FedEx and Salesforce are joining forces on a multi-year partnership integrating Salesforce Commerce Cloud and its order management system with FedEx and its ShopRunner subsidiary, in a bid to offer a front-to-back ecommerce and supply chain and fulfillment solution for retailers.
The joint solutions, meant to address consumers’ rising expectations coupled with supply chain complexity and costs, will be available in the spring of 2022, the companies said. A number of shared customers have signed on, including major U.S. retailers.
Among other things, the combination will tie together Salesforce’s inventory visibility and OMS capabilities with FedEx’s intelligent optimization technology to let shippers logically rank inventory locations that are eligible for two-day shipping while optimizing cost.
Also, FedEx shipping labels can be automatically generated in Salesforce’s OMS, providing automated tracking updates when an item ships. An automated workflow flags shipping delay alerts so service agents can work proactively to resolve the issue.
“The ecommerce market is under more pressure than ever to deliver on rising customer expectations,” said Claude Russ, COO of FedEx Dataworks and CEO of ShopRunner. “In fact, 83% of customers expect fast and flexible shipping, according to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report. Especially over this past year, we’ve all seen how the supply chain has really been upended, so this partnership could not have come at a better time.”
Russ said the two companies are focused on developing joint solutions to make the ecommerce experience more agile and collaborative for brands, merchants and consumers.
“It will help deliver independence so these companies can operate and maintain all ends of their business without relying on multiple third parties,” he said.
Merchants using Salesforce Commerce Cloud will gain access to millions of shoppers on the ShopRunner platform, as well as access to tools to optimize transportation and fulfillment and add supply chain intelligence.