Shopware - The Complete Guide
Shopware, an e-commerce system from Germany, is fast gaining market share with the arrival of Shopware 6 in 2021. Are you an existing online retailer who is considering switching to this platform? Or do you want to start a new online store and are you looking at which platform you want to start your online store on? In this guide, we will explain everything about Shopware and how this platform compares to other shopping platforms. Are you reading along?
The history
Shopware is still a relatively unknown player in the European market. Yet, this company has been active in the market of Germany for 20 years now (the platform was founded in 2000). In Germany, more than 100,000 web stores use Shopware and with 250 employees, this can definitely not be called a small shopping system anymore.
In 2015, Shopware introduced version 5 of their system. From this moment on, the platform started to gain popularity in the Netherlands. Despite the not so beautiful design of the platform, it works quickly and without problems. The big advantage of the platform then and still is that it requires relatively few resources to host. This allows you to get a high-speed webshop at a good hosting price.
Many webshop owners, who are used to the always slow Magento, made the switch to Shopware. Since 2020, Shopware has introduced version 6 of its platform. The company has looked around carefully when creating the graphical interface of Shopware. Thus, the positive points of Shopify are woven into the design of Shopware 6 and the interface feels intuitive. Below, you can see a comparison of Shopware 5 versus Shopware 6.
Shopware 5
- APIs are complicated to use
- Lots of Smarty code in templates
- CSS and LESS
- Plugin Structure (plugin.xml)
Shopware 6
- Developers can easily integrate APIs
- Twig is easier to use (Template Engine)
- Advanced Plugin Structure (Composer.json)
- More extensive SEO help
- Admin panel is more clearly arranged
Compared to its forerunner, Shopware 6 has a different level. Shopware 6 has been developed from the ground up for promoting online sales in the best possible ways. The designers, developers and analysts have worked a lot on the Shopware 6 platform to make it very flexible and intuitive to use.
If you want to develop your e-commerce store, design it with a perfect UX, and prioritize the high-quality service, Shopware 6 is the best choice
The Platform in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands, Shopware is present around 2015, but you may well have not seen much of the shopping platform in recent years. The popularity of the platform increased tremendously in the Netherlands with the launch of version 6. Many shop builders saw the potential of the platform and started to specialize in building Shopware online stores. Are you curious whether Shopware is a good choice for your store and how it compares to other platforms? The first step is to decide whether you want to host the platform yourself or use the hosted version. This has consequences in terms of cost, flexibility, and speed and therefore weighs in the comparison with other platforms.
Shopware hosted or self-hosted?
Shopware not only offers the software itself, but recently made it possible to purchase Shopware 6 as a hosted platform. Shopware is therefore not only competing with platforms such as Magento, PrestaShop, OpenCart and WooCommerce but is also interesting for customers who would otherwise have chosen a platform such as Lightspeed, Shopify, BigCommerce or CCV shop.
In our experience, 90% of the Dutch market chooses the self-hosted version of Shopware. This means that you install the software on your own hosting platform of choice. The advantage of this is that, if your shop is increasingly visited, you have complete control over the performance of your store. Also, customizations are easier to implement on the self-hosted version. In general, you can say that if you are just starting out with your shop, you are probably better off with the hosted version of the platform. However, do you want to migrate your existing shop or do you expect to set up a very successful shop within a short period of time? Then we recommend self-hosted.
Shopware vs other platforms
Shopware is not the only E-commerce system, as an online retailer you can choose from 15+ systems to run your online store on. Below, we explain the most popular platform and how they compare to Shopware.
Shopware or Magento
While Shopware is just around the corner in the hosted world, it is a mature product on the self-hosted market. We therefore see mostly online stores orienting themselves to the self-hosted side of Shopware.
At Reloadify we speak to more and more webshop owners who have made the switch to Shopware 6. These webshops come for the most part from the Magento platform, which since the transition from 1.9 to 2.0 has become a more Enterprise oriented platform.
As main reasons, we often hear:
- Shopware is easier to use than Magento
- Less cost to keep Shopware running compared to Magento
- Shopware is faster and costs less to host
- Apps are easier to install (no technical knowledge required)
Shopware or Shopify
Shopify is a Canadian e-commerce system. It is now used all over the world, making it the second most popular platform in the world. WooCommerce is ranked number one. Yet, Shopify still manages to grow in the Netherlands. Do you have little experience in designing? In Shopify, you use templates, which Shopware does not offer. Choose from over seventy professional themes to style your shop exactly as you want it. Experience shows that Shopify is easier to understand than Magento. Are you using a template within Shopify? This template can easily be adjusted at the storefront level. Shopify webshops have a built-in shopping cart which has been developed for mobile use. This way, your customers can browse through your store from any mobile device and checkout easily. Do you have a shop in multiple languages? That is quite difficult to set up in Shopify. In Shopware, you have the option for different storefronts, which makes it considerably easier. Is a lot of blogging important for your shop? Then Shopware is a bit more modern than Shopify.
Shopware or Lightspeed
Lightspeed is many times larger than Shopware. Lightspeed's target audience are adult retailers. Lightspeed is useful if you have both a physical and online store. Did you know that Lightspeed is founded in Amsterdam? That's why it's so popular for Dutch shops. When you run on Lightspeed, you use a code that was (partly) developed in Amsterdam. With Lightspeed, you also have European hosting, so your data cannot be shared with third parties, as is sometimes the case with American hosting. Whether you want Shopware or Lightspeed depends entirely on your webshop. Both are suitable for e-commerce webshops. Lightspeed only has no integration with Buckaroo, where Shopware does. Both also have templates that you can choose from, so that you can design a page exactly the way you want it. With Shopware, you can go a little further in this than in Lightspeed. Finally, Lightspeed's cheapest package is only €49 a month, where Shopware is free to download.
Shopware or WooCommerce
Shopware or WooCommerce. Shopware describes itself as "An e-commerce platform to conduct all your online business". WooCommerce is actually the most popular WordPress e-commerce plugin. And also available for free! Again, it depends on what kind of webshop you are going to start. In WooCommerce, there are few options for a multilingual webshop, where this is included in Shopware. In WooCommerce, you can ask your support questions by e-mail. At Shopware, you have a live chat where you can ask your questions. WooCommerce is however ranked higher than Shopware. On Shopware, you can run your entire online store, where WooCommerce is really a plugin for your WordPress website to run the store part. Do you already have a WordPress website? You can easily turn this into an online store with WooCommerce. Switching to Shopware is also an option, where you have all in one.
Shopware apps
Not entirely unimportant are the apps offered in the Shopware app marketplace. These apps allow you to easily expand the functionality of your Shopware store.
At this moment, the app marketplace is still a bit disappointing when you compare it to the Magento app marketplace or Shopify app marketplace. This is mainly because the marketplace has not been around very long and the focus was mainly on the German market. In recent months we have seen increasing interest in these apps from the Netherlands and major players such as Mollie and Klarna are becoming available in the marketplace app.
Shopware builders
You can contact the following companies in the Netherlands if you are interested in developing a Shopware 6 webshop:
Kiener - Certified Shopware builder who developed webshops of Fairtrade and Meyco, among others.
Dutchdrops E-commerce - Developed among others webshops for Nikkie Plessen, Nubikk and Geisha.
Conclusion
The landscape of E-commerce systems is becoming more mature and as a webshop owner you can choose from a wide range of E-commerce systems in 2022. Where Magento used to be the standard choice for a self-hosted webshop, we see a shift towards Shopware.
In the Netherlands Magento is still the leader in terms of apps, knowledge and partners. Adobe has deliberately profiled itself with Magento 2 as an Enterprise system, and it shows. The costs for setting up and maintaining a Magento 2 webshop are many times higher than Shopware 6. This has created a gap for the serious webshop owner who wants to be self-hosted and whose turnover is somewhere between €500,000 and €10,000,000 annually. The e-commerce platform has cleverly responded to this with version 6 of the system and in our view a very interesting alternate if you are currently considering a switch from Magento 1.9 to 2.0 or from Hosted to Self-Hosted.
