Salesforce Launches Next-Gen Commerce Cloud: Unifying Shopping Experiences with AI-Driven Agents
Salesforce has launched the latest version of its Commerce Cloud, bringing together different parts of commerce like B2C (business-to-consumer), DTC (direct-to-consumer), and B2B (business-to-business), along with order management and payments, all on one platform. This new system uses company-wide data and smart AI to help businesses run better. They introduced new virtual helpers called Agentforce agents: Merchant, Buyer, and Personal Shopper. These agents can handle various tasks like recommending products and checking orders on their own, without needing human help.
They utilize data from both online and in-store interactions, order histories, customer feedback, and more to help businesses work more efficiently and improve customer relationships while keeping privacy in mind. With many sales channels and data silos, businesses struggle to give customers the smooth experiences they want. By unifying all commerce systems and data, companies can use AI to personalize interactions, leading to higher customer loyalty and more sales. Research shows that adopting a unified approach could offer retailers a potential $1.5 trillion opportunity worldwide.
Commerce Cloud now connects all aspects of buying and selling—B2C, DTC, B2B, order management, and payments—with sales, service, and marketing. This integration provides a full view of the customer journey, allowing for personalized experiences across all touchpoints. The Agentforce agents support merchants and buyers by providing a more interactive shopping experience. They perform tasks using CRM data and other information while ensuring privacy and security. For more complex needs, they can smoothly connect users with human support.
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Simplifying Salesforce’s New Commerce Cloud: A Unified Shopping Experience
Powered by data, AI, and the Salesforce platform, Commerce Cloud helps brands anticipate customer needs and build faster, more seamless buying experiences at every customer touchpoint. Key new capabilities include:
- In-store Inventory Planning: Now generally available and powered by Data Cloud, this feature gives businesses real-time inventory data, insights, and precise predictions to manage stock levels, anticipate demand, and enables customer service reps to access product recommendations and add items directly to a customer’s cart during support interactions. Shoppers can also view accurate in-stock information by store location on the business’s website.
- For example, after noticing a spike in in-store demand for pickleball rackets during the first week of June, a sports equipment company can place a rush order for more rackets from the manufacturer. Meanwhile, shoppers browsing online can see exactly how many rackets are left in the store closest to their home.
- Seamless D2C Consumer Experiences: With new stylized templates, faster page loads, and optimized site components, both B2C and B2B commerce businesses can now build direct-to-consumer sites that are intuitive, responsive, and easy to buy from.
- For example, a medical device company that typically sells knee braces through distributors like doctors offices can set up a direct-to-patient site with the look, feel, and speed that consumers are used to in their day-to-day digital shopping experiences.
- Amazon “Buy with Prime”: With the Buy with Prime for Salesforce Commerce Cloud integration, commerce businesses can leverage the power of Amazon’s fulfillment network and the Prime brand to give customers access to fast, free, and reliable delivery, easy returns, and 24/7 live chat. Merchants can seamlessly integrate Buy with Prime into their existing storefronts while maintaining control over their stores’ shopper experience, as well as automatically sync with Salesforce Order Management to update orders, promotions, and catalog listings. Merchants have experienced a 16% increase in revenue per shopper, on average, when offering Buy with Prime.
- Enhanced Salesforce Checkout: Commerce companies can improve conversion and speed up transactions with one-click checkout, payments integrations, and native tax and shipping merchant services.
- Salesforce Payments expansion: An expanded partnership with Stripe and a new native integration with Adyen allow merchants to seamlessly connect and use their existing payments provider through a Bring Your Own Gateway (BYOG) model — companies will not need to recontract, switch providers, or build new integrations.
- Payment Methods expansion: In addition to pre-existing express checkout methods with PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, merchants can now offer Amazon Pay and Link — Stripe’s accelerated checkout — further increasing conversion rates for businesses.
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