How to Integrate Salesforce CPQ, Sales Cloud, Shopify, and Authorize.net

Oftentimes, organizations will require a variety of applications to meet the needs of their unique and yet ever-changing business processes. While operating in several different applications, with different processes, and different teams potentially operating in silos, they face the challenge of needing to have one platform as their single source of truth. This was no different for a recent client of ours, who we will refer to as Client X.

Background

Client X is a B2B and B2C retailer who was managing their sales using a project management tool to provide a CRM-type of functionality as well as Shopify to handle order fulfillment and live inventory tracking. This tech stack was limiting their potential and holding them back in terms of visibility into the holistic performance of their organization. With these two disjointed applications, there was no way for management to see the efficacy of their sales efforts nor see valuable qualitative data about the evolution of their company; they could only run reports on sales and essentially see Opportunity-like data. In the end, they were looking for a sleeker and strategic way ahead. They desired a scalable, customized tech solution that would ultimately allow them to improve operational efficiency and data transparency. As such, they needed to provision a custom CRM solution that could scale with their aforementioned needs and integrate seamlessly with Shopify to be able to provision and execute orders via Salesforce-centric data updates.

Engineering the Solution

First, we reverse-engineered the solution. We blew up the vantage point to make sure all the pieces will fit. It’s not just about the one use case that happens 50% of the time; we needed to take into consideration all scenarios like refunds, cancellations, multiple-Quote options for given Opportunities, and how these scenarios should manifest within Shopify. We needed to lean on our reverse engineering skills to be able to properly foresee how these data sets would look once successful and design the custom components within Salesforce and the Salesforce ↔ Shopify integration to achieve such. Being able to properly see the end, recognize what that target state looks like, then engineer the steps in order to guarantee success for the vast majority of use cases is what would lead to successful system launch. Given the fact that we were working with restrictions with four platforms: Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce CPQ, Shopify, and Authorize.net, we needed to understand those platform restrictions to be able to get as close to that state on day 0.

The Solution

Sales Cloud Optimization
Client X needed to establish a structured sales process within Salesforce to allow their B2B Sales team to receive Leads for various sources, qualify them, and convert them to an Account, Contact, and Opportunity with different record ownership based on account executive territories and specialties. The harnessing of Salesforce Sales Cloud’s Lead processing and qualification has enabled Client X to track the efficacy of their qualification conversions while making sure that the primary database remains clean and organized. In addition, RoyCon configured Sales Cloud to include automated reminders and calls for action via email alerts and Task creation, Opportunity sales processes to facilitate and track where each prospective deal is within the sales pipeline and properly setting up account executives to initiate Quote development via Salesforce CPQ.

CPQ Configuration & Enhancement
Once a prospective deal was ready to be quoted and sent to the prospect for evaluation, Client X needs a robust system for managing the ways in which those Quotes are generated, products are bundled, discounts are grouped by-quantity and applied, and Quote documents are generated and communicated to customers. For this need, we used Salesforce CPQ. This application provides the ability to evolve from the standard Salesforce Quoting tool and allows for much more sophisticated and powerful features when it comes to streamlining the process of building a Quote, controlling volume-based Product discounts, product bundling, and presenting a branded Quote documentation to the customer to evaluate the options that have been compiled for them.

CPQ was ultimately able to enhance their quoting power so they could provide more strategic structuring for volume discounts via Discount Tiers. This was a sales strategy which could not by dynamically applied within Shopify via standard means. Salesforce CPQ takes the guesswork out and allows account executives of Client X to quote volume-incentivized discounting to customers with confidence. For instance, if a customer requests 4 cases of a given SKU they will get a $10 discount per-case, but if they purchase 9 cases they get a $15 discount. Client X account executives would have to manually input this volume-based discounting in Shopify for each Draft Order they would develop. Salesforce CPQ guides and automatically applies that pricing for them. It also enables them to graduate customers to higher volume-based discounts when their demand for Client X products increases and begin purchasing products in a distributor capacity. Salesforce CPQ allows for more enhanced approvals and intelligent quoting based on data structures in the quote lines that are executed through CPQ. Ultimately, it provided them with an enhanced guided selling process where line-based pricing calculations were done dynamically and with confidence.

Payment Processing via Authorize.net
While you can process payments through Shopify, Client X requested the provisioning of an Authorize.net portal experience within Salesforce so that account executives could process customer payment and closeout Opportunities without having to leave the CRM. With the addition of a custom Authorize.net portal solution & payment UI, RoyCon developed functionality where Client X account executives can charge full amounts or partial payments against Opportunities and receive record-based receipts in Salesforce which capture pertinent Authorize.net transaction data, guaranteeing successful payment processing without having to change a browser tab.

Shopify Integration & Fulfillment
The Shopify e-commerce platform is Client X’s tool of choice to execute all sales for Client X. Client X has a third-party logistics (3PL) team that handles the fulfillment process, and they receive all order information solely through Shopify. B2B and B2C sales are handled separately, yet are processed within the same Shopify store. Client X’s B2C sales funnel has no correlation to their B2B channel and was appointed to be included within the CRM tech stack.

Via the custom development of a bi-directional integration between Shopify and Salesforce, RoyCon developed a sales-driven process flow with Client X to enable Salesforce Sales Cloud & CPQ to execute data advancements, which would ultimately translate into Shopify as the sales cycle proceeds. The creation of Shopify Draft Orders, Order Lines & Discounts, Shipping & Handling updates, and Order conversion is all initiated via successful completion of efforts within Salesforce by the Client X team. Shipping and fulfillment updates initiated by Client X’s 3PL would write back into Salesforce so that account executives are confidently kept abreast on the completion of a successful sale. Ultimately, the systems integration solution has enabled the Client X team to exist solely within Salesforce with confidence that their sales efforts are properly transitioned into the system of execution (Shopify) and fulfilled properly via their 3PL.

The Result

We delivered a sleeker and more integrated flow of data which changed the way Client X can engage and do business. Prior to launching this integrated CRM solution, their data insights were limited and disconnected between the systems they used to prospect and sell their wares. Shopify was limited in enabling account executives to track qualitative information on how they close their deals and the PM tool was effectively a Kanban board visualization that showed de-facto Opportunity stages. With Salesforce as the system of execution for Client X’s B2B Sales department, they have gained the granularity of a myriad of statuses, Activity tracking, Quote approvals and documentation generation, Opportunity Stage lifecycle tracking, native platform collaboration between team members, and a guided sales process enhanced by automation. This way, each member of the team has use of a platform which alleviates the heavy lifting for mission-critical yet repetitive elements of their sales due diligence so they can focus their efforts on executing quality sales transactions with a personalized touch for their customer base. In addition, at any point, any member of Client X’s management team can take a look at custom Salesforce-native analytics to quantify the successes of their team at-a-glance.

Next Steps

Now, Client X has the appropriate processes and integrations in place to produce data that truly shows the state of their business. They are able to leverage this data to see how successful they’ve been, how fruitful their efforts are in nurturing their business relationships, and how they can advance tying in their efforts to assist sales with lead generation, lead conversion, and continued outreach and engagement on product offerings. Their tech stack also empowers each employee to be set up for success within the role they are tasked with while solely requiring the utilization of Salesforce to achieve such. Time to engineer their way ahead into the next evolution of their CRM investment with Salesforce.

For more information on enhancing your tech stack, or integrating with Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce CPQ, Shopify, or Authorize.net, you can reach out to us here. We’re an Austin-based Salesforce Consulting partner, with a passion and belief that the Salesforce platform’s capabilities can help businesses run more efficiently and effectively. Thanks for stopping by the Roycon Salesforce blog, be sure to subscribe. Thanks for reading and as always, happy building!

About Shopify

Shopify is a complete commerce platform that lets you start, grow, and manage a business. With Shopify, you can:

• Create and customize an online store
• Sell in multiple places, including web, mobile, social media, online marketplaces, brick-and-mortar locations, and pop-up shops
• Manage products, inventory, payments, and shipping

Shopify is completely cloud-based and hosted, which means you don’t have to worry about upgrading or maintaining software or web servers. This gives you the flexibility to access and run your business from almost anywhere, including your mobile device.

About Authorize.net

Authorize.Net is a United States-based payment gateway service provider, allowing merchants to accept credit card and electronic check payments through their website and over an Internet Protocol connection. Founded in 1996, Authorize.Net is now a subsidiary of Visa Inc.