to digital.

Get Online and Scale Fast with Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Quick Start Commerce Solutions offer a complete pre-configured platform that’s built around the customer, which makes it fast and easy for any business to create digital shopping experiences that they can scale globally and across every channel. All of this is powered by Salesforce Commerce Cloud, which means that businesses will have embedded AI capabilities, a 360 degree view of every customer, the Salesforce partner ecosystem and more at their fingertips to meet and exceed customer expectations online, on mobile, at the curbside, and beyond. Businesses will also get a dedicated team of trusted experts and digital advisors to help manage their digital storefronts including site setup, administration, and integrations so that business owners can focus on customer strategies and revenue growth.

More Information:

Learn more about Quick Start Commerce Solutions here
Check out the Q1 Shopping Index here
For more information about Commerce Cloud, click here
Follow @CommerceCloud on Twitter

Q1 Shopping Index Methodology:

The Salesforce Q1 Shopping Index, powered by Commerce Cloud, uncovers the true shopping story through analyzing the activity of more than one billion shoppers across more than 34 countries, with a focus on key 10 markets: U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Japan, Netherlands, Australia/New Zealand, and the Nordics. This battery of benchmarks provides a deep look into the last nine quarters and the current state of digital commerce. Several factors are applied to extrapolate actuals for the broader retail industry and these results are not indicative of Salesforce performance.