Case Study: More Than Just a Pimcore Shop

Project Summary

The Schulte Lagershop is not only a simple online shop, but also offers extensive functionality when you take a look under the hood. Today's webshop is based on current Pimcore technology and is ready for numerous extensions planned for 2020. But first back to the beginning: The webshop to be created within the project scope was already subject to future-oriented requirements during the planning phase. For example, it should be possible to implement additional shop systems within the same Pimcore installation. Furthermore, internationalization should be provided at the beginning of the project, even though it should initially be launched in German only. Therefore the system architecture had to be prepared for multilingual multisite operation. At that time, these requirements were implemented with Pimcore version 4 and the Core Shop 1 extension. With this setup, the shop was online until recently.

The integration of further shop systems within the existing installation was now planned for the first half of 2020. However, as the company wanted to benefit from the technological innovations, it was decided first to update the Pimcore system. However, with the change of the underlying framework (ZEND to Symfony) this update posed a certain challenge. The upgrade from Pimcore 4 to Pimcore 6 succeeded without major complications, thanks to well-planned migration scripts and the great experience of our developers. In the course of this upgrade, the use of the Core Shop was also questioned. Here, the decision was made in favor of migration, too. Since Pimcore provides an integrated eCommerce framework (since version 5), this will take over the e-commerce functionalities in the future. The eCommerce framework can be used to manage several shops with the help of so-called "tenants" to ensure the planned multi-shop operation.

Due to the migration from Core Shop to the eCommerce Framework, data migration was necessary. This was done fully automated using Pimcore's API and CLI commands. Besides the general shop features, Kreckler offers an additional, individual help function for its users. Under the name "Doc Lagertechnik" a context-related help function was created to support the customer in the decision process. The data, which Doc Lagertechnik accesses, is managed via the MDM module within Pimcore.

The shop system will continue to be continuously developed in 2020 and beyond. In addition to the already mentioned multi-shop operation, a blog, new and configurable shop templates, optimizations of the responsiveness and customized content are planned. Also, a comprehensive Web2Print solution is planned to print product data sheets and operating instructions from the DAM and MDM. Based on this roadmap, the decision to migrate from Pimcore 4 to 6 and Core shop to the eCommerce framework was the right and logical choice. With the current technology stack, the planned modules and functions can be implemented at any time with a short time to market and a fast return on investment.