Cloud ecosystems make it possible for enterprises to run massive operations within a unified platform if everything communicates correctly. When you outsource something, like fulfillment, in this case, you need to ensure success. That means finding a top 3PL for Demandware or other platforms you’re using.
This piece will look at the integrations and APIs involved with outsourcing your fulfillment. Plus, we’ll discuss what characteristics define a top 3PL for Demandware, Salesforce, and more. The bottom line is that you want a partner who will follow your lead and let your developers shine.
Demandware is now Salesforce Cloud Commerce
Many still use Demandware as the shorthand for their eCommerce platform. However, the solution has changed names a few times in recent years. Salesforce purchased Demandware in 2016 for $2.8 billion and has since rolled it into other Salesforce products. Today, former Demandware companies are running a version of Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
There are subsets and options for B2B Commerce, B2C Commerce, and a combination called B2B2C Commerce. B2B Commerce focuses on buyer behaviors. It simplifies utilizing CRMs to track and analyze all parts of the buying experience. B2C Commerce has much the same functionality but emphasizes mobile devices and intelligent personalization.
To simplify, we’ll group everything under Cloud Commerce. Next, we’ll discuss what makes someone a top 3PL for Demandware or Salesforce products. Thankfully, we’re operating in the world of SaaS capabilities. So, working together is all about integration, and our team can help your experts finalize and troubleshoot the integrations process. Red Stag is ready to be another tool in your developer’s toolbox to ensure fulfillment happens on time and accurately. Let’s dive into that a little more.
What makes someone a top 3PL for Demandware?
As we get started, it’s important to directly discuss what makes a company a top 3PL for Demandware and Salesforce companies. We believe that this comes down to offering reliable fulfillment and robust integration assistance for your development team. Red Stag guarantees our fulfillment performance and has extensive experience supporting integration plans with platforms like Salesforce. That way, you get the most out of the tools you need. We ensure the correct data is available and usable for order execution.
Integrating with Salesforce solutions
Red Stag Fulfillment partners can use Salesforce to run and manage substantial parts of their business. Because of its importance and complexity, we work with each company individually to ensure a proper eCommerce integration that collects and utilizes accurate, timely data.
Your team sets the plan and manages the platform while we work to support integration needs. Powerful systems like Salesforce make this relatively straightforward and help keep integrations from becoming a sticking point. We’ve created a free eBook on eCommerce integrations that you can get by clicking the image below.
The preference for API
Thankfully for Red Stag and Salesforce users, the Cloud Commerce platform supports robust API integrations. This allows us to connect with the platform easily and share product, fulfillment, order, and other data you need to run your operations. Your team configures Cloud Commerce to send and request necessary data for your records and for daily tasks, while we’ll test and verify that these calls are successful and working smoothly.
Salesforce has a robust API approach with existing pathways to simplify linking sales, order, and fulfillment data. However, the tools are powerful enough to allow for customization so you can run your business the way you think is best. Red Stag’s support services are here to help ensure that integrations are successful, so we take the heavy lifting of eCommerce fulfillment off your shoulders with minimal disruption.
Collaborating with your development team
Salesforce is a powerful enterprise system that enables you to combine many products and solutions into a single ecosystem. This means everything can work in concert with each other, supporting robust automation. It can be complex to create and manage this environment. So, most businesses running Salesforce tools will have in-house developers or contract out to people holding the Platform Developer I and II certifications.
There are even developer certifications specific to B2C Commerce and B2B Commerce. The Salesforce Trailblazer Community has a variety of resources for your developers. Documents like the B2C Commerce Infocenter highlight the many ways your developers can build out an ecosystem and where we can connect to keep fulfillment, order management, and warehousing operations running smoothly. At this stage, the top 3PL for Demandware and Cloud Commerce deployments is one that will work with your team instead of trying to take control of a development project.
Building a strong relationship
Let’s set the development side of things down for a moment and focus on your business more broadly. Running a Salesforce environment gives you access to a host of powerful tools. On the product and sales side, the Einstein suite has options to deliver product recommendations to individual shoppers, tailor category pages to each shopper, and will give you suggestions on product bundles and kits.
Cloud Commerce is designed to improve your sales capabilities and back up suggestions with data. Red Stag Fulfillment wants to be a useful partner when you start to make those business shifts. We encourage conversations around product changes, making new kits and combinations, and adjusting inventory levels to meet demand. Talking about these shifts makes it easy to plan and optimize the fulfillment approach, helping you succeed and scale.
A brief note on Commerce Cloud Order Management
We’re writing this in March 2022, so there’s a chance some of you reading this may still be using the Commerce Cloud Order Management (CCOM) product. This came from the Demandware purchase and was a core order management system for years. Salesforce is in the process of retiring CCOM and moving users over to Salesforce Order Management. CCOM will be fully retired by July 2022.
According to Salesforce and some of its existing customers, the migrations have been smooth. Integrations with third-party tools and companies like 3PLs have had few hiccups, and some have even seen the change resolve some long-standing frustrations with CCOM.
We encourage every company to reach out to your Salesforce rep for assistance. Contact us if you have concerns or wish to test migration and integration elements for your inventory and orders.
Setting high expectations for collaboration
Red Stag wants to be a top 3PL for Demandware or Salesforce users. We stay up to date on Salesforce and Commerce Cloud products while having honest conversations with developers to achieve that goal. We also work to live up to the standards that cloud systems set. You want “5 nines uptime” for Salesforce. We aim to deliver the same for our order accuracy and speed. Our service-level agreements guarantee that kind of success and provide a clear path to make you whole when things aren’t perfect.
If you’ve got questions about those promises or want more information on our integration capabilities and experience, it’s time to speak with a Red Stag expert. We look forward to learning more about your business and how we can make your fulfillment operations enjoyable.
