The event started with a keynote from Sebastian Hamann, Shopware’s CEO, who took everyone on a trip down memory lane and explained how he and his brother Stefan started developing Shopware. From flying pirate ships and to C64 to their early programming days, Sebastian emphasised that the Hamann brothers wanted to create awesome experiences. He introduced emotions as the central theme for Shopware and he addressed this several times throughout the event because “emotions are what drives us” and thus should be present in the modern shopping experience.
To grow the business, Sebastian emphasised both open source and globalisation as the key factors for ongoing success. Shopware achieved 12 billion EUR GMV in 2020 and to leverage the momentum, Shopware’s key move was to hire Ben Marks, former Magento evangelist and the informal star of the day. Ben used his keynote to describe his role in helping to bring Shopware’s open commerce approach to the world. He ended with addressing the partner network to feel free to reach out to him with their local needs so he could help support the community. There was also a second speaker discussing the importance of the Shopware community and that was Borys Skraba from Shopware United, who described the role this initiative will play at Shopware. Similarly to Ben, encouraged local interaction and for partners to reach out to Shopware United with any questions or suggestions.
Having set the scene, we caught a glimpse of what Shopware is developing at the moment. Shopware’s vision is to bring outstanding digital shopping moments into everyone’s life and moving forward, Shopware plans to do so by giving retailers more flexibility and customisable options with the underlying message being that as a merchant you have “your freedom to grow.” Sebastian also showed that Shopware provides a scalable platform for all merchants - be it a startup to enterprise business, and then introduced the three different products that would help retailers achieve the shopping experiences modern customers are looking for: the Shopware Open Source Model, Business Model Composer and Composable Customer Experience.
Open Source Model - focusing on community led growth and composable commerce
Business Model Composer - understanding customer needs and providing valuable content
Composable Customer Experience Builder - tell a good story with ease by combining content with commerce
After the three products for all Shopware merchants were presented, Dominic Klein, the Shopware 6 and PWA expert, discussed the updates for this product.
Shopware 6 will combine content and commerce with the aim of bringing a new experience with PWA involving:
To show what this would mean in practice, Dominic gave the example of the first Shopware 6 & PWA store that has gone live: Vintageria, which was built by the agency HCE from Italy. He also presented a sneak preview into “Guided Shopping Experiences”, which is a tool that will create a direct and interactive sales presentation for retailers’ products.
