Salesforce B2B Commerce: Understanding the Basics and Key Terms

What is Salesforce B2B Commerce?

The selling of products or services between businesses is known as business-to-business, or B2B, commerce. The Salesforce platform serves as the foundation for Salesforce B2B Commerce, formerly known as CloudCraze.

1. What is Store? (API: Webstore)

All of your commerce data, including as price books, categories, catalogs, and goods, are stored in stores. Experience Cloud sites are used by all B2B stores to present their products, organize buyer information, and handle purchases. To cater to various business sectors or geographical locations, you can open many stores.

• To make products available, group them into categories, link a catalog to those categories, and link a store to the catalog.

• Assign your customers to a buyer group and link that group to a store in order to grant them access to your business.

• Establish a standard pricing for your products or work out a specific price for particular customer groups. Price books might be directly linked to the store or linked to a particular buying group.

• Assign an entitlement policy to a buyer group in order to designate what products are accessible to them.

2. What is Buyer Account? (API: BuyerAccount)

A buyer account gives a contact purchasing access to a store. We need to enable account as buyer account. After that we can enable contacts related to the buyer account as buyers. 

By default purchases can be made by all the contact who are buyers and buyer manager, Buyer managers are also able to see the purchases and cart orders of buyers. 

A buyer may be allowed to make purchases using a different account. An account that is not the one for which the buyer is a contact is known as an external account. The buyer notices an option to Switch Accounts in the user profile menu when they shop at a B2B business. The buyer is presented with a list of the external accounts they may access when they choose the Switch Accounts option. The buyer has the option to choose an external account and make a purchase on that account's behalf.

3. What is Buyer Group?  (API: BuyerGroup)

Buyers who need access to the same store, the same products, the same prices, and the same entitlement policies are added to Buyer Group. In order to be added to a buyer group, the user must be a contact on a buyer account. 

Multiple buyer groups can be associated to the same store, and create specific products, prices, and entitlement policies for each buyer group

4. What is Catalog? (API: ProductCatalog)

Catalogs allow you to offer products in your store. A single catalog includes categories and subcategories (up to five levels). Only one catalog can be associated to a store. To view products, you must associate a catalog with the store. 

1. Stores with same products

2. Stores with different products

5. What are Categories? (API: ProductCategory)

Categories are a way to organize and group products, making it easier for customers to find what they're looking for in an online store.

Following can be achieved using categories:

- Product Organization

- Hierarchy: under the main category "Electronics," you might have subcategories like "Computers," "Mobile Phones," and "Accessories."

- Navigation: Customers can easily browse through the catalog by selecting categories and subcategories, which helps them find products more quickly and efficiently.

- Search and Filters

- Catalog Management: Managing categories involves creating, editing, and organizing categories within the catalog.

- SEO: Creating clear and relevant paths for search engines to crawl, which can help in driving organic traffic to the online store.

- Personalization

6. What are Entitlement Policy? (API: CommerceEntitlementPolicy)

Entitlement policies define which products a buyer can see based on their buyer group memberships. Includes CanViewPrice and CanViewProduct fields, which are customizable.

7. What is Pricebook? 

Price books keep track of the prices your shop charges for its products. Make a unique product selection, including the list pricing for each item, and designate it to particular stores or buyer groups.

There are 4 type pricebook avaliable for b2b:

i. Standard pricing book (API: PriceBook2): All of your items are included in this worldwide standard price book. It has nothing to do with a store or buyer's group. Before a product can be included in another price book, it must first be listed in the standard price book.

ii. Store price book (API: WebStorePricebook): Store price books are linked to a particular store and provide standard prices that are valid for all buyers.

iii. Buyer group price book (API: BuyerGroupPricebook): Buyer group price books have prices that apply to a specific buyer group.

vi. Price books for original price: These pricing books display a product's initial cost. To signify that a new price is being given, the price is scratched out. The striking out price is not included in computations; it is used just for show.

8. What is Pricebook Entry?

A product that has a price stated in a price book is called a price book entry. Every price book entry indicates the price's currency.

9. What are Price Adjustment Schedules?

For your buyers, establish a tiered pricing system using price adjustment schedules. Discounts are provided depending on volume under tiered pricing. Prices decrease as a consumer purchases more of a particular product type.

For instance, you would want to lower the price by 10% for orders exceeding 10 products of same kind and by 15% for exceeding 100 products of same kind.

10. What is Search Indexing?

After upgrading the store, the store administrator performs the process of search indexing. These modifications take effect when searches are indexed. Certain modifications you make to your store take time to show up in the store; this is known as indexing.

11. Pricing Strategy in B2B Commerce?

In b2b commerce, there are two types of pricing strategies: priority price and best price.

Due to links to different buyer groups, a buyer account may be linked to multiple pricebooks simultaneously. How then do b2b pricing decisions take place?

To force B2B to choose the price, the admin may select one of the pricing strategies.

 
Best Price: designates the lowest price found in each given price book.
Priority Price: assigns prices in the order you prioritize price books within a buyer group.

12. Who can access cart?

The cart is visible to those buyer who are entitled to access it. Buyer with read access can create, clear, and delete cart and also can create, edit, and delete cart items. 

Any currency changes made to the buyer's account will not reflect on existing cart items.