A self-service Salesforce-powered B2B marketplace
Industry:
E-commerce and retail
Website:
ex-guard.com
Type of work:
Managed Software as a Service
Technology and Platforms:
Salesforce B2B Commerce
Ex-Guard is an independent U.S.-based manufacturer and distributor of high-quality patented aftermarket automotive grille guards and bumper protection systems that offer durability, strength, and ease of use. Ex-Guard sells its products through an extensive and ever-expanding dealer network spanning the U.S. and Canada.
Having established a stable share in a niche market, Ex-Guard aimed to solidify its position and streamline ordering, processing, and fulfillment. By switching to a self-service B2B marketplace, the brand planned to accomplish two major goals: Eliminate mundane tasks for its sales team, and create custom-tailored and smooth experiences for its buyers.
Background
- Ex-Guard needed its existing enterprise resource planning system, integrations, and other business-critical features to stay intact while reinforcing the storefront.
- With Salesforce CRM serving as the core of their business operations, adopting a Salesforce B2B e-commerce portal allowed data flow integrity within the same product ecosystem.
- The novelty was a challenge since Salesforce had just released its B2B commerce solution, and its performance and capabilities were yet to be explored by businesses and developers.
- Ex-Guard used a wholesale-specific and complex pricing structure with multi-level discount tiers assigned based on the order size.
- Ex-Guard needed automatic shipping fee calculation for different delivery methods and product combinations to remain flexible.
Results achieved
- By digitizing its B2B buying experience, Ex-Guard now provides its products in a way that enhances customer relationships
- Ex-Guard’s sales cycle has already shrunk dramatically, requiring 50 percent less effort to process an order.
- Thanks to automated operations like price generation and tax and shipping fee calculation, Ex-Guard has increased its sales at a lower management cost.
Business Challenges
- Introduce a variety of features that make the marketplace available to the international customers
- Sort out and digitalize the complicated sales and order fulfillment
- Reduce time and effort spent on manually processing orders
Featured-based Challenges
- Enable multi-tier pricing complexity for different order sizes
- Develop a system to apply variable postal fees for domestic and international delivery
- Offer customers a highly-personalized and smooth buying experience
“By adopting Salesforce B2B Commerce as our primary sales engine, we’re headed forward as a business at a faster pace. The marketplace’s feature flexibility has already proven to be effective and allowed us to optimize multiple internal processes and cater more precisely to our buyers’ needs. With a newer version of the MVP rolling out, we’re determined to expand our dealership network further with a better service offering.”
Ryan Holt, General Manager at Ex-Guard Industries
Solution features
- Utilizing their hands-on Salesforce B2B expertise and value-driven Agile approach, Forte Group’s cross-functional team focused their initial efforts on covering as many Ex-Guard requirements as possible with out-of-the-box features.
- To build a secure and reliable gateway connecting the Ex-Guard internal CRM and ERP to the storefront, Forte Group engineers implemented critical integrations related to pricing and fulfillment. The first viable MVP was delivered in under 60 days.
- By using integration with SYSPRO ERP, a managed package application for syncing invoice coding and invoice payment data, real-time order status updates and shipping details can now be displayed in customer accounts.
- Among the standard e-commerce features powered by Salesforce, Forte built a custom faceted search by year and model to match Ex-Guard’s industry standards.
- By using an integration with SYSPRO ERP, a managed package application for syncing invoice coding and invoice payment data, real-time order status updates and shipping details can now be displayed in customer accounts.
- Pricing now supports instant tax calculation for dealerships based in Canada.
Outcomes
Increased customer satisfaction fueled by a seamless user journey
The first viable MVP launched in 60 days
Sales staff time and resources spent on order placement cut by 50 percent
