3 Tips for Choosing an Accelerator for Salesforce B2C Commerce

A recession is a testing time for any business. With the global economy shrinking, competition for customers increasing, and costs rising in almost every industry, companies have no choice but to get leaner and more efficient. Fortunately, for companies looking to double down on e-commerce to weather the storm, a B2C Commerce Accelerator can quicken the time to value for those coming onto Salesforce Commerce Cloud B2C for the first time or upgrading to the latest offering.

A key piece to any strategy for getting ahead of a looming recession curve can be to recession-proof your e-commerce brand now. There’s no time like the present for taking stock of where you stand, developing a plan that prioritizes effective sales tools, and curates the right features for your end consumer. This not only safeguards against the risks that come with a recession but prepares e-commerce brands to seize unique opportunities that emerge during an economic downturn. In such challenging times, a B2C Commerce Accelerator can help you enhance your digital flagship store, while capitalizing on areas where you can reduce expenses without sacrificing the desired experience.

To get started, here are three tips for choosing an accelerator for your B2C commerce company that will help cut costs and alleviate pressure to the bottom line, while setting your company up for long term success.

Salesforce Storefront Reference Architecture (SFRA)

Salesforce introduced SFRA back in 2018 as a reference architecture that combines industry best practices with native commerce functionality in a web storefront that serves as a foundation for a Salesforce Commerce Cloud site. SFRA works as a starting point for ecommerce brands to get selling faster with less code needed.

As more ecommerce brands launched on SFRA, the need for speed and flexibility became apparent. Brands were searching for products that would meet the demand for nimble business solutions with easily adaptable integrations and meaningful and creative content options.

Welcome Accelerators

System integrators created accelerators to get ecommerce brands launched on SFRA faster and with less coding. SIs took their extensive knowledge of the Salesforce B2C Commerce platform to build turn-key solutions for companies looking to get their site up and running with time, budget, and flexibility in mind.

But as with all solutions, not all accelerators are created equally. Here are three tips to make sure you are investing in the best accelerator for your brand’s specific needs.

Three Tips for Choosing a B2C Commerce Accelerator

1. Research Cost

Accelerators promise a cost-effective solution to launching SFRA, but often enterprise brands need more than a budget-friendly solution with prepackaged integration partners. Swapping third-party integrations and changing out custom add-ons can begin to swell the cost of these accelerators by adding back the assumed time and effort saved on discovery and back end development. Be sure to evaluate the needs (and wants) of your new site against what a particular accelerator might offer to ensure that the baseline solutions are what your brand is looking for. If you have additional (or different) component and integration needs, do your homework to see how this will impact your bottom line.

2. Versatility is Key

Brands need the ability to maintain and update their storefront day to day without the heavy involvement of development. The resulting codebase and experience produced by your chosen accelerator needs to be all things: flexible, fast, and easily maintainable to grow and scale with your business. Choosing an accelerator that departs from Salesforce’s “clicks not code” philosophy can limit a brand’s ability to pivot with market demands and shopper expectations each day.

3. Beware of COTS

B2C Commerce Accelerators are a part of commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) solutions. The development of these products should closely follow Salesforce Developer Best Practices whereby a Certified Salesforce Developer should be able to dive into the code base on Day 1. Proprietary DevOps practices built into an Accelerator can hinder the ability for certified Salesforce developers to understand the new codebase. Without a working knowledge of your ecommerce site development, it’s impossible for your team to advocate for upgrades and custom features believed to enhance your brand’s unique story.

Bringing it all together

There is no black box solution or one-size fits all software that will create that personalized customer experience that shoppers value. It’s imperative that brands implement an accelerator that can achieve their desired ecommerce goals while adhering to budget, Salesforce philosophy, and developer best practices. 

Building on the Salesforce Foundation

Here at RafterOne, we’ve leveraged 25 years of ecommerce experience to create a B2C Commerce accelerator that goes beyond launching your site quickly. RafterOne Propel has been engineered with a focus on flexible architecture and Day 1 capability for ecommerce success on Salesforce B2C Commerce. Propel readies the SFRA storefront across accessibility, extendibility, and reliability for the unique experience you’d like to curate for your customer.

Ecommerce on Salesforce. It’s what we do. And we do it well. Let’s connect.