On November 9 it was finally time for the Shopware Partner Day Benelux & ROW at the Renaissance Hotel Schiphol in Amsterdam. The event brought together many of our partners to hear the latest updates and do a spot of networking. Of course, many from the Shopware team were also there to meet our partners. Let us take you through the day with a look at the program, the highlights, and the key takeaways.
Program overview
Program item | Speaker |
|---|---|
Welcome and agenda | Katy Wilson & Davide Giordano from Shopware |
Keynote | Stefan Hamann from Shopware |
Product Spotlight – a year of achievements and the road ahead | Moritz Naczenski from Shopware |
An Outlook on Mollie’s Roadmap | Ksenia Zvereva from Mollie |
Shopware Academy | Katy Wilson & Sander Mangel from Shopware |
How to work best together! Partners + Sales | Anthony van Zaltbommel from Shopware |
Masterstrokes & Innovation at Shopware | Vanessa Brauch from Shopware |
Shopware United – connecting the Shopware community | Wouter den Otter from H1 Webdevelopment |
Consulting Services – a partnership approach | Oliver Breitfeld from Shopware |
Extension Partners & Shopware Store | Thomas Stahl from Shopware |
Partnering with Shopware for success | Frank Bouwman from STRIX & Patrick Büngener from Shopware |
Closing words | Stefan Hamann & Davide Giordano from Shopware |
The most important takeaways
Let’s take a look at the talks in chronological order and summarize the key points.
Hosting and welcome
The day was hosted by Shopware’s Head of Academy, Katy Wilson. Together with Davide Giordano, she gave the guests a warm welcome and kicked off a quiz where Shopware experts were able to show off their in-depth knowledge of both the product and our company history. Congratulations once again to the winners!
Keynote speech by Stefan Hamann
Stefan Hamann, Shopware founder and Co-CEO, opened the Partner Day with inspiring words of welcome to introduce the day’s events and underline Shopware’s journey and achievements.
Stefan emphasized how much Shopware has learned over the years, continually evolving and honing its market position with many successes to show for it. These include the development of a partner ecosystem that continues to grow and thrive.
He also highlighted other significant successes, such as being named a Visionary in this year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce, and a G2 Leader in multiple categories. We’re grateful to you – our partners – for the role you’ve played in all these achievements!
“There are three things to note about momentum: It’s tough to build, easy to lose, and impossible to fake. We are 100% aware of why Shopware is where it is today, and that’s exactly why we will continue to investing in building and strengthening our community. The requirements in the mid-market are exciting and diverse. It’s all about more complexity and associated efficiencies – with different pricing, countries, and business models. And that’s where you’re the experts. You’re the specialists. You’re the ones who build the projects, deliver the technologies, and integrate them.”
– Stefan Hamann, Shopware founder and Co-CEO
Looking back and ahead on the product side, by Moritz Naczenski
Moritz Naczenski, our Director of Product Management, spoke informatively and openly about the past and coming year from the product perspective. We can look back on a highly productive year, with nearly 150 new apps in the store, 18 self-hosted releases, and 35 innovative features, including multi-inventory, subscriptions, and a new returns management system. In 2024, we’ll focus on five approaches that are based on current market developments and trends, and fulfill our customer promise. These will be the main waypoints on our product roadmap.
Shopware’s approaches for the coming year
• Guarantee integration, extensibility, and stability: We plan to enter into deeper partnerships for migration and extension. We’ll also bring in our own tools to simplify customer projects and reinforce our app system strategy, enabling a good balance between extensibility and stability.
• Promote spatial commerce and outstanding shopping experiences: For example, through gamification, support for 3D files, and an initial AR approach that breaks down the boundaries between physical and digital.
• Drive B2B ecommerce: Our plan is to offer a seamless experience that helps sales staff digitalize their work, and to simplify how analog processes are migrated to the commerce system.
• Establish data- and AI-driven innovations: We want to analyze data and feed the collected insights into our product, while using machine learning to create value for our customers (initially in reporting/analytics).
• Improve software architecture: We plan to deliberately trade flexibility for scalability where it makes sense. We’ll define modules with clear interfaces, offer cloud services, and concentrate on creating more API-based extensions to reduce dependencies.
An Outlook on Mollie’s Roadmap
Ksenia Zvereva, Developer Community Lead at Mollie, shared exciting product updates during her presentation. First on the list were card payments, where she provided insights into the latest developments in Auth&Capture, currently in beta, as well as Acceptance & Risk capabilities. Moving on to alternative payment methods (APMs), Ksenia offered a sneak peek into local payment methods and what to anticipate in the first half of 2024. In-person payments brought exciting news about the already introduced Mollie Terminal offering and the upcoming introduction of Tap to Pay on Android functionality next year. With Tap to Pay, you can accept contactless in-person payments with any compatible NFC phone or tablet.
Then, in financial services, Ksenia highlighted Mollie Capital, a fast, flexible business financing option that you can obtain in less than 1 day. Additionally, she introduced a brand-new Mollie Dashboard designed to provide easier access to all insights into the performance of your business, allowing you to review critical actions to further drive performance. For those eager to explore these updates, Ksenia extended an invitation to join the Mollie community on Discord, where you can participate in ongoing product betas.
What’s new for partners in the Shopware Academy?
Katy Wilson introduced the Shopware Academy, of which she is the Head. The Academy provides valuable resources from within our company, as well as from Shopware partners and experts. This includes free training on various topics – for designers, developers, or solution architects. In addition, you can boost your expertise and market value with our training and certifications, including the new Solution Specialist certification and PaaS training. Find out more on our Academy page, subscribe to our Shopware Knowledge YouTube channel, and take a look at our info and marketing material for partners.
How can partners and Sales work even better together?
Sales Development Manager Anthony van Zaltbommel told us how Shopware Sales would like to work even more effectively with partners. In the last two years, we’ve intensified our focus on the mid-market. This has brought various changes, which Anthony explained in more detail. The key message of his talk was that if you want to win customers efficiently in the mid-market, it’s crucial to have open, trusting, and close communication.
From leads to deals: Partners should register, qualify, and contact leads in good time. We recommend prompt registration of product-qualified leads to enable efficient processes.
From deals to customers: We value consistent communication and use the MEDDPICC framework to gather relevant information for successful customer acquisition.
Take rate and pricing: When working together, it’s important to have mutual respect with regard to pricing, so we can optimize overall costs and achieve the best results in the mid-market.
Masterstrokes & Innovation at Shopware
Vanessa Brauch, Teamlead Product Marketing at Shopware, highlighted the five unique values, that Shopware brings to the table: having an open source core, being open & transparent in terms of feature roadmap communication as well as the opportunity to shape the roadmap, a product with the best value for money, and a focus on innovation. To underline them, she talked about several possibilities, how to contribute to the roadmap as a partner or merchant, showed two customer cases with higher conversion rates after switching to Shopware, and talked about how Shopware's approaching continuous innovation.
Shopware United – connecting the Shopware community
Shopware United presented an overview of its history and goals for the future. As an international community organization, the focus is on growth and training for the entire Shopware ecosystem, as well as increasing the visibility of the community as a whole. Many online and offline events in various formats are organized for different groups. Projects such as Community Voice or Solution Specialist certification are driven forward in close cooperation with Shopware. Shopware United also sees itself as a mouthpiece for the community, where even unpleasant topics are discussed controversially with Shopware.
Shopware's Consulting Services – a partnership approach
Oliver Breitfeld, Head of Consulting Services at Shopware, took the stage to introduce our Consulting Services. This is something we’ve offered since the beginning of the year, to provide support at the technical or business level. As these services are often misunderstood, we asked Oliver’s colleague, Manuel, a few questions about them.
Interview with Manuel Fuß about Shopware's Consulting Services
Why is Consulting Services so valuable for Shopware partners?
Consulting Services offers in-depth Shopware knowledge plus a direct link to the manufacturer. This gives our partners a significant advantage, as they can use this connection as a sales argument when they talk to customers. Collaborating with partners allows us to develop custom solutions and strategies that both increase efficiency and accelerate ROI. With us at their side, our partners can be certain that they are harnessing Shopware’s full potential.
What common misconceptions are there about Consulting Services, and how do you clear them up?
A very frequent misconception is the fear that we might “poach” business from our partners. But in reality we’re there to do exactly the opposite. Our deep understanding of customer projects often means we can identify additional tasks and interfaces that might otherwise get missed. In practice, this frequently leads to more business for our partners. Extending the scope and improving the quality of projects results in happier customers who benefit from optimized Shopware solutions. Our role is to facilitate success for our partners and their customers.
How do you see the future of the collaboration between Shopware, partners, and Consulting Services?
The collaboration is becoming closer, more productive, and, above all, more like a partnership. We see the invaluable work our partners put in, and our role is to support them at every stage. This means equipping them with the best tools, resources, and information to ensure that their customer projects are a success.
What would you say to partners who are hesitating to reach out to Consulting Services?
Use us as your secret weapon! With Consulting Services at your side, you’ll have access to top-class expertise as well as a direct link to the manufacturer. This allows you to create an even more enticing offer for your customers and establish yourselves as their go-to partner for Shopware solutions. It’s all about growing together and dominating the market.
Many thanks, Manuel!
What’s new in the Shopware Store?
Thomas Stahl is Head of Extension Partnerships & Growth. He told us about current projects and plans for the Shopware Store, which should interest (future) Extension Partners in particular. An important announcement: From 2024 we’ll be offering all extensions as a subscription model only – annually or monthly. This will boost development thanks to recurring revenue for Extension Partners. In addition, the Store will be migrating from Shopware 5 to Shopware 6 and will be reworked to significantly improve the user experience and make it even easier to access the extensions you need. Going forward, we also want to improve the account area, enrich the partner account with more data, and relaunch the feedback function in the Store. We’re happy to receive your feedback at alliances@shopware.com
The Shopware team says thank you!
Stefan Hamann and Davide Giordano appeared together one last time, to express their enthusiasm and gratitude to the whole partner ecosystem. Stefan’s three key takeaways from the day were:
The importance of teamwork between Shopware and its partners
How much mid-market potential there is that we can tap together
How fantastic it is that our industry is one of the fastest innovators
Let’s continue on this successful path together, conquering the mid-market with our teamwork and passion!
Your feedback is important
Your feedback means a lot to us, whether on product structure, organization of the Partner Day, or our collaboration. We love achieving things together and trust in your imaginative ideas and expert knowledge. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch and share your feedback with us.
