Shopware Enterprise - the Ins and Outs of the New Offer

Shopware Enterprise is one of the batch versions of the Shopware framework created specifically for sites with high traffic and/or a high volume of posted goods. It is an open-source e-commerce platform popular mainly in English-speaking countries powered by Symfony and Vue.js. Shopware Enterprise is now offered as part of the latest version of Shopware 6, whose predecessor, Shopware 5, has been downloaded over 800,000 times.

Image source: docs.enterprise.shopware.com

All Shopware 6 tariff plans boast an API-First approach, which means that your store can easily be integrated not only with proprietary plugins but also with almost all available third-party software solutions. Let’s discuss the technical aspects of Shopware Enterprise in more detail, as well as outline the benefits of this solution.

Shopware 6: Major Upgrades

In February 2020, Shopware 5 was successfully updated to Shopware 6. Compared to the previous version, the new one has gained some significant advantages, including

• Full compatibility with third-party solutions.
• Extended admin panel.
• Updated SEO tools.
• Simpler content filling.
• More business expansion capabilities.
• Extra assistance in finding new sales channels.
• International market introduction opportunities.

As for one of the main Shopware 6 tariff plans - Shopware 6 Enterprise, there are certainly advantages and features that should be discussed separately.

Shopware Editions

Before we dive deeper into the benefits of using Shopware Enterprise, let’s briefly describe all the Shopware editions. Shopware has come up with some editions; they are mentioned below:

The Community Edition

The Community Edition is specially created for novice store owners. This section is open source and includes plugin extensions, product streams, a community forum for support, and customer streams.

The Enterprise Edition

The Enterprise Edition offers a collection of scalable features for online businesses. This category includes developer support, 24/7 customer service, B2B suite, dealer integration, exclusive access to enterprise portal, and client management.

The Professional Edition

The professional edition targets those customers who are looking for an all-inclusive manufacturer support system. This edition includes the shopping world presets, manufacturer support, warranty, product streams, Shopware ERP, storytelling feature, digital publishing, and customer streams.

The Professional Plus Edition

The professional plus edition opens up new possibilities for business. This section offers premium plugins, product streams, shopping world presets, customer streams, plugin extensions, warranty, digital publishing, storytelling feature, and manufacturer support.

The Main Benefits of Shopware 6 Enterprise

As we noted, the updated version of the engine is usually used for stores with a large number of products and/or for stores with intense traffic. By the way, many developers point out the similarities of Shopware Enterprise features with a similar tariff plan from Magento. We agree with this. Let us point out, however, that solutions based on Shopware are much cheaper for customers.

Image source: www.shopworks.nl

Scalability

Shopware 6 boasts vast scalability capabilities due to its fast page loading speed with both static and dynamic content. It is known that the download speed depends on the interpretation of PHP code, traffic speed, and server load. If you build your marketplace on Shopware 6 Enterprise, fast page loading and data processing will be ensured without any problems.

Also, the stability of your online store depends on traffic. Shopware 6 guarantees you high throughput. This means that you can scale your e-commerce platform almost indefinitely without worrying that at one point its performance drops due to a large influx of customers.

Intuitive admin panel

The presence of graphic elements in the administrative panel will help you independently, without the help of developers, add products to the store and customize the store’s appearance. Thus, you can customize your marketplace without paid technical support from the developers.

More sales channels

Shopware 6 Enterprise allows you to expand your sales channels by integrating your e-commerce with social networks (Facebook, Instagram), as well as through Google promotion. Your existing and potential customers will be able to easily find your articles in search results. And through Facebook and Instagram, you will get a wonderful opportunity to increase the loyalty of socially active Internet users.

Merchant integration

Shopware Enterprise Merchant Integration creates a distribution network where merchants and suppliers can be connected within a single system. Reseller online stores can be connected to and integrated with a store using Shopware middleware technology. You can also provide vendors with pre-configured stores. Merchant Integration automates multiple workflows and helps you manage product distribution more efficiently.

For instance, Merchant Integration allows you to filter products by specific dealers and sell them through the appropriate store. Sellers also benefit from opening their Shopware store where a range of products can be imported using a pre-installed plugin.

B2B Suite

Sometimes, the owners of B2B sites are faced with a serious challenge - limited functionality of the selected framework, which does not allow the implementation of the required set of online store features. With Shopware, you won't have such problems - you can always extend the standard functionality through the B2B Suite (at an extra cost), which will provide integration with the existing software environment and workflows.

B2B Suite provides a complete set of features, including access rights and role management, approval processes, budgeting, and fast checkout. B2B Suite can also be tailored to individual client requirements.

Extensive search capacities

Shopware Enterprise Search expands existing capabilities with a contextual search option based on Elasticsearch. This feature is available in the standard Shopware Enterprise package.

Image source: www.sition.nl

Enterprise search complements mainstream search engines with content search by categories, by blogs, and by CMS elements from Shopping Worlds.

Individual tech support

Shopware's technical support services are billed monthly, unlike other CMS platforms (like Magento). You can easily entrust the elimination of any issues and configuration of your store to real professionals. By the way, this service, included in the Shopware Enterprise edition, is known for its speed and high level of qualifications of the vendor's representatives.

Specifically, you get a personal technical account manager assigned as part of your Shopware Enterprise suite.

Streamlined communication with suppliers

With Shopware Enterprise edition, you can connect with goods manufacturers directly through the store, working via the dropshipping model. Along with this, you will not need to worry about where the goods are stored as they will be stored in the supplier's warehouse. This is the ultimate way to get maximum profit with minimum effort.

In terms of costs, Shopware Enterprise creates a personalized pricing plan for each case. To find out the cost of the Shopware package in your particular situation, you will need to contact the supplier of this software directly.

What Sets the Shopware Enterprise Edition Apart?

The unbeatable total cost of ownership

The total costs (acquisition costs and operating costs) over the term of an online shop with one-time purchase licenses and a wide range of functions as standard are low. In a direct market comparison, the Enterprise Edition wins as it already provides a comprehensive set of functions as standard and enables an unbeatable TCO. Implementation costs can also be low due to the modular design.

Extremely brief time to market

A short time of implementation consequently ensures low costs of implementation in the project. By choosing Shopware Enterprise you obtain a well-thought-out solution that can be implemented in a really short time. Thus, many business models can already be mapped out of the standard and that hugely reduces the duration of the project and as a result the project costs.

Scalable and performant at any time

Shopware Enterprise system architecture is developed considering the highest performance requirements and is highly scalable. Therefore, your e-commerce solution can grow alongside your success. The shop system allows a high customization degree in order to implement even very complex e-commerce projects in a stable manner.

Shopware enterprise-level edition is proven and highly capable of scaling, with some existing customers coping with huge traffic peaks and uplifts in orders. This scalability is supported by some of the features including varnish cache, built-in usage of Apache JMeter (ability to create replica environments for scaling), clustering tools, and the ongoing platform support you get as part of the licensing with Shopware Enterprise. The reduced input needed from the merchant around scaling is something that Shopware sees as the main differentiator, similar to platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud (formerly Demandware). Shopware also can add servers for specific tasks, which allows for further scale and better response times.

High investment security

High investment security is due to the solidity of Shopware as a provider and the comprehensive services. By choosing Shopware you get a strong partner at your side. Personal support over the entire duration of the project is provided for Enterprise customers.

Shopware Enterprise Edition Price

The price of Shopware Enterprise Edition starts from €2,495 per month or you can make a single purchase for €39,995.

Talking about the price of website development based on Shopware Enterprise Edition, you should know that it depends on so many factors, such as the features you want to include. Nevertheless, the average price is about $70,000 - 80,000.

In the table below we present a price comparison of Shopware Enterprise Edition with other available Shopware editions.

Shopware Enterprise Review: Key Features

Shopware Enterprise Edition enables lets to make an attractive and highly sophisticated online store. In comparison with the other e-commerce platforms as well as Shopware Starter Edition and Shopware Professional Edition, Shopware Enterprise Edition wins as it provides a wider range of features and capabilities. Let's take a closer look at them.

Features & extensions

Functionalities for complex B2B business models

Although Shopware’s B2B module is available for an extra charge (also, for enterprise users), the features that it includes are more powerful than those which are provided by numerous competitors' solutions. In this Shopware edition, such things as assigning different pricing, customer groups, availability, promotions, and others are out of the box. Nevertheless, there are more advanced capabilities within the B2B module, among which are

• Quotation management.
• Role & rights administration.
• Sales representative feature.
• Targeted customer approach through customer-specific price function.
• High integration capability through a framework approach.
• Budgeting administration.

High-performance search function

Shopware Enterprise Search represents an advanced search module that uses ElasticSearch. Besides the high-performance search of products, it offers to search for content pages like blogs, manufacturers, shopping worlds, static pages, and categories. Quick and easy setup of the search becomes possible due to the simple back-end module. So, let's sum up this section:

• Highly scalable search based on Elastic Search
• Stable performance even with hundreds of thousands of products
• Precise search results control through customization capability
• Diverse search metrics

Extended CMS functionality, including Shopware Publisher

Shopware Publisher is a platform that allows you to edit existing drafts or create new drafts from existing ones. All changes can be incorporated without changing the live version of a layout. The activity feed will show you information such as, who has worked on the layouts, and the preview will allow you to look for unpublished layouts in the storefront.

With the Shopware Publisher you can effortlessly design, edit and publish Shopping Experiences (Shopware’s expressive storytelling feature), create drafts without changing the live version, preview them in the storefront, and track changes and editors via the activity feed.

How does the Shopware Publisher work? We are expanding the functional features of Shopware in the Enterprise Edition to make collaborative work more professional. In its first edition, the Publisher is packaged with Shopware 6.4 and contains a draught feature and an activity feed.

Further elements will be included in subsequent iterations, ranging from a fixed workflow with explicit approval processes.

• Drafts

The draft tool allows you to make changes to live web pages and thus save them as a draft version. Then adjustments can be made without going online on the storefront. It is beneficial if the modification prerequisites are still being written and need to be adapted, validated, or finalized – possibly by others.

Drafts are particularly useful if the modifications are only to be implemented at a specific period, such as when a campaign is started. As a result, these can be worked on ahead of time and then viewed and reviewed using the link button in the front view. Overall, several draughts can be made. A group of individuals can efficiently work on drafts.

• Activity feed

Users can make use of Shopware's unique versioning system through the activity overview. If a user is modifying an Experience World, he can view the activity stream on the right.

In their current incarnation, drafts and the activity stream make revising and releasing Shopping Experiences a lot easier, especially in collaborative projects.

You can quickly develop, modify, and post Shopping Experiences. By using the Shopware Publisher, you can create draughts without changing the current edition, examine them in the storefronts, and keep track and editors via the activity stream.

Should it be used or not? Well, through Shopware Enterprise, you can quickly develop, modify, and post Shopping Experiences. Using the Shopware Publisher, you can create draughts without changing the current edition, examine them in the storefronts, and keep track and editors via the activity stream.

So, we can say that one must adapt the usage of Shopware Publisher to make their jobs as easy as ever!

Unlimited staging environments

Benefit from unlimited licenses for staging environments - a replica of your live environment where you can safely perform tests or run updates.

In most cases, a staging environment is a near-exact duplicate of your production system (e.g., the same hardware, software, and settings), and it's used to test and create new code before it's released to the public.

Staging environments are an essential aspect of product development since they help avoid problems that can arise after code distribution. Finally, it allows for code fixes to be made before it is released to the public. Businesses and technical teams benefit from staging environments since they help to improve returns and organizational resources.

Let’s figure out the benefits of staging environments!

• Lowering the risk

Creating a staging environment can be viewed as best practice for many firms to reduce the risk of any bizarre coincidences when the new code is pushed live. For instance, if a company fails to do so, it may result in their unique code not being protected with a specific host and more significant technical issues down the road.

• Assuring high quality

Staging environments safeguard your server from code that is unlikely to work in a production-like environment, ensuring quality. For example, it implies that the marketing website should operate considerably better right away, with no headaches, and that your budget will be maximized by avoiding squandered resources.

• Cost-cutting

The adoption of staging environments is likely to lower or eliminate hosting costs for your company. For example, if your code doesn't perform as you'd hoped, you're going to spend extra money trying to remedy an issue that should have been avoided in the first place.

• Improved efficiency

Your deployment system is more likely to be safeguarded from code that will not work if faults and mistakes are identified early. It could lead to more remarkable performance, a better customer experience, and a lower risk of downtime.

The fact is especially crucial for firms that generate a large amount of profit through online sales, and it must be carefully considered. Benefit from unlimited licenses for staging environments - a replica of your live environment where you can safely perform tests or run updates.

Dealer integration

It allows online store owners to create storefronts and manage them for drop-shippers. It works well for resellers who opt to use a unified product catalog.

Merchant Integration develops a network where suppliers and merchants are connected within a single system. By using middleware technology, online stores can be connected to and even integrated with Shopware.

For instance, Merchant Integration makes the users filter the products and sell them through the appropriate store. The seller can also open its Shopware store, he can use pre-install, and a vast range of products can also be created.

The Dealer integration module of Shopware is a fantastic solution for a merchant as it lets you create and manage storefronts, which is excellent for dropshippers and resellers.

Euronics is an excellent example of a Shopware merchant that manages hundreds of supplier relationships. The resellers can manage individual elements such as price, availability, etc.

This is what other platforms don’t offer out of the box, and its potential features meet almost every need of users.

The following are a few important examples of dealer integration:

• Dealerships based on long-standing members of surrounding communities can get customer-oriented than a global firm can on its own. However, to fully use the value of specific dealers, an organization needs to create profound ties with them and incorporate them into essential business systems. Dealers can function as providers of market knowledge and information and substitutes for customers, consultants, and problem-solvers if handled in this manner.
• Dealers may be a lot more than just a conduit for customers. They can play an essential role in offering a variety of services to customers during the sale. These services include product selection and application help, financing, and insurance, among others.
• Both the corporation and its independent dealers must make significant expenditures to build an outstanding distribution organization. Those investments, however, are made in the traditional forms of payment and capital assets.

Let's take a real-life example: Merchant Integration creates a network that connects suppliers and merchants in a single system. Online stores can connect to Shopware and even integrate with it utilizing middleware technologies.

Merchant Integration, for instance, allows users to filter the aims of selling them through the relevant store. The vendor can also open a Shopware store, install pre-installed software, and develop a wide choice of products.

The exclusive services offered by Shopware Enterprise are distinctive because other platforms don't provide it out of the box, and its prospective features cover practically every user’s demand!

Marketplace

Among the pros provided in this section are:

• Own marketplace solution with connected suppliers.
• Brand sharpening due to a high degree of customization.
• Flexible fee control.
• Constantly up-to-date data management due to automatic product updates.

The optimal management of complex pricing models

Considering this Shopware Enterprise Edition feature we define the points such as

• Highly configurable and flexible pricing models management.
• Extremely high-performance even with millions in prices.
• Uniform gross prices can be displayed for all lists.

The enterprise client management

The enterprise client management includes the following:

• Central management environment for your e-commerce projects
• Clear analysis through relevant shop metrics
• Significant time savings through central user management
• Uncomplicated license control for registered shops

Bottom Line

Unfortunately, the Shopware platform is completely undeservedly deprived of the attention of many web developers against the backdrop of Magento, WordPress, Salesforce, Shopify, etc. This is partly explained by the territorial location of the developers (Shopware is a solution from German suppliers) who don’t bother too much advertising their project outside Europe.

However, based on our rich experience in e-commerce website development, we can say that this is a very decent CMS that offers a lot of benefits for both small-, medium-, and large-scale businesses. It allows you to create low-cost, secure, scalable, and fully compatible with third-party solutions marketplaces that can be administered without any knowledge of programming languages.

At Dinarys, we have successfully used this platform in dozens of projects and it has never let us down. Do you have a profitable idea for an online store? Contact us and let’s build you a trend-driven, reliable, and cost-efficient solution based on Shopware 6 Enterprise.