Salesforce Commerce Cloud Developers have the opportunity to work on exciting eCommerce sites for some of the world’s leading brands. The more senior the role, the more aspects you will be involved in. Beyond designing, coding, testing and reviewing eCommerce sites, you will be working with multiple stakeholders – both internal users, and also with external users (i.e. customers) in mind.
We asked Gaurav Kheterpal, Commerce Cloud expert, to demystify the skills required between B2C and B2B Commerce Cloud. Let’s have a look at the differences.
B2C vs. B2B
Due to the differences between Salesforce B2C and B2B Commerce Cloud, it’s likely that you will be specialized in one or the other:
- Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud (formerly Demandware)
- Salesforce B2B Commerce Cloud (formerly CloudCraze).
Having said this, the skills between Salesforce B2C and B2B Commerce are transferable. The concepts which are common across B2B and B2C (e.g. price books, inventory, products, catalogs, and several others), will definitely help people get a broader understanding of the commerce domain. It’s just that how these are configured along with the overall store that is different in each variation.
This guide focuses on Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud skills. B2C Commerce is more common compared to B2B:
“Especially if we look at the broader world of eCommerce and consider players like Magento, Shopify, etc. However, if you talk about the enterprise space, B2B is obviously a huge domain. Currently, these are 2 very different products (SKUs) that Salesforce sells. As the tech stacks are different, there’s definitely some learning curve moving from B2C to B2B, or vice-versa.”
Gaurav Kheterpal, Commerce expert, 7x Salesforce MVP, MuleSoft Mentor
Another term you might hear is D2C, which is a mixture of B2B and B2C:
“What’s also interesting is that Salesforce is actually coming up with a D2C offering (earlier called as B2B2C) which combines both B2B & B2C capabilities. It leverages the new LWR templates and is expected to be GA this year – the overall idea is to serve customers who have B2B and some B2C requirements. It’s a win-win for developers as they can get to learn the best of both worlds.”
Gaurav Kheterpal, Commerce expert, 7x Salesforce MVP, MuleSoft Mentor
Commerce Cloud Developer Skills
- Backend development with Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud.
- Frontend development, i.e. HTML5, CSS, Bootstrap, jQuery.
- Salesforce Page Designer.
- NodeJS framework, JavaScript.
- Headless Commerce, and PWA (Progressive Web Apps).
- Salesforce Reference Architecture.
- Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud Business Manager interface.
- APIs (SOAP/REST) including designing, developing, and consuming Salesforce APIs (REST, SOAP, Bulk, Streaming).
- Commerce processes including returns, adjustments, replacements, payment capture, fulfillment, inventory management.
- (Possibly) experience working with a particular project management methodology, e.g. agile.
Commerce Cloud Developer Responsibilities
In my experience, developers need to implement the design but the actual design is done by architects.
Beyond coding, testing, and reviewing eCommerce sites, the more senior your developer role, the more likely it will involve ‘ownership’ of the commerce solution, considering its longevity for the organization.
- Discover business needs and translate those into the site architecture, and design user-friendly solutions for both customers and internal users (capabilities, components, features).
- Work with both creative design stakeholders and technical stakeholders, which could involve serving sub-brands.
- Consider the long-term business needs and design with scalability/flexibility in mind to cater to evolving objectives over time.
- Inspire quality, stability, and continuous improvement in all that you do, such as data validation and system performance.
- Keep up to date with Salesforce releases – not only in terms of Commerce Cloud, but also an awareness of what is changing on the Salesforce platform as a whole.
- Keep up to date with eCommerce trends, their benefits and limitations, such as composable vs headless.
Expanding on the Commerce Cloud Developer/Architect split, here’s an example that Gaurav shared:
“For example, with B2C Commerce, an Architect would define what custom cartridges would be built, and the developer would be responsible for building those out. Similarly, with B2B Commerce, the architect would propose what can be done in the Experience Builder using low-code vs. what would require building out custom LWC components.”
Gaurav Kheterpal, Commerce expert, 7x Salesforce MVP, MuleSoft Mentor
Salesforce Commerce Cloud Developer: A Good Career Move?
There certainly is a lot of potential in becoming a Salesforce Commerce Cloud Developer, especially as the eCommerce industry continues to adapt and evolve. Gaurav summarizes this quite nicely:
“The adoption of Salesforce eCommerce solutions is gaining momentum and the demand for B2B Commerce and B2C Commerce skills will rise significantly in 2023 and beyond.
I expect many high-paying developer and architect jobs for those skilled in B2B or B2C Commerce. With well-defined learning paths, I strongly recommend learners to focus on this domain and be a part of the next wave of eCommerce powered by Salesforce.”
Gaurav Kheterpal, Commerce expert, 7x Salesforce MVP, MuleSoft Mentor