Pimcore and Shopware – Perfect Combination for Commerce

Product data management can be done with a popular e-commerce software like Shopware. But with increasing requirements, the need for a specialized PIM solution like Pimcore arises.

Companies face the challenge of providing their customers with up-to-date and comprehensive product content across all touchpoints. In addition, product information must be stringent across all channels. In online media such as websites, online stores or social media channels, as well as in print products, product information "from a single source" demonstrates a high level of professionalism. 

Each channel usually has its own software for entering product information. Content maintenance is therefore less of a problem. The challenge lies in central data management and process control. And these are the main points where Excel reaches its limits. Microsoft's classic spreadsheet solution is still the central instrument for maintaining product data in many companies today. The limitations of this software make companies turn to the topic of product data management. And for this Pimcore is in our opinion the ideal solution. 

We from the internet agency scope01 from Frankfurt am Main in Germany have a focus on the implementation of e-commerce systems and online stores with Shopware. The software is the market leader for e-commerce software in Germany. Even internationally the spreading of Shopware increases ever more. 

The strength of Shopware lies in the fast implementation, the scalability of the solution and the large number of ready-to-use extensions in the Shopware store. With version 6, which was newly introduced in 2019, the technical basis with Symfony as PHP framework and vue.js for administration is state-of-the-art.  

Why Pimcore as PIM next to Shopware? 

Product data management is of course also possible in Shopware without problems. 

Only with increasing requirements the need for a specialized PIM system increases. And here we find that Pimcore is the ideal solution. Especially the following goals are pursued in our PIM projects with Pimcore: 

• User Management: Pimcore allows us to find the ideal administration for each user with user rights, perspectives and custom layouts. We break away from the still widespread approach that every user can see everything in a software and is usually allowed to do everything. And we are moving towards an individual approach that gives each user the possibilities he or she needs. This significantly increases the usability and thus the acceptance of software. 
• Workflows: We realize in and with Pimcore product life cycles. From the initial import of master data from the ERP system to the archiving of products, we follow a holistic approach. A clean mapping of the processes leads to a comprehensible and reliable administration of product data. 
• Data quality: The introduction of a PIM system also automatically ensures higher data quality. Because with Pimcore we go beyond the mere administration of mandatory fields. Together with our customers we define the standards for data quality and implement them in the PIM. In this way, our customer has a permanent overview and knows where optimization is necessary. High data quality is increasingly developing into a competitive advantage. 
• Internationality: The management of multilingual content is a strength of Pimcore. Language-dependent fields are clearly delineated and can be seamlessly integrated into the translation workflow. 

And finally, it is important for our customers to keep all product data in one central location for the first time. With all the possibilities that Pimcore offers for data exchange. Both the import from other data sources and the export and thus the provision for dealers, marketplaces and other third parties in the environment of the company. 

Why Shopware as e-commerce software and not Pimcore? 

Pimcore's approach goes beyond PIM, even though it is the focus of our work. The open source software sees itself as a platform that provides digital commerce possibilities in addition to product information management. Thereby Pimcore follows a framework approach. Customers and service providers are provided with a "toolbox" that enables the implementation of e-commerce projects. 

Shopware, on the other hand, historically comes out of the "out-of-the-box" corner, i.e. the software per se already brings more ready-to-use possibilities for e-commerce. Be it with on-board resources or with the multitude of plugins and interfaces. At this point Shopware clearly shows its specialization in e-commerce. I.e. however not that Shopware is suitable only for clearly outlined e-commerce projects. Rather, the degree of individualization is very high in the majority of our projects. In addition, online stores are constantly being developed further, so that the software must have the necessary flexibility. 

However, we consider Pimcore to be very suitable for e-commerce platforms due to its basis and will therefore closely follow the development of open source software in this area. 

In any case, the technological basis of Shopware and Pimcore is identical with PHP and Symfony as well as MySQL. This makes work and communication easier. 

The PIM interface of scope01 

In order to provide our customers from the e-commerce world, who already use Shopware, with an easy entry into professional product data management, we have developed a standard PIM interface. This interface allows the management of all product data, which are available in a Shopware standard online shop, in Pimcore.  

The extension to individual data models is quickly possible with the modeling possibilities integrated in Pimcore. An initial import via the interface allows a quick setup in Pimcore. 

We map typical characteristics of Shopware such as individual free text fields with our PIM interface. In addition, several Shopware instances can be supplied with product data from Pimcore, even on different servers. Subshops and language stores as well as individual sales channels such as online stores, marketplaces or POS in Shopware can be specifically addressed from Pimcore. 

On a technical level, the communication between Shopware and Pimcore is done with the help of the Sync API introduced in Shopware 6. This Sync API is part of the new REST interface, which has been completely redesigned for Shopware 6. 

The Pimcore PIM interface for Shopware 6 is available for purchase in the Shopware Store.

We at scope01 would be pleased to show you in a demo how the two systems work together and how our customers such as Leica or Franz Mensch use Shopware and Pimcore.

Browse Pimcore & Shopware Case Studies

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