SHOPWARE UNPLUGGED PODCAST

In this episode we delve into crafting your ecommerce success story through the transformative power of marketplaces. From strategic insights to practical tips, discover how to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of online commerce and unlock the secrets to sustainable growth and profitability

Get ready to unveil the ultimate ticket to e-commerce supremacy with Shopware Solution Specialist certification. In this captivating episode, Justin Biddle sheds light on the transformative power of the Solution Specialist certification and how it can elevate your e-commerce endeavors to unparalleled heights of success. Discover the unique advantages and game-changing benefits of becoming a certified Shopware expert, as Justin shares real-world insights and success stories from his own illustrious career. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or seasoned professional, this episode is your passport to unlocking the full potential of Shopware solutions and cementing your legacy as an e-commerce expert.

What direction is Shopware moving in and what does it mean for the industry? Kasia is talking with Alexey, new General Manager EMEA at Shopware.

Kasia

Hello everyone. It's a really special episode because I have a special guest directly from Shopware. Hi Alexey, I'm really happy to have you here and can you say a bit of yourself?.

Alexey

As you might know I'm pretty new to the Shopware community and happy to be part of that and continue to learn that I started in Shopware first of June in the role of general manager for Emea I think moving forward we'll discuss a little bit more what it means. Before that I'm not new at all to the ecommerce world and to the ecommerce industry kind of turned out to be specialized in this area and in these dimension since 2011 was working in Oracle before then, hybris, recently Spryker and now it is Shopware so that's kind of shortly my journey between 2011, actually now yeah and the journal in the it industry in different capacities in different roles across Emea since already 18 years so I feel myself a little bit old by now sometimes.

Kasia

We'd love to hear more about your background and your journey that led you to join Shopware. What's motivated you to be a part of this organization? Please tell us more about yourself because it's very interesting.

Alexey

It's quite simple and straightforward. So as mentioned I started my IT career so to say eighteen years ago. Originally as implementation consultant for the year then I kind of quickly figured it out and got the feeling in all of this. Kind of system testing and writing instructions for the users and analyzing the processes is quite interesting and definitely an area to explore but this is not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I felt myself more kind of closer to the commercial function. And this is where I shifted quite early in my career first and became one of the Microsoft Gold partners and then at the end of 2008 was headhunted into Oracle so I was a part of the Oracle retail global business unit organization for about 5 years taking care of the enterprise retailers. Across eastern Europe within Oracle and then as I mentioned already in my short introduction in 2011 an interesting occasion for my future life turned out to happen. Oracle acquired Atg and the Atg became part of our product portfolio which I needed to position to my customers back then so that's how I started my ecommerce journey. So this was quite a successful and interesting journey. In 2013 I was headhunted by a well-known name I think in the European space, a company called Hybris and they asked me to practically kick off and start their operations in Russia, which is my home country originally. This is what I have done and then the hybris got acquired quite soon by the app group and this was kind of my entry point into scp where I spent 8 years and the scp gave me great opportunity to work in many countries and many geographies so relocated end of 2017 to Switzerland was running in swiss business and there and then had a original responsibility as the ceo for Ema North business how Icp calls it a covering the Uk Benelux Nordics and France then in total was like quite a long corporate journey with Oracle. I started feeling okay either stay in this beautiful corporate world like kind of forever or I want to go somewhere more dynamic where I have got also more freedom to execute and more freedom to build things from scratch and this is where I joined the Spryker team so early twenty twenty one I was in for two and a half years covering the international expansion of the business across various geographies such as Uk, Nordic, France, Middle East, Spain, and lately Apac and with a strong focus on the enterprise segment because I think many listeners of these podcasts know this is exactly the focus of Spryker. Earlier this year we connected with Stefan Hamann whom I guess everybody knows on this podcast for natural reasons and we started exchanging our views on the market and also the experiences we have got. I have learned about what Shopware plans for the future and the ambitions when the company has to expand into the mid market space. I got really intrigued to join the executive team of the company and see how I can best support and make it printed to the next level of the business. Specifically what motivated me I think first of all I would definitely highlight the culture of Shopware which is as some of the listeners might have heard, open, authentic and visionary and I would say that Stefan and Sebastian were really super successful in my view of bringing this to life, and this is what I observe on a daily basis both within the company and within the community that these principles really work and they really move forward Shopware day by day and help. And secondly of course look there cannot be a niche software player where product is not important right? So product is definitely extremely important and has been for more than 13 years by now in the ecommerce space. I can definitely say that what I have seen from the product value proposition so far and the feedback I'm hearing from the merchants is really incredible. So the functional capabilities and the technological backbone which Shopware has is one of the strong reasons which are motivating me and which makes me believe that we have got a lot of success ahead of us.

Kasia

Quite an experience. Regarding the culture of Shopware. This is very important to work in a place where culture is good and it's open for open-minded people. So I guess there is a place for your open mind ideas.

Alexey

Yeah, so far. There is quite some place for sure. And yeah, look I think it's always like a much more effective approach compared to like the top down motion so to say because the moment you are, you're really doing. It's an open and authentic and visionary way you have many more ideas and many more opinions and suggestions coming from across the organization from across the community which is even more important. So It's not only that we are open to the ideas and the suggestions and thoughts on how to improve for our employees which is definitely the case and they can say that in the last couple of months. I had quite a number of initiatives which were coming exactly from the team and this is incredible. This is perfect. This is what many companies would like to stimulate and are looking for the way to do so and Shopware I would say pretty much succeeded already in achieving this. But what is also even probably more important for the wider community. It's not only about our internal team but it's also about the ecosystem which we have gotten in place. So this also relates to our integration partners, our technology partners and moreover. Of course our merchants and customers exactly.

Kasia

The whole community right? Yeah, how has this Shopware structure evolved over time and what are the key changes that have been made? What is your role in Shopware compared to Stefan and Sebastian because I guess it's a very very important question. Have there been any recent changes within the Shopware structure? Please tell us more about this topic.

Alexey

Yeah, definitely happy to cover this and explain in a little bit more detail. So my scope of responsibility within the shopware is everything to do with what I would call go to market and commercial operations so this includes marketing business development. Sales integration, partnerships technology, partnerships customer success, customer support Shopware academy and of course our Shopware store or our actual marketplace for our ecosystem previously. All of those functions were reporting directly to Stefan and Sebastian.Through of course the specific leadership and management team. So far so on and with myself taking over this overall responsibility in this part and in this scope of business Stefan Sebastian will be having more and more focus on this on the future strategy of the company on thought leadership and product innovation. That's what I mentioned, that's kind of.

Alexey

Our agreement and of course together with that they are remaining the Ceos, coCeos and co founders of the business. They're super actively engaged into the community. They have got their super strong networks of both merchants and the partners whom they know for ages. And of course we are actively collaborating together to make sure that we secure the success and the future vision and the benefits for the community in general.

Kasia

That's great that Stefan and Sebastian will have more time to focus on ideas on product and and everything because they have you ah so. To do many important things so that's great. Thank you for sharing this with us as the hype around Shopware has been growing because we can see this. Could you provide some insights into its current state and the direction it is expected to take within the next year

Alexey

Yeah, sure so look first of all I think it's great to know and to hear that the hype around the Shopware is growing. That's exactly what we need to continue successfully to grow in our ecosystem and grow our business and our ultimate goal. How we recently are formulating this to have more Shopware everywhere practically. That's kind of the ambition where we are standing now. I think it is also quite important because we have got a really strong basis specifically in the media so out of my knowledge of the market and of my observation in the last couple of months we clearly have got the largest digital ecosystem of merchants. And technology providers in the dark space and clearly one of the largest players in Europe as well which is focused in this area so this is like a super strong foundation for us. And moving forward our plan and the bishopness from one side to definitely sustain this founda

Kasia speaks with Tim @B2Bsellers Suite about where B2B is going and how fast it grew during the last few years.

Borys talks with Laura Kremer, an ecommerce consultant, about the interesting challenge why customers and agencies need support of 3rd party consultants. Listen to learn how to do it right and what are benefits for the customer and the agency.

Borys We we can start with the with the break hello everybody I usually say we have a special guest but today we have a special guest Lara Kramer it it. is a special hour because we not often have women on podcasts. Yeah.

Borys Everything about shopware usually is about guys men discussing about agencies implementations and so on and so on So I'm super happy that you are that you are here. You also work as a freelancer and a consultant. So I think we we might have an interesting topic for for everybody. But I think will be great if you could introduce yourself and say few words, What? exactly you do.

 

Laura  Yeah, thank you Boris for inviting me and you're so right there are unfortunately and not so many women and ecommerce. Um, so I'm trying to represent today some woman in tech and  Nice to meet you all? Um I'm the founder and Ceo of canlu gi biha based in Germany and um, while trying to explain what I'm doing on one hand I'm working as a consultant ecommerce

 

Laura I'm advising B Two C and B Two B companies within yeah questions like what kind of shop systems should they use what questions do they have for within ecommerce or within ecommerce landscapes. And on the other hand I'm working as kind of a matchmaker Um, between those companies or clients and suitable um solution for wires. This could be agencies freelances Tech solutions. Everything like that.

 

Borys - Okay, okay, so so ah, if we look at the typical market. There are agencies. Yeah, who are providing a different type of Services. So How do you see the role of an external consultant like you. You know what are the advantages I Assume for the customer to have an external consultant when someone decides to go with with the implementation shopware or if someone is looking for ah ah for the ecommerce platform. What's better in having consultant versus just going and asking you know 5 different agencies.

 

Laura  Yeah that's a very good question I think it has benefits for both of them. Um, for me personally I work very independent means I'm using my knowledge or I gain knowledge within the agency side client side and also within. Shopper itself. So um, yeah I'm using all this knowledge from Eight plus years within ecommerce to advice clients. Um independently maybe choosing the right shop system like shopware or maybe a our solution. Whatever fits to their needs and um it could also be a great benefit for agencies because I see myself and um or I like working very close with agencies means I'm maybe a pre-part before their work begins I'm clarifying strategies.

 

Laura  - I’m helping the client be or to have a more clear vision of what they are needing creating the briefing together and then I can yeah create a perfect match between those requirements and agency who fits very well.

 

Laura - The client and I think so it has benefits for both sides.

 

Borys - Yeah, and I see more in the more in general consultants on the market. Yeah why? Why do you think it happens why there is a demand on the market for those type of services or it's more. There is enough knowledge enough skilled people. So they decide to become ah become a consultant.

 

Laura - Yeah,, that's a good Question. We have a lot of consultants. That's true I Think on one hand we really have great people on the market so they gained experience maybe On. Merchant side or they decided to become self-employed after working for a tech solution Provider. Um, and normally I think there's enough space for all of us on the table and um I Also think could be.

 

Laura - It’s not possible to advise clients within all specific topics within ecommerce because if we are looking at ah ecommerce and total you could advise within strategy within maybe Marketplaces or afterwards performance Marketing. Whatever is. Is needed on client side and so yeah, we have a lot of and consultants. Um I forgot the question forgot what I asking.

 

Borys - Okay, we we can cut we can cut at the cut up to this point. Okay, 2 seconds break you set. Um you work also as a matchmaker. Yeah, ah between agencies and service providers. Um, and of course the customer. So how does it work this this matchmaker.

 

Laura - Yeah, so um, within my experience. So I said I started 2016 in ecommerce and I first started in a big agency and after that I worked on software manufacturer side and later on on merchant site. So what I recognize within this years that there's um, there has to be a great fit between all of those parties means um the the softwares of course has to ah fit for the customer requirements while the custom has served.

 

Laura  - Should know what exactly he wants to implement and um, the perfect fit between the implementing service provider and the client is also crucial. So we have three parties. Um who and needs to work together and um, what I experienced within all those years were that.

 

Laura - A lot of projects failed because there was not fit between those three parties so in my new role I now try to help all of those three sides um means I sit down to the client I specify the requirements.

 

Laura - Um I have them find the right system and do this clear. Um, let me say this clear strategyy. Um I can then find a suitable system or take solution for their Needs. Um. And now the next factor will be who is able to implement this solution. So here I'm using my network of strategic partners and which can be agencies Freelancers Software solutions that I recommend those people I recommend to the clients. And had them find the right partner in cases on budget in cases of specific needs. Um, yeah, and that's that's what I'm doing.

 

Borys - Ah, so from so from that point a typical agency would focus on just selling. Yeah, whatever they want to sell um and if the customer has you as ah as a matchmaker.

 

Borys - It’s easier to find out. You know what are the real expectation and what is the best fit here because there's also a challenge of the agencies Sometimes when I talk to customers. They also get confused. Yeah, they have like I met so many agencies everyone is saying something different I cannot. I Don't know what to do? Yeah, it's ah I cannot make myself a good judgment and a good selection of the of the agency.

 

Laura - True and I think that's that's quite normal once a 1 hand our the whole topic. Our language everything we both are doing is so complicated I mean it's such a specific field of. Yeah, things we are doing and we are talking in our own language. So I think that's the first problem people just visiting websites of agencies asking them themselves like what what the hell they are doing. You don't get it and um, yeah.

 

Laura - I Um I had the chance to work with a lot of agencies to really visit them on site to see how they work to talk to their clients and that's exactly the way I'm choosing somehow my partners to see what can what are they able to offer because.

 

Laura - And know agencies. They are so good in um, in creating B Two B Ecommerce Landscapes or to to um to help clients with um I don't know hosting problems. Whatever. And I think it's it's crucial to really match those two sides.

 

Borys - And would you agree? Ah that in general e-commerce became way more complicated, especially if you look at the implementation. Ah that there are so many different expectations. So many different platforms. Ah. And new technologies and so on everything is changing also so fast then the need for a customer it would be or it is very hard to to really evaluate it. So then in this way, your service is ah is necessary or in general a service of consultant who is. More experience to it for many many years and as you mentioned have a great connection to really be able to evaluate the differences between agencies becomes like a necessity for for a lot of customers.

 

Laura - Exactly you know everything is changing so fast. Um, think it's um or let me say I see myself. Um or it's necessary that you say like this. It's necessary that i'm. Um, informed I'm I'm really reading all the time about everything in ecommerce. So um I think we cannot expect our clients or merchants to overlook all those specific topics within ecommerce There's so much as you said was. From strategy to social commerce performance marketing. Whatever is within the whole complex of building up a store and having ah clients recognizing the store and having all the third -party systems integrated. Um so I think it's. Helpful to ask consultants for help and also to find good implementation. Partners um, really fit with the yeah specific um requirements you have as a maybe b two b company.

 

Laura - As that startup as an Enterprise company. Whatever is um, your challenge.

 

Borys- Okay, so I have I have a tough question then because if you work with many different agencies then what makes a good e-commerce agency. Ah what are from your perspective those those f

Kasia talks with Dennis and Freek on what is the real value of Ecommerce talk with Miron Glass

Borys talks with Edin about the development and Shopware agency landscape in Germany, considering latest changes and new PaaS & SaaS distributions. Edin is also a podcaster running German podcast Shopcast.fm

Borys talks with Benno Lippert from maxcluster about Shopware hosting and scaling challenges. Considering preparations for Black Friday. Learn what’s specific about Shopware hosting, how to approach Black Friday picks and traffic.

- Borys: Hello everybody we're recording in the very specific week as we talk with our guest today. Ah this is just the week of black friday and today I have a banner from Max Custer um a hosting company. Who agreed to make the recording just in this crazy crazy week. Thank you very much for finding some time between calls with the customers who are just starting the new promotion and and everything is getting read all the all the servers nice to have you here. - Benno: Yeah, step thanks for all the invitation and great to be here. - Borys: I don't know if you remember we were going on one event back together in one taxi and we discussed that we should record it record it one day I think it was a few months ago. So it's great to it's great to have you here. Okay Benno. Can you say few words about max cluster what is max cluster. Um, what are experiences of max cluster in regards to shopware. - Benno: Um, sure so Marx Cluster is a specialized managed ecommerce hoster and um, we celebrated our tenth anniversary this summer we host more than 2000 web shops mainly in the german speak in. - Borys: Great. - Borys: Okay, okay, so. - Benno: Area and we live and breathe ecommerce hosting. So we really think Ecommerce hosting different from the ground up and that's that's something that's really unique from a hosting point of view. - Borys: Yes I agree with you. We are all wetrix also are working with the hosting providers who really do it for ecommerce because otherwise if you do wordpress and some general things. Yeah, it's. Ah, it's a completely different world. It's it's hard to explain someone um or understand it. It's it's not a normal normal type of hosting call. So we'll have some good some good experiences here to talk about and in general yeah, you're you're from Germany and I have more and more guests from Germany. Ah so I'm very proud of um, ah. How do you see the shopware position right now because you you from hosting perspective will have probably a little bit different perspective than um than anyone else because you see those shops life. Yeah, you see their challenges. Ah if few hosts. Ah. Ecommerces you also yeah, host some other competitors. Yeah, like Magenta or presta shop or some other some other platforms. So how do you see put the positioning and the proposal that shopware has on the market right now. - Benno: Shopper from my point of view has the very good um valid proposition. It's a mature open source ecommerce framework especially the version 6 and especially in Germany. Um. Shopware is gaining more and more traction and taking market share from Magento so ambitious merchants who have achieved a lot on Magento for example. - Borys: Um. - Borys: And. - Benno: Replatforming um towards shopware and this is clients from all sizes and all verticals who are um, transitioning to shopware. Yeah, we don't see as many as big clients. Um on shopware as on Magento this is. - Borys: Not yet probably. - Benno: Um, a matter not yet I Guess it's also um, um, a matter of time because especially um, the open source solution has a very ah predictable price point and merchants together with um, a good agency or a skilled agency. Can. Really achieve a unique um shopping experience with shopware. - Borys: True and as you and as you see from from the hosting perspective. Why customers are choosing Shopware. What would be those the biggest the biggest value um in in this in the system this that it's Opened. It allows to modify Customize. Ah or or some other. Some other aspects. - Benno: So most of our clients um are customized clients and um, they they choose shopware over Magento for example because shopware as a company um cares about open source. - Borys: True. - Benno: And has a very compelling product roadmap so they are listening to the clients and are delivering new features that help merchants to really tailor shopping experiences and this is crucial in order to. - Borys: I. - Benno: Compete with um platforms like Multiji channel platforms Amazon and so on. So if you want to really have a striving ecommerce business. You need to be able to um. - Benno: Come up with a unique value proposition and the the channel and the features and the depths of the of the um knowledge that you share and the experience that you create with your ecommerce shop are setting you apart. So like. - Borys: Yeah, okay, ah, and so looking at the yeah, you probably know with the best right now in this week looking at the hosting of not maybe even shopware but in general as you mentioned you have a focus on Ecommerce platforms. What usually people don't understand what they don't consider you know when when they go with just an average hosting Provider. What is so specific in in you know in ecommerce hosting. - Benno: Ecommerce hosting in general is really complex if you want to do ecommerce hosting and get it right? Um, you have to have to really? Um. Master many different technologies you have to gain deep knowledge of all the various technologies that ecommerce frameworks nowaday use like Redis Elasticsearch Rabbit mq varnish etc and you have to orchestrate all these. - Borys: Um. - Borys: From. - Benno: Technologies for high availability because what doesn't or shouldn't happen is actually that the shop is offline or something is not working and that's ah, that's the next thing that you have to ensure is a very very good monitoring. Not only server stuts you have to have to know about more things. Um, it's not not enough to um monitor only um, standard metrics you have to ensure that the ecommerce framework is actually operating you have to. And ensure that an item can be add to a cart and the checkout is working that the response times are good and so on and so on and that that has to be done 24 hours 7 days a weeks three hundred sixty five days a year um in order to to do the sayers. So if you yeah. - Borys: Jump. - Benno: If you don't have if you don't have a person you can call when something goes wrong and this person isn't able to help you and figure out where is the problem. Between all these various technologies. That's really yeah, not um, not working that's harming your business and many times those problems or cure after regular business hours end. So it's was ah b two c shopping starts at four zero P M and that's ah, that's a timing where many um, many hostsers don't have um the best people on call I would say. - Borys: Yeah, yeah, I also have an experience that a good ecommerce hosting company has to also understand the platform so be in the middle you know between um, between typical devops but also understanding what what kind of the mechanism are working internally. Ah, so to know a little bit in this case of shopper of Ph P and so on to really understand what depends on what and if if something is happening on the hosting Site. You really need to go Deeper. You cannot be just the hoster like okay we put something there and it will be working and you will not handle ecommerce because as you mentioned exactly this is too. Too complex. But. - Benno: Exactly and when when I talk about knowing the technologies like Redis or elasticsearch you have to also know how the ecommerce framework like shopware facilitates. Those. - Borys: Exactly. - Benno: So weather is a session storage in Redis and if you um, try to tackle a problem you have to look deep into um the application itself in order to fix it and um, we achieve this by. - Benno: Very skilled, um service employees. All our linux admins are also trained in 1 of the ecommerce frameworks and many of them are also certified certified chopboard developers or certified magenta developers um, in order to be able to. - Borys: Um. - Benno: Um, Techodos Program Problems. So Our goal is always if a ah client either agency or Merchant gets in touch with us. We try to solve the problem within the first interaction. So That's also something. Um, yeah. Which is with with um, selling stuff. Um, you you want things to be fixed as quickly as possible and even if the hoster is not the the root cause of a problem we try to help together. Um. - Borys: No. - Benno: With the agency to figure out or guide the agency. What's the cause of the problem is it a slow running sql statement or is it a bad um configured. Session storage or is it maybe a corrupt. Um Elasticsearch um Index or whatsoever and therefore you're totally right? We really have to um gain deep knowledge about the framework itself in order to Tackle. Um. - Borys: And. - Benno: The problems that are cure. - Borys: Yeah, true, exactly so looking at the current current week. So how do you prepare for such an event. Yeah um, what do you do? How you how we prepare cle it clients. For and even like black Friday it's more black Friday week. Yeah, and after Black Friday of course, there's a high season till ah, almost the end of ah end of December so how do you approach it to. - Benno: Um, now. - Borys: To make sure that at the same day. You don't have 2000 customers calling like okay, we're down. Yeah. - Benno: Yeah, yeah, um, exactly so um, yeah, what we do is um, every year we form a project group um a black friday or um, sort quarter project group. We call it. And this this group gets in touch with all our clients. So we we do a mailing and asking if they do plan any promotions or um, specific things regarding Black Friday singles day cyber Monday whatever ah, they come up with and um, the way we we do that is um that we try to provide as much context. Um for the client as possible. We have a. Ah, feature which is called shop performance that automatically scans um our client's clusters for common performance issues. So for shopware those are 35 um, different. - Borys: Um.

Kate talks with Bart from Ergonode why PIM is important, how the ecosystem of Ecommerce got complicated and product information management became complex to handle, no matter how big the catalog of product is. What is the real value of the PIM in Ecommerce SaaS/PaaS composable commerce world.

This episode Borys talks with Sebastian Hamann, Founder & Co-CEO of Shopware, about new offering, how the market is changing and where Shopware sees its biggest potential.