17 Nov 2021
Technology
Marketing
3
min read
Peter Lambrou
,
Sitecore Optimisation Consultant MVP Strategist
It's the building block of your ecommerce website.
Part of the Sitecore Composable DXP, OrderCloud is a marketplace and ecommerce platform that allows you to design your own commerce solution with infinite customisations that will suit your business, your strategy and your customers’ needs.
Using Sitecore OrderCloud gives your business a robust platform for developing custom online commerce solutions.
Sitecore OrderCloud topology
The topology comprises four key elements connected by Restful API. Each element has corresponding features designed to deliver the ultimate online store:
Customer Experience
Mobile optimised experiences
Create custom buyer and seller user interfaces
Implement workflows and applications
Create roles and organisations
Developer tools
Interactive console
Variety of SDKs and starter packs
Extensible data model
Webhooks
Integration services
Ecommerce features
Product catalogue management
Buyer/Seller/Supplier order management
Promotions, pricing and payments
Line item level shipping
Cloud infrastructure
Multi-tenant capabilities
Robust security
24/7 monitoring
Storage and backups
Automatic monitoring
How could OrderCloud benefit your ecommerce store?
Moulding your ecommerce store around OrderCloud gives you immense flexibility by simply choosing the desired features around your business needs. You can tailor your store by:
Defining your marketplace
Personalising the shopping experience
Marketing automation
Defining your marketplace
Choosing the type of marketplace your business operates in is essential. Sitecore OrderCloud allows you to define your marketplace around your business needs.
Whatever your online store specialises in, OrderCloud has the capabilities and flexibility to mirror your organisational set up.
Define sellers, buyers, users, suppliers and product catalogue
Set-up complex buyer and user groups
Configure extensible model for business segmentation
Implement anonymous shopping or secure-behind-a-login
Mirror sales and CRM processes
Target different user personas by defining custom properties
Support customer service with impersonation
Apply tiered approval rules
Implement workflows
Personalising the shopping experience
To support different marketplaces, OrderCloud manages products, pricing, and catalog taxonomy. This means you have the flexibility to manage one master set of products, unique catalogs with varying pricing, or even offer a single product catalogue with a base price to all your customers.
Segment your multi-supplier catalogs
Create faceted keyword search
Improve product visibility for buyer and buyer groups
Configure personalised promotions
Manage your product variants and specifications
Customise rules on pricing
Apply quantity based price breaks for bulk purchases
Marketing automation
With multiple extension points Sitecore OrderCloud enables you to configure a variety of automation experiences. Whether B2B. B2C or B2X, you have the flexibility to nurture your prospects and customers with any number of fulfillment models.
Supplier order management
Various order types (e.g. quote, CPQ)
Advanced payment methods
Email notifications
OMS integration
Omnichannel connections
Connecting to third party systems like CRM and CDP for instance is a vital aspect to managing your online shop and having a smooth running operation. Sitecore OrderCloud allows you to do this with its great integration capabilities.
As an API-first, headless platform OrderCloud enables you to build and connect a multitude of experiences from buyer and supplier.
Delivering seamless integration improves the user experience not only for your customers, but also your internal teams that manage nurturing, product catalogues and more.
What about developers?
Let's not forget the importance of development expertise in getting your online store up and running. OrderCloud is great for development teams because it's API-first and language agnostic. That means developers can access domains via an Open API specification by:
Using Sitecore Software Development Kits (SDKs)
Generating client-side SDKs
Being API-first and language agnostic also means that your development team can really focus on adding and building value, which could potentially reduce the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).
Developers can delegate your business’s own services or integrate with other external systems. There's also a developer portal that allows development teams to test APIs.
How OrderCloud can benefit your business
Because Sitecore OrderCloud is a unique composable platform you have greater flexibility to create an online store that truly reflects your business model.
You’ll be able to tailor every aspect of the buyer journey so that you never miss an opportunity. Plus, with its immense integration capabilities you can seamlessly connect with any third party system you already have in place.
Overview of business benefits
Create your own marketplace for B2B, B2C, B2XCreate custom user interfaces
Apply workflows and assign roles
Have a robust cloud infrastructure with improved security
Better product inventory capabilities
Deliver a personalised shopping experience to your audience
Reduce your TCO
Seamless integration with third party systems
Potential reduction in development time
Working with Codehouse
Codehouse is one of the most experienced Sitecore partners in the world. For the past 15 years we’ve been delivering Sitecore websites to many customers across a variety of industries.
We’re looking forward to working with the Sitecore Composable DXP and to also continue helping our customers achieve their digital goals.
If you want to find out more about how Sitecore OrderCloud can be part of your digital transformation project, get in touch.