Shopware – we are partners!

Shopware was developed more than 20 years ago in Germany and is a proven technology that today drives over 100,000 efficiently operating online shops.

Shopware 6 implementations are characterized by clear development and maintenance costs. The license price is a one-time fee, regardless of the turnover and the number of products in the store. On the other hand, modern solutions and well-known popular technologies (e.g. PHP Symfony framework, Vue.js, etc.) make Shopware highly valued by developers working with it. This significantly shortens the implementation time and considerably reduces the financial outlay.

The implementation of Shopware offers measurable benefits

The same applies to the ongoing maintenance and administration of the eCommerce system. Shopware has an intuitive interface that simplifies the daily management of products and sales processes. It saves time and effort.

On a par with the popular platform – Magento 2, Shopware is open-source software. It gives a global community of developers access to the platform’s source code, which ensures the constant and rapid development of the system. It also allows individual functions to be tailored to the needs of a specific implementation.

Every business is different – Shopware lets you implement these differences into your eCommerce. Online environment will reflect the nature and management style of your organization’s processes. Also, open code gives you the flexibility you need to stay ahead of trends and the demands of a changing market.

Shopware 6 also includes over 3,500 applications, templates, and interfaces available in Shopware Store. It offers standard interfaces for the most popular payment providers (including PayPal, Klarna, credit cards, etc.) and interfaces for popular systems such as ERP, PIM, newsletters, marketplaces, etc. All controlled through an intuitive manager that allows for simple management, installation and updating of extensions. The platform also has technical support available for the teams working with it.

The Shopware 6 functionalities meet all the needs of your customers and your business

The core functions of Shopware 6 include customer and order management mechanisms, including the possibility of individual price configurations (i.e. rule-based price lists based on specific customer characteristics). The system offers multichannel features and special B2B features are available in the Enterprise Edition. SEO options and optimization for mobile-first indexing are already integrated as standard. All this is held together by comprehensive analysis and statistical tools.

Omnichannel

The platform allows you to conveniently manage sales across multiple channels. A single CMS gives you the ability to unify the customer experience regardless of where they are: whether it be your online shop (stationary or mobile), marketplace, POS, or any other space where the customer is looking for your products. Multi-channel support allows us to adjust content, languages and payment methods to each channel individually.

API-first and headless solutions

Scaling and flexible adaptation to the tools preferred by customers and users is the strength of eCommerce solutions, which are to deliver stable and long-term benefits. Implementation of this eCommerce platform results in a limitless number and type of front-ends used in our sales system. Building eCommerce based on Shopware 6 technology, we can address our customers’ needs, freely adjusting the design, language and communication depending on the target group and channel of reaching.

Customers are different, but we always maintain full and easy control over the experience in our online store environment.

The multi-channel service is also supported by the available PWA (Progressive Web App) solutions. The PWA works like an app, with following benefits: sending notifications, functioning without an Internet connection, creating an icon on desktop, constantly accompanying the customer, as well as increasing security and speeding up the service.

Implementation of the B2B eCommerce platform based on Shopware 6

Extensive B2B functions allow you to replicate the specifics of even the most complex business models in organizations focusing on B2B relationships. Creating an offer tailored to the specific B2B customer greatly accelerates the ordering process. Shopware 6 for B2B means:

• flexible management of offers adapted to a specific customer
• convenient management of roles and permissions to reproduce the decision-making process on the customer’s side
• Sales representatives: due to the fact that the B2B market is based on relations with customers, the system includes functionalities that allow quick customer service by the sales representative “in the field” and convenient contact between the customer and his account manager in the eCommerce platform environment.

Take advantage of a comprehensive service for the implementation of Shopware 6

The long-standing presence in the market and the open-source model give the Shopware platform excellent flexibility in adapting to business needs. The key to success is the experienced team responsible for the implementation. As a Shopware partner, we have the competence and many years of experience in implementing eCommerce systems.

As a Shopware Business Partner, our team is familiar with the specifics of the Shopware tool.

With over 10 years of experience in developing successful eCommerce solutions, we can guarantee the highest level of implementation – feel free to contact us!

10 ideas to boost your BLACK FRIDAY eCommerce marketing strategy!

Because of the ongoing pandemic, to a large extent, digital shopping is taking over offline sales at an extremely rapid rate. According to studies, eCommerce sales in the United States increased from ~16% to ~20% between 2019 and 2020, compared to an only 1,5% difference between 2018 and 2019.

To make the most out of the Black Friday season and maximize your eCommerce profits, you need a proper plan. Building the right strategy for Black Friday is the key to success, saving you the headache of brainstorming and implementing ideas at the last moment. It is also an exceptional moment to introduce a digital aspect to your brick and mortar store, which is only a small investment compared to the potential increase in sales!

Black Friday eCommerce strategy | Marketing tips

However, how exactly do you prepare a Black Friday eCommerce strategy? What are the best ideas to increase your revenue and help your company grow? To help you answer those questions, we have prepared this guide of the 10 best ideas to build your eCommerce strategy for the Black Friday season!

Step 1: Start with the basics – setting up your platform, advertising, and UX

Let’s start with the fundamentals – if you have no clue what to do to prepare your eCommerce business for the upcoming Black Friday shopping rage, these ideas will be perfect to begin with.

• Consider your business approach when setting up an eCommerce platform

Whether your company specializes in B2B or B2C products/services matters significantly when launching an eCommerce platform. The two types of clients each have their own buying behaviors that need to be considered and often look for distinct features first.

B2B eCommerce platforms might prefer a more streamlined design, while B2C platforms can benefit from visible customer reviews and transparent product highlights.

• Expand your advertising channels

Are you utilizing your social media channels optimally when reaching customers? Going deep with your target research might bring you valuable information on how to better target your Facebook and Instagram ads, so make sure you do it right – or get a team of experienced analysts to do it for you!

You can also think about diversifying your outreach channels – transferring some of your advertising budget into paid advertisements might pay out in the future, as statistics show it is one of the most effective ways of reaching new customers, especially close to Black Friday.

• Perform a thorough UX analysis

Are your customers suddenly leaving your website in the middle of the buying process and you can’t figure out why? It just might be an UX flaw that’s turning your clients away!

Conducting a deep UX analysis will give you valuable insight into how your eCommerce platform performs from the user’s point of view. Taking action appropriate to the results is the key to guaranteeing a smooth user experience and is one of the best eCommerce marketing ideas for you to implement.

Step 2: consider branching out your eCommerce marketing strategy efforts | Remarketing, SEO, and ERPs

Now we’re getting into details – if you haven’t looked at these when devising your eCommerce marketing strategy, it is the best time to do so if you want solid results for Black Friday!

• Try out Remarketing

Returning clients can be just as important as new ones – even more so for B2B businesses! With an ever-increasing saturation of varying client types, clinging on to your customer base is the key to increasing sales. Remarketing is a feature of Google Ads that will allow you to retain more clients after Black Friday ends, in a simple and easy way.

• Search Engine Optimization – boost your visibility

SEO has been proven times and times again to be an effective tool in increasing website outreach, and through this boosting revenue. Google’s algorithms are getting more and more sophisticated with every update, so making sure your SEO features fit in organically with the content is a fool-proof approach to positioning.

• A one-in-all solution to business management with ERPs

Making sure your eCommerce platform works without hicks and allows scalability are the keys to growth. An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is an extensive software, which when properly integrated with your eCommerce platform, gives you an easy way to manage all vital processes of your company using a unified system. Proper ERP integration is crucial to making sure every piece fits together in a perfect harmony.

Step 3: specific tools to use – specialized copy, newsletters, and automation

Here, we want to give you some specific ideas to implement in your eCommerce marketing strategy for Black Friday, which can immediately improve your turnover for the upcoming holidays.

• Publish Black Friday oriented copy

Taking advantage of your content is crucial to reaching out more customers before, during, and after Black Friday. Think about publishing posts, stories, or articles that are relevant to the Black Friday shopping spree – sharing shopping tips and best deals are great ways of reaching out to customers.

• Implement newsletter segmentation

As research shows, it is much more effective to send out personalized newsletters to each segment of your audience, instead of just bombarding them all with the same emails. This way, you’ll be able to meet the specific needs of each customer segment and actually get through to them instead of just annoying them.

• Increase order values with automated rewards

Loyalty rewards are a classic strategy for increasing retention rate and purchase frequency. Giving your customers automatic access to these rewards during checkout has been shown to increase order values – after all, clients prefer such simple solutions to browsing the Internet in search of coupon codes for hours.

Black Friday eCommerce marketing strategy – final thoughts | Always keep experimenting!

The best way of staying ahead of your competition is constant experimentation – never stop developing new ideas and trying them out, as it will give you a wider perspective on which strategies are effective.

Now that you know how to prepare an effective Black Friday eCommerce marketing strategy, nothing is stopping you from maximizing your sales for the holiday season. However, if you need a pair of extra hands to bring your online store to the next level, contact us at ORBA – we help clients with everything eCommerce related, from UX design, eCommerce development and implementation, to service & maintenance!

eCommerce for MANUFACTURERS | Post-COVID challenges and how eCommerce can help

eCommerce for manufacturers | What changed with Covid-19? Well, for a start, steps one and two were made worse due to the presence of technology, social media and fresh uncertainty.

In the past, word of mouth was the prevailing way of sharing news. These days, we can take to the web and learn about things while they are actually happening. As a result, a lot of false news was put out there that took its toll on businesses of all shapes and sizes – especially those that suddenly found themselves unable to let physical customers into their stores.

Worrying Challenges Faced by Manufacturers

Early on, an alarm was sounded and it just so happened to be one that stopped many producers and manufacturers in their tracks. All of a sudden employees couldn’t congregate, which put a halt on production, and this on-again-off-again relationship with Covid has been happening right through to 2021.

To make matters worse, shipping systems began to shut down as restrictions were made on an international level and as a result, consumers couldn’t get what they wanted and products sat in warehouses gathering dust. Many manufacturers began to struggle when attempting to reach retail businesses that had to reduce staff, slow productivity, lower their budget, or even shut down entirely. For entities that had the capability to continue their manufacture, they faced a new issue – the inability to find someone to sell their products to.

Countless manufacturers have found it increasingly difficult to shift their goods and without knowing about the potential of eCommerce, plenty have been forced into closure.

Did You Know…?

eCommerce DTC (Direct to consumer) brings consumers straight to the manufacturer, cutting out the middle man, negating the need for expensive overheads and allowing a producer to thrive online instead of relying on retail stores to buy their goods?

For a solid 6 months in 2020, activities slowed and as you might imagine, this cost a multitude of professional industries billions in losses, with this number still being calculated.

Perhaps the most terrifying notion is that even 18 months later, many countries still don’t know if they will suddenly be locked down, forcing physical stores to close, open and close again.

What Did This Mean for Businesses?

To put it simply, businesses wanting to continue making a profit had to evolve, usually with a dedicated digital transformation strategy to survive. They had to find a way to reach their existing market in a ‘new normal’. This led to many closures between mid-2020 and early 2021 (over 200,000 in the US alone according to data).

But as apocalyptic as this might sound, the reality is that where there is a will, there is a way. As more and more companies had to close their doors for months at a time, a certain percentage of new and existing organizations turned to the one source of provision that even a dreadful virus couldn’t stop – digital transformation via the internet.

According to a survey detailed on unctad.org, 2020 saw one of the biggest rises in the formation of online retail businesses. And this doesn’t appear to be a temporary rise either; in fact, experts have predicted that Covid-19 will change the way that people purchase their goods forever.

For producers and manufacturers of goods, this unsavory situation could go on to become somewhat of a blessing in disguise – especially where eCommerce is concerned.

eCommerce for manufacturers | What Does This Mean in 2021?

Due to the extreme nature of Covid-19 and the rapid way in which it has affected the entire world, a new precedent has been set for online shopping – one that could provide a way forward for internet retailers.
As people step away from their usual method of shopping, i.e. visiting a brick-and-mortar store, they are finding a newer solution. Google searches for online shopping and eCommerce stores are at an all-time high and this trend looks set to continue well beyond 2021.

This spells that eCommerce for manufacturers makes an incredible range of potential for the following types of enterprises:

• Businesses that would like to take advantage of the growing popularity of online sales and develop a new digital branch in their organization
• Existing manufacturers that found themselves struggling to sell their goods during the height of Covid and could benefit from new distribution channels
• Previously active businesses that had physical stores affected by the virus and had to shut down temporarily or permanently
• New companies looking to cash in on the increased interest in online-sales; these may be start-ups, or evolving physical stores fed up with being told when they can and can’t be open

Of the three types of company above, they all share one thing in common: they can be ideal for working within the B2B setting.

With eCommerce solutions also providing tools to help with managing and processing business data, there’s never been a better time for producers and manufacturers to consider dropping the previous need for a sales representative, in favor of opening new distribution channels. Additionally, businesses that sell goods (as well as online retailers), can offer direct-to-consumer solutions (D2C) with minimal fuss when doing so online.

How Can B2B eCommerce Help?

B2B eCommerce works by taking each of these possibilities and tying them together on a B2B eCommerce platform that works seamlessly.

As briefly mentioned above, the potential to take advantage of streamlined solutions and tools for processing business data becomes a possibility as well. This includes options to monitor sales data, overhead costs, expenses and even productivity – all at the click of a button when using an eCommerce solution. With these digital tools at their disposal, businesses at the start of the product chain (manufacturers) can enjoy access to dedicated distribution channels that negate the need for a sales rep, and take their products directly to the customer; minimizing their costs in the process.

This method takes full advantage of a situation that has been destroying businesses due to lack of engagement, by allowing them to co-exist within a digital setting to meet all levels of supply and demand.

eCommerce for manufacturers | Benefiting from eCommerce

According to NetComm Suisse, almost every single product category available online has seen an increase in their demand; including cosmetics, fashion, education and digital entertainment.
Although popular before COVID-19, this fresh drive of consumers is now the biggest market to have ever existed.

Manufacturers:
For those creating products and goods, establishing a presence online can allow a way to reach countless businesses in need of items to sell. There’s genuinely no better way to do so than via an eCommerce platform; all but eliminating the middle-man and enhancing profitability in the process of direct-to-consumer sales (DTC).

Suppliers:
From personal care to clothing; suppliers can locate their ideal manufacturers, source products in bulk (typically at a reduced rate), and then distribute their goods via B2B sales.

Producers:
Ecommerce for manufacturers with options for eCommerce order management, a production company could offer an incredible variety of goods and materials via a website, blog, or even social media page, and then enjoy new distribution channels afforded by eCommerce platforms to take products straight to market (B2C / DTC).

If all of the above wasn’t appealing enough, there’s also the ability to save the cost of overheads by running an eCommerce site instead of a physical store.

eCommerce for manufacturers | Summary

E-commerce (especially DTC / direct to consumer) provides a way for manufacturers, producers and consumers to benefit from one another in a safe, comfortable environment with minimal risk and maximum profitability. Throw in the added benefits that come with eCommerce platforms, including the ability to process vital business data and track sales, eliminate sales representatives (plus their commissions), and more – and you have a very convincing way of conducting business in these uncertain times.