Tracking the movement of physical goods is crucial to any business, especially e-commerce ones, selling physical products. Understanding what is where, what’s been ordered, what’s been shipped - and identifying any issues across your supply chain is key to any company’s operations in today’s hyper-competitive world. As is increasingly demonstrated, even delivery ‘tomorrow’ can prove disappointing to ever demanding consumers.
For e-commerce businesses relying on Salesforce Commerce Cloud, that could often prove quite a challenge. Getting orders and generating business - check. But what about after that? How can you ensure your products are delivered on-time and in-full (OTIF)? As fast as you can acquire customers through your promotional, word-of-mouth and other efforts, inconsistent and subpar fulfillment and delivery can lose you customers even faster!
Powering Your Supply Chain with Salesforce Commerce Cloud
So as a Salesforce Commerce Cloud customer, how can you be confident that your supply chain can deliver Amazon Prime-like level performance and customer satisfaction? Simple, by bringing the power of cloud supply chain technology and logistics services to the Commerce Cloud ecosystem.
Previously, as a Salesforce Commerce Cloud user looking for a fulfillment solution, you had to invest time and energy to find a non-Salesforce product, and then try to integrate it to Commerce Cloud yourself. If you did find an integrated solution, you were often limited to just a few warehouses or freight carriers with little to no software tying them all together, let alone a cohesive picture of your supply chain in real-time.
Now, the new Stord Cloud Supply Chain app provides Commerce Cloud users the first and only cohesive storefront and omnichannel fulfillment solution backed by ready access to a comprehensive logistics network.
With this new integrated app, Salesforce Commerce Cloud users have ready access to a network of 1,000+ warehouses and 20,000+ transportation carriers - and cloud supply chain software to ensure it all works together seamlessly while providing both the visibility and scalability to grow your business.
This way, with the Stord Commerce Cloud app, all incoming customer orders can be easily fulfilled and tracked by combining the physical services needed for complete port-to-porch logistics with the integrated software to manage and optimize your supply chain operations.
The Pains of Integrating Your Own Supply Chain
As global supply chains have evolved, so have customers’ expectations for shipping times. Getting a product to a customer in a day or two can often make the difference in winning a sale or losing it to a competitor. However, meeting those SLAs is significantly more complicated than maintaining a single warehouse near your headquarters. It requires product staged throughout the country and a team that’s ready to respond to orders in real time.
Say you’ve found a network of 3PL companies to help hold and transport products to your customers instead of building out your own infrastructure. Managing that network of disparate third party warehousing and fulfillment partners can quickly become complex and operationally costly.
Historically only the largest companies have had the capital, time, and expertise to integrate their own supply chains. Without extreme scale and a large team dedicated to your supply chain, you may encounter inaccurate and untimely data in your e-commerce platform, preventing you from executing efficiently as well as effectively planning and forecasting. Ultimately your customers and, by extension, your sales, pay the price while you work through the supply chain learning curve.
Commerce Cloud + Cloud Supply Chain
Cloud supply chain services and technology can enable you to easily expand freight, fulfillment, delivery and operations on demand. Logistics software platforms like Stord’s can automate the flow of information directly between commerce platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud to a company's network of diverse fulfillment partners.
Where does Stord’s Commerce Cloud app fit in? Stord’s capabilities start where Commerce Cloud ends, providing a seamless connection between Commerce Cloud and various supply chain partners, such as third party warehouses, fulfillment centers and transportation carriers, while also providing access to Stord’s “Control Tower” software for centralized visibility and analytics.
The Stord Salesforce Commerce Cloud app seamlessly automates the flow of sales order data from Commerce Cloud to supply chain partners - and back again upon order shipment - so businesses can effortlessly manage and orchestrate their end-to-end supply chain.
Numerous customers rely on Stord to gain real-time visibility into their supply chains, reduce labor and time requirements for managing 3PL partners, complete inventory reconciliation processes and source fulfillment partners in new markets. The Stord Commerce Cloud app extends those same capabilities to Commerce Cloud users.
Use Case: From Garage to Global
To see how the Commerce Cloud integration has driven substantive benefits for Commerce Cloud customers, let’s play out the following scenario:
Say you’ve got a growing DTC business. Maybe it started in your garage and now you’ve got a small warehouse or network of warehouses. You know how expensive that infrastructure is. Now picture a world where your sales have grown 10x!
- How can you build out your supply chain infrastructure quickly enough to keep up?
- Do you view supply chain as your core competency or would you rather keep your focus on making your product as amazing as possible?
- Are you putting your customer satisfaction at risk?
With access to Stord’s network of 1,000+ warehouses and 20,000+ freight carriers throughout the U.S., your network can scale with you, without having to build physical infrastructure! Sales are up? No problem - just send us more inventory and we’ll take care of the rest!
Use Case: Protecting Your Business
Say you’ve already built an established business and maybe even a distribution network but you’ve been hit with delays in production. Your customers want your product but you cannot keep it in stock consistently in warehouses. You decide to keep 12 or 18 months of inventory instead of 6 but now you need way more warehousing space. Stord can provide an elastic network that scales with you without having to build and maintain infrastructure you may not need long term.
Delivering the Goods in Your E-commerce Business
Salesforce Commerce Cloud can be an important part of your e-commerce business strategy. How you reach and engage with customers (and as important, your future customers!) is a crucial part of your B2C and/or DTC business. But once you get them filling that shopping cart, if you can’t ‘deliver the goods’ – swiftly, accurately and cost effectively – you’re doomed to failure.
That’s where the importance of connecting your online storefront to an experienced logistics partner that can handle the product warehousing, order fulfillment, specialty packaging and parcel / last mile delivery needs comes in. As we’ve highlighted, the Stord cloud supply chain app ensures your customers orders flow seamlessly from their laptop to their front porch, without your worrying about it.
Want to learn more about how to connect and sync your Commerce Cloud storefront to the only fully integrated order fulfillment platform out there. Reach out today and we’d be happy to explore how we can accelerate your Salesforce-powered e-commerce operation.
