On the fourteenth of February 2022, the latest version of Shopware 6 was released by Shopware – an open commerce platform trusted by about 100,000 renowned brands. Shopware then makes a new minor release with small upgrades and bug fixes on the first Monday every month. We will talk about general updates and novel features of Shopware 6 compared to the older version of Shopware 5 in this blog.
As far as you know, the Covid 19 has made a big difference to the whole world. Both individuals and companies have transferred to using technology and digital items to survive. Shopping habits have been changed greatly and are expected to be long-lasting.
Literally, the world has turned into a more digital environment and people choose to buy items online instead of going to shops in person. In 2020, the eCommerce industry had soared to $4.28 trillion worth and was expected to grow to 5.4 trillion in 2022.
More than half of the respondents to the survey named “COVID-19 and E-commerce” admit that they mostly shop online and get daily news on the Internet. Therefore, sellers in emerging economies have made the greatest shift to build online stores and invest in eCommerce websites. And the very first step to embark on your eCommerce journey is to choose the right commerce platform.
If you are new, it’s alright. This blog will help you to know more about Shopware – a leading open commerce platform. If you just want to upgrade your eCommerce software to speed up your business growth, the latest version of the Shopware 6 release is hot news that you can not pass. We will also dive deep into novel features that differ between Shopware 6 vs Shopware 5. Let’s check them out!
About the latest version Shopware 6
Table of Contents
Shopware 6 release
In March 2021, Shopware launched the Shopware 6.4.0.0 Release Candidate (RC) with changes in the app/plugin system, theme development, administration, and the API/Core.
In May this year, they published the biggest Shopware 6 release ever. They made massive changes and many new features for improved usability, including the wish list, currency-related price adjustments, user-defined search index, and ranking, “starting from” prices for product variables, smarter payment options, improved menu, and product details in the administration. Developers had novel transmissions in the CMS (Content Management System) with a new layout for product pages and rich text editor and upgraded site builder with more CMS possibilities with categories.
Later, they return with their regular cycle of making a new minor release on the first Monday every month. Their last release was issued on February 14th, 2021. The release cycle halts for the holidays. This Shopware release 6.4.8.1 offers simplified processes, less effort so that you can have more time for significant tasks.
What is Shopware 6?
Shopware 6 is the Shopware eCommerce platform’s answer to an increasingly complicated world in which all merchants, from small start-ups to global players, are expecting to adopt new solutions that pave the way for their business growth.
They are longing for a flexible, intuitive, and future-oriented eCommerce solution that helps them to customize client experience and run the business most sustainably. They also want to adopt a new approach to eCommerce and offer customers a unique online experience.
Shopware 6 is developed with a view to meeting all the requirements above. Besides, Shopware 6 allows users to have full control of their business and helps them realize ambitious business ideas.
We will dive deep into some remarkable characteristics of Shopware 6 below.
- For every business model – whether B2C or B2B
Shopware 6 provides innovative and creative eCommerce solutions. These solutions will flexibly suit and meet your specific business needs. All business models can operate well with Shopware 6. You can test different business models and build your own platform infrastructure based on your individual needs.
- For eCommerce in the cloud or on-premise
The Shopware 6 application can be installed for both on-premises and cloud eCommerce. Shopware 6 is a lean and extremely flexible product that can be easily adapted to meet your requirements regardless of the cloud or on-premises.
- For every business scale
Shopware 6 offers suitable solutions for merchants at every stage of the business path. Whether you are small start-ups or global players, Shopware 6 can help you support your business model when it soars in the highly competitive world. Shopware 6 offers a solid foundation base for a high-performance system. It is not only created for small or very small retailers, but also for enterprise clients. The new version Shopware 6 provides even more scalability and extreme performance based on its new technological basis and innovative software structure.
- For diverse sales channels and frontends
Whether classic online shop, social media platform, marketplace, or POS, with Shopware 6 you can control every sales channel centrally from one solution. If you want to get more customers and make more profit, you need to sell your products on different sales channels. With the sales channels from Shopware, you can easily connect different sales channels via a shop system. This is not only the classic storefront. In fact, it can transfer data to comparison portals like Google Shopping or associate with shopping on social media like Instagram or Facebook. Shopware 6 provides retailers with the technological foundation to effortlessly build retail strategies across channels and devices. The item Sales Channel in the menu of the Shopware Administration features creating a new sales channel. It can help you expand your business and embark on a new journey with a new sales channel. All sales channels can be monitored and controlled below the point Sales Channels.
Why you should choose Shopware?
When you start an online retail business, you have to consider all eCommerce platforms and pick one of them. It will be a good choice if you choose a Shopware development agency to build your online store. This eCommerce platform has a long history with years of experience in the domain of web design and development. In fact, it is one of the top-notch software development companies that provide customizable software solutions at affordable prices.
Shopware Development is built based on three strong pillars – independent, limitless, outstanding in assisting entirely online websites in operating smoothly in the increasingly complex world. This open-source platform is dedicated to optimizing user experience and increasing business interactions. The platform meets the utmost requirements of the design and development of eCommerce stores. It makes sure that your online business surpasses the rivals and competitors with less time.
Shopware is a highly customer-oriented eCommerce platform that makes ambitious business ideas come true. Your business can stand out with your own rules and cutting-edge innovations with an expertly executed brand strategy and a powerful platform. With Shopware, you can have the necessary edge to stand out in today’s highly competitive market conditions.
Open Commerce Platform
Shopware 6 is an open-source eCommerce platform developed based on a quite modern technology stack that is powered by Symfony and Vue.js. It was founded in 2000 in Germany and had a large number of satisfied customers. Shopware’s main goal is to tell the inspiring story of each brand and build sustainable relationships between merchants and customers.
In Germany, Shopware stands out as the most ubiquitous and constantly refined eCommerce platform with both open-source and fee-based versions. Nearly 100,000 renowned brands have happy experiences with the Shopware choice.
These renowned brands place their trust in Shopware and obtained success in digital commerce.
Shopware appreciates openness and accessibility, which is shown in its business culture and interactions with clients. When working with Shopware, you can dominate your destiny with no limits and restrictions.
Open commerce enables you to integrate into your system landscape and seize the collective force of our community and partnerships. You can get massive benefits from a network of IT talents throughout the world. You can anticipate the future of eCommerce and continuously upgrade the platform in order to stay updated. Thereby, you can pave the way for strong and sustainable business development. At that time, you make much more profits and expand your business scale.
Business Model Composer
Shopware helps merchants adapt fast and test various business models on time, including digital events, subscription services, consultations, and highly customizable goods – whether to buy or to rent. There are no limits to the power of human imagination.
With Shopware, business owners can run different business models on time with just one solution. Shopware helps to compose your unique business flow with no-code or low-code. There are no limits to your business ideas, you can set your own rules and pioneer into new territory.
In an increasingly changing world, customers switch their tastes more frequently and merchants need to adapt to succeed. Open commerce allows you to benefit from countless possibilities to expand your business and create a unique experience for your customers. Exceptionally advanced automation processes with Shopware can make the most complex business models able to adopt without any code understanding. Because Shopware follows the no-code approach which allows users to implement business models without a single line of code.
Composable Customer Experience
We now live in a century of idea diffusion, which means consumers are inundated by dozens of vertical content pieces every day. This information only stays in their brain for a certain period before becoming fatigued. Hence, you need to enhance your brand recognition with a flawless harmony of content and commerce.
Shopware can help you to get access to your customers in a way they do not anticipate, over and over again until they acknowledge our product and finally buy your products and services. Finally, your business will thrive and grow sustainably in today’s competitive market environment.
Shopware is designed to help you tell your own inspiring stories to your customers through from seamless social shopping integration and virtual showrooms to advanced filter functions and sophisticated product configurations.
Innovative features regularly updated from Shopware can customize your business and convert casual touch-points into fundamental trust points. Your customers can get the next-level experience with Shopware. As a result, you can yield more profit, scale your business and fly high.
Shopware 6 vs Shopware 5 – New features updated!
Shopware 6 vs Shopware 5 – Key differences
- REST API
A demanding look allows identifying significant differences in both technical details and user experience. Shopware 6 equipped with an all-new Symfony-based kernel can give users a remarkably higher performance. The integration capabilities of Shopware 6 is greatly improved compared to Shopware 5 thanks to the API-first approach. In addition, the latest version Shopware 6 has refined integration capabilities that make it much more practical. Moreover, the Community editions are developed based on MIT license.
- Admin panel
The admin panel stands out as the most remarkable difference between Shopware 6 vs Shopware 5. It is built up with the development foundation as the Vue.js framework. Vue.js is expected to kick out React and Angular of the games in the near future. Small to medium-size web apps will probably venture in a direction with Vue.js because of the convenience and simplicity of the created infrastructure. All operations and processes are more accessible and easier to monitor as well.
- Webpack
Shopware 6 is designed with a Webpack builder. This static asset generator has become more popular these days and has obtained trust from technology giants such as Airbnb, Adobe, and Slack in recent years.
- Quality content creation
There are no limits to your imagination when working with Shopware 6. You can develop an original design with the graphical interface of Shopware 6 even when you don’t have any programming languages knowledge. You can put any product with any amount for sale with the high handling capabilities of Shopware 6.
- Novel SEO Tools
You can easily grab customer attention if your website appears to rank high in the Google search list. Your website must be accessible on any device, especially mobile ones. Customers now prefer vertical content pieces because smartphones but not laptops or computers stick with them all the time. Producing content on your Shopware 6 store also requires fewer effort thanks to new SEO features. The new Shopping Experience solution makes your online store more appealing and switches flexibly to user needs. Moreover, between Shopware 6 vs Shopware 5 SEO capabilities, the novel version meets search engine requirements much better.
- Expand your business across Sales Channels
New program options are available for you to boost your eCommerce store and brand awareness and pick up new product promotion types. You can gain traction through social networks or collaborative trading platforms with the help of Shopware 6. Thus, you will not get new customers but also enhance customer loyalty by frequent tough points. This is a highly remarkable difference between Shopware 6 vs Shopware 5.
- Build a relationship with International Markets
Shopware 6 gives you a chance to get access to the international market as a whole. Multi-lingual support functions, along with multi-currency support can serve foreign users and give them the full experience. Therefore, developers out of Germany where Shopware is based can specify prices in their currencies. Shopware 6 can also work with the legislative framework of other countries and match with the relevant channels. With the help of Shopware 6, companies can expand to foreign markets and become international players.
- Advanced Business Opportunities
The Rule Builder option in Shopware features adjusting the individual rules and policies of the online store. You can pay attention to adding the price formulas of the goods, individual fees, and delivery costs.
The bottom line is between Shopware 6 vs Shopware 5, the latest version wins the prior version for sure in terms of many aspects like performance or flexibility. Core features have been enhanced or reworked to fulfill users’ requirements. Literally, the developers from shopware made a lot of bug fixes and put great effort into the new version of Shopware 6. So why do you still hesitate to migrate to Shopware 6? Shopware 6 is a good choice to enhance interaction with potential customers and helps you get the possible largest slice of the eCommerce pie based on your resources.
Overview of all Shopware 6 features
- Product management
Products are the center of attention. Customers always want to buy their favorite services and products in the least time. When you start selling online, you need to distribute products into categories and display them intuitively so that customers can find anything they want quickly. Shopware provides you with the intuitive creation of products and categories no matter how many products you put up for sales.
On the other hand, business owners can have full control import and export of products. Products can be assigned tags so that customers can find it easier to find their favorite items. Shopware 6 also features variant capability and filtering of item variants. Creation and sale of virtual products or customized products from the Profession Edition will upgrade your business to the next level. With Shopware 6, customers can rate products and cross-sell if they want.
- Customers and prices
Online stores come with difficulties in managing customers and orders, as well as various pricing configurations. Different groups of customers will pay different prices with different country-specific currencies and tax rates. Shopware 6 comes with a structured shopping basket and checkout processes. This open eCommerce platform can cater to multichannel capability including both B2B and B2C. Document generation including invoices or cancellations, is automated, which helps optimize time and customer experience.
- Shop configuration
Shopware offers an agile and straightforward work routine with intuitive operation, numerous features, and extensive configuration options. Shopware 6 provides intuitive user guidance during the installation process as well as easy configuration of shipping and payment option.
In addition, Shopware 6 ensures risk management (via rule builder) to avoid payment defaults. Besides, customers can easily find things thanks to universal and powerful search in the backend.
- Design
Shopware ‘s developers have put a lot of effort into Shopware 6’s design and optimized it for every available device. Thanks to the open-source template, your shop will have a completely professional and customizable design. With conversion-optimized design and fully responsive display, Shopware 6 is optimized for all end devices and is available with the standard theme. Shopware 6 provides an integrated content management system (CMS) that helps produce content more productively.
- Marketing
Shopware provides you with countless marketing features that have been created to boost your sales. Vouchers and discount codes are available to support business owners. When you use Shopware 6 to power your online business, powerful promotional functions such as time-controlled discounts will generate more leads for you. The most important SEO functionality is already integrated as standard with comprehensive statistics, including bounce analysis.
- Technology
Shopware is developed based on innovative technologies to provide you with a system with high security and scalability. Shopware is a completely open-source eCommerce platform and is available on GitHub with the latest PHP version. Furthermore, Shopware 6 is developed based on Symfony full-stack, SSL capable, data protection, and Cookie-consent-tool. All processes can be operated via API and the frontend technologies of Shopware 6 are Bootstrap, Twig & JQuery. Merchants can use CAPTCHA and honeypot solutions to avoid spam as well.
- Expandability
The Shopware Store offers over 3,500 apps and themes that can be easily adapted to your shop. You can use sample templates and interfaces to adapt to your business website. Shopware can make your dream online stores come true thanks to various interfaces for common systems such as ERPs, newsletters, online marketplaces, payments, etc. Shopware 6 also enables compatibility with multi shops and simple management with the plugin manager.
- Support
Both Professional Edition and Enterprise present you with various support options to protect your investment for the long run. Developers and users can get freely bookable support options with different scopes. International customers can get access to support from the Shopware headquarter based in Germany. To assist installation, you will be provided with comprehensive documentation and immediate support with project implementation from a huge partner network.
Migration to Shopware 6
If you already have a shop powered by Shopware 5, it is a good choice to migrate it to the latest version of Shopware 6. However, there are some slight differences compared to the on-premise migration. There are six phases in the migration process:
- Create a now cloud shop
- Launch migration assistant
- Create a new connection
- Edit connection
- Start migration
- Complete migration
It is hard to take the migration into your own hands. If you want to do so, you will have to take each step with care and investigate deeply to migrate to Shopware 6 successfully.
However, it is essential to work with a Shopware agency or eCommerce platform agencies with professionals. If you do not know much about this field, just leave it to experts who actually know what they are doing. When working with a Shopware development services provider, it makes sense that you coordinate closely with the provider.
You can check out how to migrate Shopware 5 to Shopware 6 here.
Shopware development services from BSS Commerce – a trustworthy partner
If you are finding a reliable partner to implement Shopware 6 solution, BSS Commerce is confident to surpass your expectations. We’re proud to have a team of dedicated and certified professionals in developing eCommerce software including Shopware with 9 years of experience.
We have tackled over 500 successful projects with 21,000+ worldwide clients including B2B, B2C, and B2B2C. If you want to build your online website with top-notch features, we are confident to win the games. We create active solutions to upgrade your store’s functionality. Even we don’t promise the cheapest price but we do provide the best services at competitive costs.
You can find out the reviews of our beloved customers on Clutch.
High-quality coding and state-of-the-art technology application are adapted to tackle all projects we handle. Hence, we concentrate on launching utilization-focused plugins that exceed your expectations.
As a leading eCommerce platform agency in Vietnam, we are dedicated to giving you the best support and experience. Our wholehearted and certified developers are welcome to answer your inquiries. Feel free to send us questions! We will turn your creative ideas for your store into inspiring business stories.
You can visit our Shopware development landing page here https://bsscommerce.com/shopware-development.html
CONTACT NOW to let us know your problems. We are willing to support you every time.
