Innovative and feature rich B2B eCommerce solution furthers Candela's legacy of legendary customer service
Background
Candela is the leading mid-market distributor of lighting products and accessories, providing a catalog of lamps, ballasts and sockets to the electrical distribution, specialty lighting and Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) industries. As a privately owned, mid-sized organization, Candela needed a commerce platform that could easily scale and meet evolving customer demands without significant developer and IT support.
Engagement
Having set the standards for the best customer service in their industry, Candela recognized their Commerce customers’ buying habits were changing and migrating to online purchasing. Candela turned to Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud (CloudCraze) and XCentium to create a mid-market eCommerce solution that would offer their customers the option to use a 24/7 self-service store, or to continue with traditional purchase methods.
Impact
Commerce relationships are complex, interconnected and entwined with multiple systems. Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud (CloudCraze) is to work efficiently within this reality. Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud has an API-first, microservices oriented architecture that supports front-office and back-office needs. This flexibility empowered the XCentium team to create a feature rich commerce solution for Candela. Some of the most notable impacts of this project include:
Complete UI/UX Redesign
- Competitive analysis for industry best practices
- Designed a clean look and feel with Candela branding
- Responsive design, mobile, tablet, desktop
- Optimized product drill down
- Streamlined checkout process
- Optimized usability for Product Detail
- Created flow for saving/editing multiple carts
Pricing and Catalog Management
- Guest users can browse catalog without setting up account
- Doesn't show pricing for guest user
- Eliminates guest checkout, enabling Candela to grow retailer and Salesforce database
- Multiple customer pricing based on volume of account
- Logged-in users can request a quote. Quotes are integrated with FinancialForce ERP and allow Candela CSR team to offer custom pricing/volume discount to existing customers.
- Quotes created in FinancialForce ERP for email/phone orders can be viewed and checked out on the website as well
Multiple Commerce Models in a Single Platform
Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud supports multiple commerce models in a single platform, which was important to Candela as they serve both B2B Distributors and B2C Resellers. Their new Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud solutions enabled XCentium to create a registration workflow, allowing a Candela CSR to review and approve customers based on registration requirements.
Inventory and Order Management
The XCentium team worked with the Candela team to integrate Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud with FinancialForce ERP to provide customers 360-degree view of their interactions with Candela:
- Product inventory and availability is shown on product detail page and cart
- Product with backorders have general availability and can be ordered
- Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud orders are submitted as Sales Orders in FinancialForce
- FinancialForce order statuses are updated in Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud so customers can track progress of their orders
- Order shipments, invoices are also available on the web
- Custom Return merchandise authorization (RMA) allows customers to initiate line-item level RMAs and then track status of their RMAs as well.
New Login Features
New login features customer dashboard which shows:
- Multiple carts
- Quotes from previously unpurchased merchandise
- The ability to start a new order
Customized Site Search
Customers can now search:
- Their own order history
- Their entire company order history by order number, date or status of order
Promotions
Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud helps make marketers make their online promotions easy by including:
- Editable landing pages
- Banners and images
- Customer based discounted pricing
- Standard promotions like BOGO, Cart Discount, etc.
Checkout Process
XCentium and the Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud team collaborated together to create a custom checkout process to automate Candela’s existing workflow process, including:
- Standard checkout – Customer can use either a Purchase Order or Credit Card
- Custom checkout - Only shows customer Credit Card purchase options for customers not utilizing the purchase order process
Shipping
The solution uses Fedex shipping and provides flat shipping rates based on total cart value and shipping service desired - Ground, 2nd Day, Overnight and On Customer’s Account.
Integrated Commerce Solution
The solution integrates with multiple 3rd Party Services to provide a seamless commerce and customer management experience
- Chargent/ Authorize.net Payment
- Avalara Tax
- FedEx Shipping
- Financial Force ERP
- Salesforce
- Live Agent Chat
For more information on Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud (CloudCraze) Services,
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“XCentium and Salesforce provided the B2B eCommerce platform and digital expertise Candela needed to offer a seamless online experience to our existing and new customers. We needed a robust yet flexible digital commerce solution to support our extensive business and marketing initiatives as well as our expansion strategies and this new platform provides us the capability to do that and more. XCentium and Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud have been terrific partners in this journey working with us as a single integrated team to make amazing things happen.“
Kathy Gerwin, Vice President of Information Technology, Candela Corporation
“As brands such as Candela continue to embrace digital commerce, they require an eCommerce solution that is flexible and can be quickly deployed and adapted to specific customer needs. It has been a great pleasure to work with the Candela team and see the site go-live. This launch strengthens XCentium’s position as a leader in the digital and connected B2B and B2C commerce space”.
Amrit Raj, Managing Partner, XCentium