How to connect Salesforce with E-commerce platforms (Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce)

In today’s digital economy, e-commerce companies are under more and more pressure to combine their customer data, orders, and product inventory across systems, especially between their storefront and CRM. Companies can streamline their operations, improve the customer experience, and make decisions based on data by connecting Salesforce to popular e-commerce sites like Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce.

In this post, we’ll explore:

1. Why should you use Salesforce with e-commerce
2. Why should you integrate Salesforce with e-commerce platforms
3. The main ways to connect Salesforce with e-commerce platforms
4. What Can Be Synchronized Between E-Commerce Platforms and Salesforce
5. Common challenges and best practices
6. A real-world use case
7. A brief conclusion and guidance

Salesforce’s Benefits for E-commerce

Salesforce gives online stores a single place to do all of their sales, service, and marketing work. Even though teams can work from the same system, they can still get real-time information from Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce. This speeds up how quickly customer service can respond and cuts down on the work that comes with switching between tools. Salesforce Research 2024 says that 73% of customers expect brands to know what they want and need. Putting commerce and CRM data in the same place helps meet this expectation more often.

Salesforce also lets you do advanced segmentation and automation to help your online store grow. When CRM has information about a customer’s purchase history, browsing habits, and engagement signals, marketing teams can make campaigns that are more relevant without having to guess. Salesforce Data Cloud or Marketing Cloud can also help businesses create personalized journeys that match each customer’s stage in life. According to McKinsey, businesses that tailor their interactions with customers see an average increase in sales of 10 to 15 percent. Integration makes sure that the information needed for these personalized experiences is always correct and current.

Why should you connect Salesforce to your e-commerce platform?

Before we talk about how to do it, let’s make sure we understand why you would want to connect Salesforce with Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce:

Unified customer profiles: When e-commerce orders go into Salesforce, teams can see everything about each customer, including their purchase history, how they browse, and how they interact with support.

Better management of orders and inventory: Keeping track of orders and stock levels in real time cuts down on mistakes, stops overselling, and speeds up fulfillment.

Smarter marketing: By combining CRM and commerce data, you can run personalized campaigns, segment customers based on purchase behavior, and build more effective automations.

Reliable reporting & analytics: Having commerce data in Salesforce enables consistent dashboards for sales, operations, and leadership.

Operational efficiency: Automation cuts down on the need for manual data entry, gives teams more time, and lowers the chance of making mistakes.

How to Connect Salesforce with Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce?

The way that integration works depends on the size of the business, the technical resources available, and the needs of the business. The most common ways to do this are:

Connectors and AppExchange Solutions that are already built

Shopify: There are a number of third-party connectors for Shopify, such as apps on the Salesforce AppExchange. These sync important things like orders, customers, products, and inventory.

Magento (Adobe Commerce): Magento-Salesforce connectors, like Mageplaza, let you automatically sync customer data, orders, your product catalog, and even catalog price rules.

BigCommerce: Middleware from integrators like DCKAP connects BigCommerce to Salesforce, keeping customers, orders, and inventory in sync.

This method has the following benefits: faster deployment, less development work, and ongoing support for updates.

Middleware Platforms / iPaaS

Using a middleware or integration platform (iPaaS) is a flexible way to connect data and business logic between different systems.

Middleware tools let you change fields, filter data, and set rules for how and when data syncs.

Middleware supports real-time triggers and scheduled syncs, as well as logging and custom data flows, for example with BigCommerce and Salesforce.

Middleware has many benefits, such as the ability to grow, use conditional logic, and connect more than two systems, like ERP and PIM, in the future.

Integration of a custom API

You can make a custom integration using the APIs from both platforms if your business has special needs. Use webhooks or REST APIs to send customer and order data from Shopify to Salesforce. You can sync customers, orders, products, and even campaigns with Magento 2’s APIs. BigCommerce also has APIs for orders, catalogs, and customers. You can add custom logic through middleware or directly.

With custom integration, you have the most freedom because you decide how to map data, change it, and what events start the sync. But it needs a lot of work to build and keep up.

Automation with little or no code (like Zapier)

You can use platforms like Zapier if you want a simpler, less technical answer.

Zapier lets you connect Magento and Salesforce. For instance, “New Order” in Magento can make or change records in Salesforce.

This is best for small to medium-sized businesses or for integrations that are just for testing.

The trade-off is that you have less control than with middleware or custom APIs, and there may be limits on volume or complexity.

What Can Be Synchronized Between Salesforce and E-Commerce Platforms?

Most e-commerce platforms give you structured data that works well with Salesforce objects. This includes important business information that helps with sales, service, and marketing. Salesforce Leads, Contacts, or Accounts usually have customer data, and Opportunities, Order objects, or custom objects usually have order data. The goal is to give each team a full and correct picture of how each customer got to where they are now.

Businesses often sync the following things: Customers. Information about the profile, such as addresses, preferences, and past purchases.

Orders. Details about the order, including items, totals, taxes, payment status, and fulfillment stages.

Different types of products. SKUs, features, prices, groups, and price lists for different areas.

Levels of stock. Stock updates from stores or warehouses that keep Salesforce up to date on what’s available right now.

Refunds and returns. Returned items, reasons for returning them, approval workflows, and the completion of refunds.

Information about shipping and tracking. Information about the carrier, tracking numbers, delivery status, and logistics updates.

Carts that were left behind. Items left in carts that can start marketing flows or service outreach.

Memberships and subscriptions. Dates for renewals, changes to plans, cancellations, and billing cycles.

Data from multiple stores. Separate catalogs, currencies, and store settings for each region where a business operates.

Key takeaways

Integrating Salesforce with e-commerce sites like Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce has clear benefits for both business and operations. The right integration strategy helps you:

• Keep your data clean and correct.
• Make the customer experience better
• Make order and inventory workflows automatic
• Get a better view of your business
• Scale without breaking up

If you’re looking into ways to connect Salesforce to other systems, start by mapping out your most important data flows, like customers, orders, and products, setting your priorities, and picking the integration method that works best with your technical skills and plans for growth.