Blog RSS

Which Shop System for Your New Store? An Honest Decision Guide for 2026

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: The shop system question in 2026 cannot be answered with feature tables, but with your business model: Shopify if you want to start fast and close to the standard, and accept ongoing fees. WooCommerce if content is your core and the shop comes second. Shopware if you want to grow seriously in the DACH market, have custom processes or plan B2B - with the Community Edition even without license costs. And a website builder if selling is just a side channel. Here is the decision logic I actually use in consultations.

Switching from JTL-Shop to Shopware: What the Move Means - Including the Wawi Question

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: Switching from JTL-Shop to Shopware is technically well feasible - but the real decision is not about the shop, it is about the ERP (JTL-Wawi). If you want to keep the Wawi, you can connect Shopware via a connector and only replace the frontend. If you leave the whole JTL ecosystem, you are planning a larger project with an ERP question attached. There is no official Shopware migration profile for JTL - data moves via structured import through the Shopware API or third-party migration tooling.

Switching from WooCommerce to Shopware: When It Pays Off - and When It Doesn't

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: WooCommerce is an excellent entry point - and hits structural limits as stores grow: performance with large assortments, plugin sprawl, no native B2B and multi-channel concepts. Shopware 6, as a dedicated shop system, is strong exactly there. But the switch does not pay off for everyone: if you run a small shop alongside content marketing, WooCommerce often continues to serve you well. Here is the honest dividing line - and the migration path for when the time comes.

Shopware Rise, Evolve or Beyond: Which Plan Is Worth It for Whom?

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: The decision is simpler than the pricing page looks. Rise (from 600 €/month) pays off for growing B2C stores that want vendor support and the Intelligence features. Evolve (from 2,400 €/month) has exactly one killer criterion: the B2B Components - if you run serious B2B, you almost inevitably land here. Beyond (price on request) is enterprise territory with 24/7 support. And below all that, the Community Edition remains for everyone under 1 million € GMV with a technical partner. Important: the "from" prices scale with your GMV.

Switching from Magento to Shopware: Migration, Process and Costs Realistically

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: Switching from Magento to Shopware is one of the best-developed migration paths there is: the official Shopware Migration Assistant ships a dedicated Magento profile for Magento 1 and 2 and transfers customers, products, categories and orders. The real work lies elsewhere - in extensions, theme and Magento-typical data structures. If you are coming from Magento 1 (out of support for years), your migration is overdue; if you are coming from Magento 2, you are usually switching because of operating costs and complexity.

Shopware Migration: Costs and Process - Honest Figures Instead of Bait Offers

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: A Shopware migration for small stores with a standard theme often costs a mid four-digit to low five-digit amount, medium stores with custom design and 10-20 plugins considerably more, and complex B2B projects with ERP integration sit far above - agencies typically quote 10-15 k€, 20-35 k€ and 35-50 k€+ for these categories. The honest truth: any number before analyzing your store is a guess. What can be named seriously are the cost drivers - and they are right here.

How Much Does a Shopware Plugin Cost? Real Project Figures

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: Small Shopware plugins with a clearly defined function typically cost 1,500-4,000 €, medium extensions with backend logic or integrations 4,000-10,000 €, complex B2B and integration plugins sit above that. Agencies often quote 5,000-25,000 € for comparable projects. The biggest cost driver is almost never the programming itself - it is unclear requirements and overlooked edge cases.

Shopware Agency or Freelancer: What Fits Your Project?

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: There is no universally right answer - but there are clear patterns. An agency (typically 110-180 €/h) pays off when you need design, marketing, content and development at the same time, or when you are planning a large project with many parallel workstreams. A freelancer (typically 65-120 €/h) is the better choice for concrete technical tasks: plugins, migrations, performance, ongoing maintenance. And hardly anyone knows the third option: combining both - which is exactly how I regularly work with agencies myself.

GMV in Shopware: How Your Revenue Is Measured - and Why You Don't Need an Extension for It

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: Since April 14, 2026, Shopware collects GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) automatically - for all shops from version 6.7.8 with a connected Shopware Account and accepted contractual basis. The functionality is built into the core: you install no app from the store and see no classic extension - just a settings page under Settings > System > GMV Reporting. The calculation uses net values (no taxes), minus discounts and vouchers, including shipping costs - and importantly: returns do not reduce GMV. Only two aggregated values are transmitted once per day: the GMV total and the order count.

Shopware Maintenance 2026: Why Small Regular Updates Beat a Risky Version Jump

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: A store that has not seen updates for two years is not saved effort - it is a postponed emergency project with an unknown price tag. The 2026 release reality shows why: security fixes, legally required features like the withdrawal button and new channels like agentic commerce all arrive through regular updates. Update monthly in small steps and you get all of this on the side. Jump versions and you pay for everything at once - plus risk.

AI Readability for Shopware Stores: Why AI Can Only Recommend Your Store If It Understands It

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: More and more buying decisions start in ChatGPT, Perplexity or Copilot instead of Google. Whether your store gets recommended there is decided not by your ad budget, but by whether AI systems can find, read and trust your store. That is exactly what the AI Readability Scanner by Shopware and the Agentic Commerce Alliance tests on three layers: AI Discovery, Catalog Readability and Transaction Readiness. The good news: an existing Shopware store does not need to be rebuilt for this - but it does need to be technically prepared.

Next-Generation Content in Shopware: Why Shopping Experiences Alone Are No Longer Enough

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: Shopware is fundamentally rebuilding its content system: layouts will be defined as data (Content API) instead of Twig markup, the technical foundation - storefront components based on Twig UX Components - already shipped with 6.7.11, and a new page builder is in its discovery phase. The most important message for anyone with upgrade trauma: nothing existing gets broken - Shopping Experiences and the new system are meant to coexist for a long time. Customer-facing features are not expected before 2027.

Shopware 6.7.11 Developer Check: Twig UX Components, Vite Dev Server and a Better Storefront Architecture

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: Shopware 6.7.11.0 (released June 16, 2026) is the most interesting storefront release in a long time: a new component system based on Twig UX Components, a Vite-based dev server replacing composer watch:storefront, theme configuration as native CSS custom properties and a global JavaScript event system. None of it forces an immediate rebuild - but whatever you build new from now on should be built on the new foundation.

Shopware After Community Day 2026: What Merchants Should Actually Take Away from AI, B2B and Agentic Commerce

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: At Shopware Community Day on June 10, 2026 in Cologne, Shopware presented four products: Nexus (integration orchestration, generally available), Copilot (AI assistant, agentic capabilities in development), Payments (native payments, available in DE/AT) and Experience Studio (research preview). The guiding theme: Shopware as open commerce infrastructure for the "agentic era". My assessment: two of the four announcements can be evaluated concretely today, two are watch items - and the most important preparation happens in your own data anyway.

Shopware Development 2026: What Works in Real Projects - and What Only Sounds Good in Theory

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: The difference between a Shopware project that runs calmly and one that turns every release day into a risk rarely lies in the code - it lies in the pipeline around it. From my project experience: Docker as the local base, shopware-cli for builds and project tasks, deployments through the Deployment Helper instead of FTP, and a staging environment that deserves the name. None of this is rocket science - but the combination decides.

Optimizing Shopware Product Data: Why Google Merchant Center, AI Search and Product Feeds Belong Together

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: Google Merchant Center, the new Agentic Commerce feed and your own shop search share one common truth: your product data. Structure it cleanly once - titles, attributes, variants, GTINs, availability, images - and you serve all three channels at the same time. Neglect it, and you lose three times over. Here is my checklist from real Shopware projects.

Agentic Commerce in Shopware: Why the New AI Product Feed Is More Than Another Sales Channel

Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: Shopware 6.7.10.0 (released May 6, 2026) introduces a new, experimental sales channel type for agentic commerce: products can be exposed as a JSONL feed for AI platforms, starting with the OpenAI integration. Orders and traffic from AI platforms are tracked through the existing affiliate infrastructure. It sounds like a feature checkbox - in reality it is the entry point into a channel where AI agents read your product data instead of humans clicking through your storefront.

Shopware 6.7.9 Overview: Withdrawal Button, Product Bundles and Copilot Chat History - What Actually Matters

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: Shopware 6.7.9.0 (April 16, 2026) is a release with a clear priority list: the withdrawal button is mandatory homework with a deadline, JSON-LD behind a feature flag is the underrated SEO win, product bundles (Evolve and up) and Copilot chat history are useful for their respective audiences - and the Agentic Commerce sales channel was postponed to 6.7.10. Here is my relevance check instead of a plain feature list.

Withdrawal Button in Shopware 6: What Merchants Must Check Before June 19, 2026

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: From June 19, 2026, online shops selling to consumers in Germany must offer an electronic withdrawal button - clearly visible, usable directly in the shop, with an immediate confirmation of receipt. Shopware ships a native withdrawal form since version 6.7.9.0 (April 16, 2026), placed via Shopping Experiences and backported to Shopware 6.6. The technology is there - the real work is integrating it cleanly into your theme and sales channels.

Shopware Community Edition 2026: When CE Is Enough - and When It Becomes a Cost Trap

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In short: The Shopware Community Edition in 2026 is a complete, MIT-licensed shop system you can run a real business on - not a demo, not a trial. But the honest answer to "is CE enough?" does not depend on the software. It depends on three factors: your revenue (keyword: Fair Usage Policy from 1 million € GMV), your need for B2B and content features, and the question of who carries the technical responsibility.