<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
    <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/?sAtom=1" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" />
    <author>
        <name>Shopware (EN)</name>
    </author>
    <title>Blog/Atom feed</title>
    <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/?sRss=1</id>
    <updated>2018-11-13T11:21:40+01:00</updated>
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">2019 marketing calendar for your online shop</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/2019-marketing-calendar-for-your-online-shop/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/2019-marketing-calendar-for-your-online-shop/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            To help you keep track of the numerous profitable opportunities for your online shop, we put together a free calendar full of relevant holidays and seasonal shopping themes.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 With the new year, comes new sales potential. To help you keep track of the numerous profitable opportunities for your online shop, we put together a helpful calendar of relevant holidays and seasonal shopping themes. 
 These key dates can be used as a guide so that you can keep pace throughout the year running timely promotions. So that you always have this important information at hand, we encourage you to  save or print  this infographic. 
 eCommerce and marketing calender for your online shop:&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 
   
 We wish you a successful new business year! 
 January 
 January 1 – New Year’s Day January 21 – Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (USA) 
  Prepare your shop now for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Valentine’s Day 
 Booking spring break / summer holidays 
 Winter sale 
 
 At the close of the holiday season, prices in many shops are falling to attract visitors. In order to boost sales in your shop and create space for new spring goods, attractive  bundle offers ,  discounts , or &quot; Buy 2 - pay for 1 &quot; promotions are suitable during this time of year. 
 February 
 February 2 – Groundhog Day (USA) February 14 – Valentine’s Day February 18 – Presidents’ Day (USA) 
  Prepare your shop now for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Spring 
 Spring cleaning 
 Spring break / summer vacation 
 
 Easter is just around the corner! Whether you’d like to inspire your customers with great gift ideas, wish them a happy Easter holiday or – in best case – both, with the Premium Plugin,  Advanced Promotion Suite , you can plan a variety of promotions, all of which can be created with just a few clicks. Get tips now on how to effectively present your spring/summer product assortment or push your Winter products to make “out with the old and in with the new”. 
 March 
 March 5 – Mardi Gras / Last day of Carnival season March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day March 20 – Spring Equinox March 31 – Mother’s Day (UK) 
  Prepare your shop for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Easter 
 Garden décor / furniture 
 Motorcycles / convertibles 
 Outdoor sportswear / equipment 
 
 The first warm rays of sunshine lure everyone outside. The car is polished and the garden has been brought out of hibernation… but then you notice: The perfect garden table for cosy barbecue evenings with friends is still missing. Whether garden table, outdoor sportswear, car accessories or other spring equipment, draw attention to your spring offers now and encourage interest for outdoor activities. 
 Could your shop could use some fresh paint? With our tool &quot; Digital Publishing &quot; you can create attractive, SEO-relevant banners for your shop without any programming knowledge. 
 April 
 April 19 - 27 – Passover April 19 – Good Friday April 21 – Easter Sunday April 22 – Earth Day 
  Prepare your shop for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Weddings 
 High school graduation 
 Bicycles 
 Garden décor / furniture 
 Grills and accessories 
 Camping equipment 
 
  Tip for Mother&#039;s Day:  
 Whether perfume, framed memory or tried and tested voucher, Mother&#039;s Day gift ideas are sure to be a hit in your online shop. Remind your customers in advance with banners or newsletters that highlight your assortment of gift ideas. 
 May 
 May 4 – National Remembrance Day (Dodenherdenking – the Netherlands) May 5 – Cinco de Mayo May 5 – Start of Ramadan May 6 – Early May band holiday (UK) May 12 – Mother’s Day (USA / the Netherlands / Italy) May 23 – Shopware Community Day May 27 – Memorial Day (USA) / Summer Bank Holiday (UK) 
  Prepare your shop for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Summer holiday 
 Summer fashion 
 
 The first warm rays of springtime give you a taste of the summer season to come. Wardrobes have been cleaned out to make room for new shorts, shirts, sunglasses, etc. Now it’s important that you meet the individual tastes of your customers with exciting product recommendations. With  Shopping Advisor , your customers can look forward to returning to your shop for perfect product recommendations, while you benefit from higher customer satisfaction and greater chances to increase your turnover. 
 June 
 June 4 – End of Ramadan June 16 – Father’s Day (UK / USA / the Netherlands) June 21 – Summer Solstice 
  Prepare your shop for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Summer holidays 
 End-of-summer sale 
 Beach fashion 
 
 July 
 July 4 – Independence Day (USA) 
  Prepare your shop for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Start of a new school year 
 
 August 
 August 26 – Summer Bank Holiday (UK) 
  Prepare your shop for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Autumn 
 Thanksgiving 
 Halloween 
 
 Believe it or not, Halloween is just around the corner. Next to preparing special promotions, now would be the time to consider out-stepping the competition by publishing blog articles that inspire visitors with ideas for decoration tips or costumes. Be sure to make shopping as easy as possible and provide links to your product offering. 
 September 
 September 11 – 12 – DMEXCO September 23 – Autumn Equinox September 30 – October 1 – Rosh Hashana   Prepare your shop for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Holidays season 
 Winter fashion 
 Preparing your house and garden for winter 
 First frost 
 
 October 
 October 8 – 9 – Yom Kippur October 27 – Diwali October 31 – Halloween   Prepare your shop for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Friday after Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday 
 Winter holiday &amp;amp; winter clothing 
 Flu season 
 
  While your customers are taking advantage of the late summer, now is the time to start preparing for the holidays, which unofficially kick off with Black Friday. Regardless if you’re looking to entice customers with unbeatable deals on Black Friday or appeal to holiday bargain hunters, Shopware’s  Live Shopping  tool is the perfect plugin to create limited time offers that increase or fall in price minute by minute. 
 November 
 November 1 – All Saints Day November 28 – Thanksgiving (US) November 29 – Black Friday   Prepare your shop for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 Advents calendar 
 Christmas gifts 
 Holiday decorations 
 Winter hobbies 
 
 December 
 December 2 – Cyber Monday December 22 – Winter Solstice December 24 – Christmas Eve December 25 – Christmas Day December 26 – Boxing Day (UK / Canada) December 31 – New Year’s Eve   Prepare your shop for these upcoming shopping trends:  
 
 End-of-winter sale 
 Fitness, health, losing weight 
 New Year’s Eve 
 Last-minute Christmas gifts 
 
  Quit smoking, do more sports, eat healthier... At the turn of the year, millions of people are eager to reinvent themselves in some shape or form. Support your customers by offering new sportswear, healthy lifestyle items or even inspire them to adopt a more sustainable attitude. When presented alongside valuable tips, interesting facts or recipes, your products are likely to find their way into the shopping cart. For this, Shopware’s  Shopping Worlds  and  Storytelling  features are perfectly suitable for connecting content and commerce.     
 &amp;nbsp; 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-11-12T07:15:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">How to create successful campaigns for Black Friday</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/how-to-create-successful-campaigns-for-black-friday/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/how-to-create-successful-campaigns-for-black-friday/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Black Friday and Cyber Monday are getting closer. Find out now how you can prepare your online shop now to benefit from these extremely popular retail events.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 Originating in the United States, &quot;Black Friday&quot; has recently taken root in Europe as well, turning the period until the following Cyber Monday into a shopping event for many consumers. A paradise not only for bargain hunters, but also for all participating online retailers – so don&#039;t miss out on this profitable opportunity! Everything you need to know to carry out a successful campaign is explained in this article. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 When is Black Friday 2018? 
 This year&#039;s campaign will take place between   23 November 2018 (Black Friday) and 26 November 2018 (Cyber Monday) . 
 Encourage your customers&#039; curiosity 
 With the flood of special offers in the Black Friday weekend, standing out from the competition can be a challenge. This means it&#039;s all the more important that you make your customers aware of the exciting deals awaiting them in your shop before the start of the campaign. This information can be provided via newsletters, your social media channels, or with a  countdown , to name just a few examples. It&#039;s important not to release this information too much advance, or you risk disappearing under the multitude of offers. We recommend that you get started around three days beforehand, to be sure your customers don&#039;t forget about your special offer. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Create a great user experience – including on mobile 
 In your online shop, point out your deals with eye-catching banners. Properly placed banners – on the homepage itself, category and product pages, or in the shopping cart – can be very effective. Make sure that the display of your banners and text is also optimised for mobile devices. Of course, they should also fit in with your corporate design. By the way, our  Digital Publishing  tool provides valuable support when it comes to creating individual banners from your Shopware backend. From the Professional Edition onwards, this tool is included free of charge. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Link online and offline channels 
 If you operate a physical retail outlet next to your online shop, you be sure to link these channels. For example, it makes sense to offer deals where your customers can also redeem online coupons in every retail location. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Convince customers with targeted emails 
 If you have analysed the buying behaviour of your customers in the past, you can put this knowledge to good use in your email marketing. Design your campaign with customised product recommendations. When your email marketing speaks to your customers&#039; interests, you&#039;ll see higher click rates. 
 A reminder email shortly before the campaign ends will further increase the sense of urgency. The&amp;nbsp; Smart Newsletter  plugin is your perfect companion for creating tailor-made newsletters. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Plan your campaign early 
 Start thinking now about which campaign you will use to appeal to your customers. You can look to classic sales campaigns for inspiration, which include: 
 
 Absolute or percentage discounts for the entire purchase 
 Above a minimum purchase value, an item is given away for free 
 When buying a second item, a % discount is offered on top of the order 
 Buy three items and only pay for two 
 
 Use the  Advanced Promotion Suite  from Shopware to map all successful promotions – this makes planning in advance easy. 
 Check which campaigns make the most sense for your shop. With the combination of the Advanced Promotion Suite and  Product Streams , you can draw attention to select items, such as a specific brand. Obviously your stock should also match the campaign. It&#039;s important to make sure that your campaign is always easy to understand and not too complicated. Asterisks and restrictions will scare away potential customers. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Live Shopping boosts impulse purchases 
 But even time-limited offers or tips such as &quot;Only x products left&quot; are perfect for this campaign. They boost impulse buying – after all, no one wants to miss a good deal. The  Live Shopping  plugin allows you to reproduce these offers, as well as highlight items that are getting cheaper by the minute – perfect incentives for bargain hunters! 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-10-23T08:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Voice Commerce – The future of online trade?</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/voice-commerce-the-future-of-online-trade/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/voice-commerce-the-future-of-online-trade/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            It seems like Voice Commerce is the latest trend and will turn eCommerce upside down.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 Phrases like &quot;Hello Siri&quot;, &quot;Alexa&quot;, &quot;OK. Google&quot; have long since become part of our everyday lives, because Apple&#039;s Siri, Samsung&#039;s Bixby, Amazon&#039;s Alexa, Google&#039;s Voice Search and Microsoft&#039;s Cortana are increasingly conquering the digital world and are almost indispensable.     The voice assistants make our everyday life easier and can, for example, answer general knowledge questions, provide information about traffic and weather, play music, manage reminders and appointments or even shop online for us through voice command. Online shopping via voice assistant falls into the &quot;voice commerce&quot; category. 
 But what is it and how exactly does it work? Why is there so much &quot;hype&quot; about it? What are the associated problems and what impact will the voice assistants have on the online trade of the future? These questions and many more on the topic of &quot;voice commerce&quot; are discussed in this blog article. 
  &amp;nbsp;  
 Voice recognition technology redefines communication 
 Voice commerce is a form of software application that enables buying and selling by voice-recognition. However, it fundamentally changes typical shopping behaviour and communication. 
 By linking Amazon Alexa to the Amazon Store, Alexa can be requested to order something online, for example. The tried and tested mouse click is replaced at this point by voice recognition technology, and this fundamentally changes the customer&#039;s purchasing behaviour. 
 &quot;Customer communication via voice assistant is fundamentally different from communication via website. When using a voice assistant, there is no visual support such as pictures or videos. The customer does not have time to listen to long texts and wants to reach his destination quickly,&quot; is how e-Commerce Magazine sums this up. 
 &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 
 Some statistics on voice commerce 
 Today, a lot of consumers in the United States already use voice assistants. According to a  recent survey  (from December 2017) by Worldplay and Socratic Technologies, nearly every third person already used a voice-activated devices such as Amazon Echo or Google Home to make an online purchase in the past 3 months. Nevertheless, during the survey period,  59 percent of respondents rated their experience with smart speaker commerce as excellent , with further 31 percent saying the experience was very good. Only two percent of online customers rated their experience with voice-activated devices as fair or poor: 
   
  &amp;nbsp;  
 The big &quot;hype&quot; about language assistants continues 
 At this point, the question arises of why voice commerce is currently getting so much attention and thus creating a wave of enthusiasm: after all, the technology is still in its infancy. 
 Language assistants have found different uses in our day-to-day work, so why not let Alexa and Co. shop for us as well? This question has probably come up many times, which is why voice commerce has tried to provide the appropriate solution. 
 A short thought experiment: 
 You are busy washing the dishes with your hands elbow-deep in dishwater, the foam is almost overflowing and the sponge gives up after several attempts at washing. So that you do not forget to buy sponges for washing dishes – after all, you cannot actually write a reminder note with wet hands – you just tell Alexa to buy sponges online. For the next washing-up job you will have a new sponge ready. 
 This is just one of countless examples and shows how useful voice recognition technology can be in relation to voice commerce. In addition, this topic provides a glimpse into the future in which people like us command a computer or robot to perform tasks for us and to support us in our everyday work. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Difficulties with voice commerce 
 Voice recognition technology undoubtedly presents a difficult technological task. After all you have to &quot;teach&quot; the voice assistant to understand language. This, in turn, is done through commands that are integrated directly into the program. As a result, a program must first be developed that is compatible with the voice assistant so as to be able to order something online by voice command. 
 In addition to the app of course, payment providers must support the voice assistant. Otherwise, the payment option could be more difficult. An example of is Amazon&#039;s Alexa, which currently can only buy things in the Amazon shop and order them with the Amazon account. 
 In addition, the ordering process using only voice commerce might be cumbersome, since the consumer receives no visual support. At this point, it is crucial to program the voice assistant with a variety of commands, so that you get the necessary help and information for online shopping. 
 Another critical aspect of voice commerce is data protection. After all, many consumers who use voice assistants are at risk of becoming victims of data abuse and eavesdropping. 
 Of course, voice assistants have to listen constantly to be able to respond when ordered to do something. Therefore, asking consumers to specify data such as payment and bank details deters many of them. Even though manufacturers assure the public that their solutions respect the users&#039; privacy, it remains a matter of trust whether consumers want to let manufacturers into their living rooms. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Operate voice commerce with Playground 
 Voice commerce is on the march and it is becoming more and more important not only to us as consumers, but also for companies. 
 In order to adapt and take on a leading role, we spent a lot of time thinking about how to expand online shop software and make it compatible with voice recognition technology. &quot;With Shopware Playground we are ready for the future because we want to be prepared for what the future will bring. &#039;Visionary&#039; is one of our three corporate values, which is why we have set ourselves the task of creating forward-looking eCommerce solutions. For this reason, it is a personal challenge to explore this technology and to invest in it,&quot; explains Daniel Nögel, Product Manager Enterprise in Research &amp;amp; Development at shopware AG. 
 To operate voice commerce with the new Shopware Playground technology is thus technically possible, the course has already been set. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Summary &amp;amp; outlook 
 Voice assistants are currently used by half of all consumers, and in future the number will rise sharply, that is already certain. 
 In addition, voice recognition technology is constantly being expanded and established, not least voice commerce, which is perceived as more and more topical and is already being actively used in some households. There is a veritable &quot;hype&quot; about voice commerce, as this technology provides a significant insight into the future. 
 Even if there are still some difficulties, voice commerce is a hot topic that is likely to revolutionise the online commerce of the future and that we will also explore even more closely. 
 &quot;We expect a future where eCommerce will be omnipresent and no longer reduced to the classic &#039;Webshop&#039;. The &#039;Internet of Things&#039; has already arrived in the form of &quot;smart loudspeakers&quot; in many of our homes, and this trend will continue to an extreme extent in the future – allowing for new points of contact between retailers on the one hand and consumers on the other&quot; concludes Stefan Hamann, Managing Director and CEO of shopware AG. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 
 These articels might be interesting for you: 
  How to enhance online shopping experiences using AI  
  eCommerce Trends 2018 -&amp;nbsp;Trendsetting Technologies&amp;nbsp;  
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-10-18T08:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Increase your sales with these holiday plugin helpers</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/increase-your-sales-with-these-holiday-plugin-helpers/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/increase-your-sales-with-these-holiday-plugin-helpers/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            The holidays are one of the most lucrative seasons in eCommerce. To ensure you’re prepared to deck the halls with bounties of turnover, we’ve compiled a list of relevant extensions from the Community Store.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 The holidays are one of the most lucrative seasons in eCommerce. To ensure you’re prepared to deck the halls with bounties of turnover, we’ve compiled a list of relevant extensions from the Community Store. In the “Holiday season” section, you’ll find useful holiday templates, plugins that highlight the expected delivery time, extensions for offering gift packaging with a greeting card, and more! 
  To the holiday helpers  
 Revenue drivers for your holiday sales 
 Campaigns with the Advanced Promotion Suite 
 Using this all-in-one tool, you can plan a wide variety of campaigns in advance and launch them on a time-controlled basis. Taking pages from the rulebook of classic sales, you can increase your conversion rate using campaigns such as “Buy tree, pay two”. 
   
  To Advanced Promotion Suite  
 More sales through personalised offers 
 With Nosto&#039;s personalisation solution, algorithms and big data are combined to display the most relevant products for your customers in real time, based on their purchasing behaviour. You can control the playout of these product recommendations directly in the store, e.g. via pop-ups, social media ads or email marketing. 
  To the plugin  
 Build bundles for more spontaneous purchases 
 Help your customers find complimentary items by creating bundles. A wool hat with a matching scarf and mittens; a camera lens with tripod and SD card – the possibilities are only limited to your imagination. Make your bundles even more attractive by offering a percentage or absolute discount off the total price. Your bundles will be highlighted in your storefront with a red discount tag. 
 The ability for the shop owner to target different groups with individualised bundles is particularly useful. In peak periods of traffic, such as Christmas when everyone is looking for gift ideas, these group-specific recommendations encourage impulse purchases.” - Joachim Ehmann, Comtech 
  To Bundles  
 Gift wrapping service and free greeting card 
 To relieve your customers of often tedious task of wrapping a gift, you should install the plugin &quot;gift packaging&quot;. With this plugin, you can assign which of your products come with optional gift packaging. You can also assign different packaging designs and determine whether to add a charge for this service. The plugin also offers the option of adding a free greeting card with individual text. Your customers can then easily select this service when placing their order. 
  To the plugin  
 Advanced Cart for a higher volume of visitors 
 Attract twice as many customers to your online shop – this plugin lets your customers create individual wish lists of products, which can be shared via social media or per direct link to their friends and family. Like the other Premium Plugins, this can be utilised year round to give your store an extra boost in sales and customer satisfaction. 
  To the Advanced Cart  
 Dicover additional holiday helpers in the Community Store 
 Our Community Store features a number of useful extensions to boost your holiday business. Check out the collection of plugins in our &quot;Holiday season&quot; section and start preparing for a profitable retail season today. 
  To the Community Store  
 
 Discover other holiday tips for your online shop: 
  Harnessing the turnover potential of the holidays  
  Get ready for the holidays like the pros  
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-10-07T06:45:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Inspired eCommerce: Shopware exhibits at the eCommerce Expo 2018</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/inspired-ecommerce-shopware-exhibits-at-the-ecommerce-expo-2018/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/inspired-ecommerce-shopware-exhibits-at-the-ecommerce-expo-2018/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            With more than 7,000 visitors and eCommerce specialists representing over 50 countries, the eCommerce Expo holds a reputation as being one of the most anticipated events in the industry.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Hit the ground running -  a phrase that encapsulates Shopware&#039;s experience in the UK since opening an additional office in London. Proving our dedication to the UK market, the Shopware team could be found holding presentations between London, Manchester and Dublin – and that was just last week alone. This week, the team concentrated their resources on one of the most important trade fairs of the year in the UK: The eCommerce Expo in London. 
 With more than 7,000 visitors and eCommerce specialists representing over 50 countries, the eCommerce Expo holds a reputation as being one of the most anticipated events in the industry. 
  &amp;nbsp;  
 &quot;As an open company, we strive for transparency and value proximity to our customers and partners. Everyone benefits from open paths of communication; we are able to hear and more quickly implement the feedback from our customers and partners, and they receive our direct support. That’s why attending events like the eCommerce Expo are so important&amp;nbsp; – we value developing personal relationships with our customers and partners so that we can continue to create the best possible solution for their needs. Surrounded by a number of strong partners, we are excited to see how Shopware will continue to grow in the UK market,&quot; Stefan Heyne, Shopware CEO. 
 
 
 Impressions from the eCommerce Expo 2018 
   
   
   
   
   
 
 
 Couldn&#039;t make it to the event? 
 
 
 To learn more about how Shopware can serve your eCommerce project, you can reach us M-F by calling +44 (0) 203 095 2445 (9am – 5pm GMT) or writing an email any time to sales@shopware.com. 
  Contact Shopware  
  Upcoming events  
 
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-09-28T06:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Three questions for: Tink Taylor, founder of dotmailer</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/three-questions-for-tink-taylor-founder-of-dotmailer/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/three-questions-for-tink-taylor-founder-of-dotmailer/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            We sat down with Tink Taylor, the founder of dotmailer - one the most powerful automation solutions for marketers - to find out why email marketing is directly related to the success of your eCommerce business.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 When it comes to marketing your business, email has proven time and time again to be one of the most conversion-rich tools. Whether building customer loyalty, nurturing leads or increasing your sales, the impact email marketing has on your business knows no bounds. 
 We sat down with Tink Taylor, the founder of dotmailer - one the most powerful automation solutions for marketers - to find out why email marketing is so relevant to the success of your online business. 
 1. Please introduce yourself and take us through some of the services and features that make dotmailer one of leading multichannel marketing platforms. 
 I’m Tink Taylor, the Founder &amp;amp; President of dotDigital Group. dotmailer, our flagship omnichannel platform, empowers serious marketers to deliver personalized customer engagement campaigns. Users can create insight-driven automation programs that encompass email, SMS, push notifications and targeted ads via Facebook Audiences and Google AdWords. 
 dotmailer is the platform for the data-savvy. Marketers can build powerful segments based on anything from email activity to web behavior and purchase history. We offer world-class integrations with best-of-breed CRM and ecommerce platforms. Having all your data under one hood enables you to send the right message to the right person, at the right time and through the right channel. That’s what we’re all about. 
 We’ve also got in-house creatives with tonnes of experience. We’re always on hand to lend a hand to our customers. Our team builds automation programs, executes marketing campaigns and designs beautiful emails. 
   
 2. Could you please take us through the anatomy of an outstanding email marketing campaign? 
 There are many things that contribute to an outstanding email marketing campaign. Best practice is your first port of call; make sure that your subject line is catchy and the preheader is relevant. 
 The best emails are designed for mobile.  55% of email is now read on a smartphone  – the device is the preferred platform for email. An award-winning email also needs to be data-rich; it should include content that’s compelling, relevant to subscribers’ preferences and what they’ve browsed and purchased. Global ecommerce retail sales are predicted to reach a whopping  $4.9 trillion by 2021 , so brands need to adopt smart tactics if they want to cash in. 
 Getting the right message across is fundamental. Whether you’re welcoming new subscribers, promoting your hottest products, or launching an exclusive competition, you need to drive value in email. Serving up inspirational content and drawing readers’ attention to the call to action should be top on the agenda. 
 Dune’s multichannel program, which stormed the best B2C marketing campaign at our annual awards called ‘ The dotties ’, lead to a 43% uplift in online revenue. The premise of the campaign was to enchant new customers and drive a high retention rate across all channels. The brand’s combination of storytelling and user-generated content in email made the overall campaign a complete success. Dune’s email revenue is up 97% year on year – a fantastic result, and a testament to the team’s hard work. 
 My final piece of advice would be not to neglect the landing page. Rather than send subscribers to a generic homepage, make sure you meet their expectations and send them somewhere relevant where they can perform an action. That might be filling out a form or making a purchase. 
 3. Next to email marketing and marketing automation, dotmailer also focuses on providing its users with personalisation tools. In your opinion, what are some of the most effective ways in which retailers can utilise customer data to create personalised marketing campaigns? 
 It all boils down to audience segmentation. This would be my best bit advice for cutting through the noise in the inbox. Marketers need to capture both explicit and implicit customer data if they want to deliver successful personalized campaigns. 
 The preference center is the keystone to successful email marketing – brands need to get to grips with their data and ask for information that’s useful to them. This could be date of birth, location or product preferences. Once contacts are filtered on this basis, you can tailor your campaign content accordingly so it’s always super relevant. 
 Marketers should then action their customers’ implicit data, like web behavior and order history. This contact-specific information is important because it adds a layer of context to the customer journey. These are the timely nudges that don’t annoy. A personalized proposition is a powerful one. For instance, targeting customers with a cart recovery email or abandoned browse notification is a tried and true conversion method. 
  Get started with dotmailer today  
  Free 14-day trail  
 &amp;nbsp; 
 
 More eCommerce tips: 
  Sales psychology: 3 tips for email marketing  
  5 ways to optimise your checkout for increased conversion  
  More turnover through fewer returns  
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-09-06T06:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Kids can code - Code Camps at Shopware</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/kids-can-code-code-camps-at-shopware/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/kids-can-code-code-camps-at-shopware/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            For the first time, Shopware held code camps for children. Over the course of two days, children between the ages of 10-14 were introduced to programming in the Shopware Academy.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Everyone can learn programming – with the right approach. This basic idea is behind the Code Camps that took place at Shopware during the summer holidays. A total of 22 children between the ages of&amp;nbsp;10 and&amp;nbsp;14 learned in two-day workshops how the basics of programming work. Because in a digital world, where smartphones are used daily, it is important to understand how the technologies behind them work – that is, with code. 
   
 Kids create their own websites 
 It is particularly easy to get started with the Calliope Mini: The single-board computer consists of a processor, various connectors, an LED field, microphone and speakers. It can be programmed with various editors that translate the code into commands. On the first day, the children were able to assemble individual programming blocks like a kind of construction kit and load the first small programs onto their minicomputer. 
 &quot;We want children to understand that complex processes must be divided into individual steps and put into a logical working order,&quot; explains Anne Göpel, HR manager at Shopware. &quot;Thanks to the Calliope, the children quickly have their first sense of achievement and do not have to work directly with pure code. In this way, the inhibition threshold falls, and they engage more intensively with the programming.” 
 These set the conditions for day two, when for the first time &quot;real&quot; code was on the timetable: after a brief introduction to HTML and CSS, they proceeded directly to start writing their own websites, based on the motto &quot;Kids can code&quot;. Already in the afternoon all coding kids were able to present their own tractor, horse and musical pages in the group. 
 Shopware supports next generation of women programmers 
 While in the first Code Camp both girls and boys were among the participants, the motto of the second run was &quot;Girls only&quot;. &quot;Women are very well represented at Shopware, but unfortunately we have very few female employees in Development,&quot; explains Anne Göpel. &quot;We hope that will change in the future and that with a pure Girls Code Camp we have provided a stimulus to inspire more girls with the joys of programming.&quot; 
    
 The fact that this worked was already apparent after the workshops: &quot;After the Code Camps, we received several requests for internships and apprenticeships in the technical field. Not just boys, but many girls as well.&quot; In future, the pilot project will be turned into a regular format. Already this year, the number of applications was far greater than the number of places available – that is supposed to change in 2019. 
   
  To the apprenticeships at Shopware  
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-08-29T13:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">How to enhance online shopping experiences using AI </title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/how-to-enhance-online-shopping-experiences-using-ai/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/how-to-enhance-online-shopping-experiences-using-ai/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            In this guest blog from Nosto, you will learn how to create tailored shopping experiences using existing data about your customers. Integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into your digital strategy today.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Artificial intelligence is the current buzzword in the digital world and everyone is trying to figure out how to leverage this new tech, as well as determine its true meaning. The retail industry is no exception, and although it was lagging behind others, such as the finance or telecommunications sectors, it’s catching up fast as the entry barriers for new technologies are fairly low in this area. The market is highly competitive, and every new advantage quickly pays off for the provider and the retailer. In today&#039;s guest article from Shopware Technology Partner  Nosto , experts for personalization, you can learn how AI is already put to good use in ecommerce and how you can benefit from using it in your own online shop. 
   How machine learning algorithms work    
 When it comes to ecommerce, artificial intelligence is often used in the form of machine learning. Machine Learning is a subset of AI in computer science. At a high level, algorithms are used to find patterns in data sets, which are then used to build a model. This model then solves the desired task based on new data that the algorithm has not seen before.&amp;nbsp; 
 If we take a closer look, Machine Learning algorithms learn by trying to reduce errors. For example, let’s look at a task that tries to identify the presence of a face. The dataset has labeled images, and on the first pass of the machine learning algorithm, the results would typically be random, and might have an accuracy of 50%. From these results, the algorithm will then try to tweak the model parameters to achieve a better result, and this loop is performed multiple times. The choice of algorithm will affect how quickly the patterns are found, and thus the error rate reduces. 
   
  
   
  
    
  
   Normal 
   0 
   
   
   21 
   
   
   false 
   false 
   false 
   
   EN-US 
   X-NONE 
   X-NONE 
   
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
   
   
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
 
 /* Style Definitions */
 table.MsoNormalTable
	{mso-style-name:&quot;Normale Tabelle&quot;;
	mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
	mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
	mso-style-noshow:yes;
	mso-style-priority:99;
	mso-style-parent:&quot;&quot;;
	mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
	mso-para-margin:0cm;
	mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
	mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
	font-size:12.0pt;
	font-family:&quot;Calibri&quot;,sans-serif;
	mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
	mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
	mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
	mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
	mso-bidi-font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;;
	mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
	mso-ansi-language:EN-US;
	mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
 
  
  What merchants can expect: An average increase in coversion of 15% through AI   
   
  
   
  
    
  
   Normal 
   0 
   
   
   21 
   
   
   false 
   false 
   false 
   
   DE 
   X-NONE 
   X-NONE 
   
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
   
   
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
 
 /* Style Definitions */
 table.MsoNormalTable
	{mso-style-name:&quot;Normale Tabelle&quot;;
	mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
	mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
	mso-style-noshow:yes;
	mso-style-priority:99;
	mso-style-parent:&quot;&quot;;
	mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
	mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
	mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
	mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt;
	mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
	line-height:107%;
	mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
	font-size:11.0pt;
	font-family:&quot;Calibri&quot;,sans-serif;
	mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
	mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
	mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
	mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
	mso-bidi-font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;;
	mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
	mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
 
  
 Leading online retailers are leveraging the power of machine learning improve the shopping experience for their customers.&amp;nbsp;By deploying a personalization strategy which allows merchants to deliver the best experience to each of their customers through the use of ecommerce-specific data and machine learning algorithms, they can predict and automatically deliver the most relevant shopping experiences in real-time. This increases customer engagement and maximizes revenue potential. How? They use automated product recommendations, which are generated based on a user’s browsing history and interaction throughout the site and the predictions made from this data by the machine learning algorithms. By&amp;nbsp;implementing the value of machine learning, leading brands have seen an average increase in conversion of 15%. 
   High data quality an important prerequisite for AI    
 Ecommerce businesses can therefore use predictive analyses via machine learning to create highly tailored customer journeys. For this to work well, the machine learning algorithms must be trained on the right data. Merchants should collect all data points and keep them updated to guarantee a high quality standard. Once you have evaluated the data, you can use AI-driven tools on the main pages of your online store, where AI can make the highest impact, such as the home page or checkout. After that, focus on other areas of the store. 
 Find out more about AI &amp;amp; Machine Learning and how they will transform retail in the series:   Demystifying AI: The On-Demand Training Series.   
 &amp;nbsp; 
 
 Learn more about AI in eCommerce: 
  eCommerce Trends 2018: Trendsetting Technologies  
  The new Shopware backend with artificial intelligence  
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-08-14T08:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Summer Academy - Save 25 percent on all online certifications</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/summer-academy-save-25-percent-on-all-online-certifications/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/summer-academy-save-25-percent-on-all-online-certifications/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Interested in becoming a certified Shopware developer or template designer? No better time than now to make it happen. Book an online certification until 30th September and save 25% on any number of certifications.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Summertime lull? Not when you use your time wisely - for example, to get certified online as a Shopware developer or template designer. Benefit from our special sale in the Shopware Academy  until&amp;nbsp;September 30th 2018  and  save 25%  on one or more online certications. 
 Get prepared with our free online courses 
 We provide you with all the resources you need to get up to speed for the online certification. Led by Shopware team members, our free online trainings take you into the specifics surrounding developing with Shopware and making custom templates. Moreover, the courses allow you to learn at your own pace. 
  Overview of online courses  
 The advantages of getting certified 
 After passing the online exam, your certificate will appear immediately on your partner or manufacturer profile. This is hugely beneficial for partners who want to put their best foot forward and prove – with hard evidence – their proficiency when it comes to implementing custom Shopware projects. On the plugin manufacturer page, your certificate assures customers that you have the knowledge and skill set to develop innovative solutions for Shopware. 
   
 Take advantage of this special discounted price and book your online certification now. Once you’ve booked the online certification, you can flexibly chose when and where you would like to take the exam. 
  Book a certification now  
 Additional information 
  Everything you need to know about online certifications  
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-08-13T07:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Summer sale: Purchase a Professional Edition, get a Premium Plugin for free</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/summer-sale-purchase-a-professional-edition-get-a-premium-plugin-for-free/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/summer-sale-purchase-a-professional-edition-get-a-premium-plugin-for-free/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Save 495€ with our summer sale in the Community Store. When you purchase a license for the Professional Edition, you will receive a Shopware Premium Plugin for free! 
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 Extending until 30th September, you can take advantage of a special summer promotion in the Shopware Community Store. When you purchase a license for the Professional Edition, you get any Premium Plugin of your choice for free. 
 Professional Edition + free Premium Plugin – it’s that easy: 
 
 
 Head over to the Community Store and select the Professional Edition along with the subscription of your choice. 
 When checking out, you can use the slider to select one of our twelve Premium Plugins as a “free item”. 
 
 
  To the Professional Edition in the store  
 Is the Professional Edition the right solution for your business? 
 If you are still not sure if the Professional Edition is the right solution for your online shop, we’ve covered the most important information and advantages surrounding this license in our blog, which also includes the individual experiences of three retailers who already use the Professional Edition as the basis for their shop. 
  Learn more about the Professional Edition  
 Shopware Premium Plugins: valuable features for your online shop 
 From the&amp;nbsp; Advanced Promotion Suite  for creating sales campaigns to  Live Shopping  for interactive countdowns, the Shopware Premium Plugins effectively support your growing business with a myriad of valuable marketing features. You have twelve different Premium Plugins to choose from – each of which were designed to increase conversion and traffic in your online shop. 
  Advantages of the Shopware Premium Plugins:   
 
 Incl. 12 months support from Shopware 
 Continuously developed by Shopware 
 Increase traffic and conversion 
 Open source 
 
  Discover the Premium Plugins  
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-08-01T08:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Why the Shopware Professional Edition is the right choice for your business</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/why-the-shopware-professional-edition-is-the-right-choice-for-your-business/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/why-the-shopware-professional-edition-is-the-right-choice-for-your-business/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Today we want to hone in one the services and advantages of the Professional Edition and report on the experiences of three Shopware retailers that use the PE as the basis for their online business.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Let’s start with the obvious: It would be impossible to lump every online retailer into the same box. Keeping that to heart, Shopware offers four different editions that support businesses at various stages of development and requirements. These include the Community, Professional, Professional Plus and Enterprise. Today we want to hone in on the services and advantages of the Professional Edition and report on the experiences of three Shopware retailers who use it as the basis for their online business. 
 Who is the Professional Edition suitable for? 
 The Professional Edition is a launching pad for small to medium sized businesses. Designed with growth in mind, this edition comes packed with native features that help brands claim their online real estate and build a successful eCommerce business. 
 Which services are included? 
 The Professional Edition expands on the features already integrated in the Community Edition – which include Product and Customer Streams and a range of Shopping Worlds presets – with more robust features and exclusive services designed to take your business to the next level. 
 Support direct from Shopware 
 Setting up an online shop requires a great deal of time, capital and resources. Shopware helps you take these first steps with direct manufacturer support. Best of all, with a Silver Subscription, support is  free of charge  for the first twelve months. This means whenever you need a helping hand, you can get in touch with a personal contact at Shopware. We also provide you with free software updates for your online shop and any Premium Plugins you may use. 
 As an alternative to the Silver Subscription, you can opt for a Gold Subscription, which offers an even broader range of services. 
 Free initial installation 
 If you choose one of our  certified hosting partners  for your project, we take over the initial installation of your shop, free of charge. After selecting a hosting package, all you have to do is send us the access data so that we can complete the installation process. 
 Digital Publishing feature 
  Digital Publishing  is a powerful design tool that lets you create dynamic banners for your online shop. You can create dynamic banners using a number of elements, including images, background, text, and buttons. Banners created with this module improve SEO performance through the automated output of HTML text. Learn about the extensive possibilities of this tool in our detailed  guide . 
   
 Storytelling feature 
 With  Storytelling , you can take your customers on an interactive journey through your shop and inspire them with the various emotions, moods and values surrounding your product assortment. As a standard feature of the Professional Edition, Storytelling is the ideal tool for connecting content and commerce. 
    
 Staging/DEV licenses are included in the  Shopware Enterprise Edition . 
 Shopware ERP powered by PICKWARE 
 The Professional Edition also gives you free access to the  Shopware ERP powered by PICKWARE , a powerful merchandise management system that is integrated directly into Shopware. That means you can use Shopware as your central platform for managing all data, whether customers, suppliers or orders. 
 What are the advantages of the Shopware ERP powered by PICKWARE? 
 
 No interface required 
 No need for duplicate data storage 
 Maintenance and administration from one central backend 
 Extensibility with Shopware WMS and Shopware POS powered by Pickware 
 Short contract period 
 No setup fees 
 Simple usability and complete documentation 
 Qualified support 
 Close cooperation between Shopware and Pickware 
 Continuous development 
 
 Can I connect my existing ERP system with Shopware? 
 Shopware’s open API makes is possible to connect any third-party solution with your online shop, including your existing ERP system. Our Community Store already offers a variety of interfaces available to help set up the connection. 
  Discover the ERP interfaces in the Community Store  
 How flexible is the Professional Edition? 
 The Shopware Professional Edition provides you with a flexible basis for your shop, which you can customise and extend without losing the ability to make updates. As an open source platform, Shopware can be modified according to your business requirements. The  Shopware Community Store  offers a selection of over 3,500 unique plugins and themes that can easily extend the existing functionality of your shop in various ways. 
 Aside from our community of technology providers and plugin manufacturers, we have a team devoted to the development of&amp;nbsp; Premium Plugins , which are advanced marketing features designed to help increase your conversion. Furthermore, each Premium Plugin is unencrypted, giving you complete access to the source code. 
 To support the growth of your business and help you reach new markets, we also provide you with free subshops, which can be used to easily set up additional language or brand shops. One major advantage is that you can control all subshops from one central Shopware backend. 
 Can I switch to a different Shopware edition later? 
 You can change your Shopware edition at any time. No major migration necessary – with the simplicity of adding new licenses to your existing shop, you can immediately benefit from an even more extensive range of features and services. Shopware was built to grow alongside your changing business requirements. 
 What are my options for renewing, cancelling or upgrading my subscription? 
 In the course of your inclusive twelve-month Silver Subscription, you are free to upgrade to the Gold Subscription at any time – you only pay the difference. After one year, you can decide whether or not to renew your subscription. If you already have an existing Shopware shop, you can see an overview of all upgrade costs in your account under the menu point “Support Administration”. 
 You can find more details about the various subscription services and models  here . 
 Will I receive support from Shopware partners? 
 The  Shopware partner network  is comprised of agencies and freelancers that specialise in every walk of the business. Whether you’re looking for support with the initial design and implementation of your shop or long-term online marketing services, our partners offer various levels of project involvement that can be adapted to your requirements. 
 How much does the Professional license cost? 
 For a  one-time  license fee of €1,295, you have the rights to use the software without any restrictions. A twelve-month Silver Subscription is included in the license fee, giving you the security of direct support during your first year growing with the Professional Edition. 
 So you benefit from transparent, predictable costs. 
 Where can I buy Shopware Professional Edition? 
 You can either purchase the Professional Edition license from your certified Shopware partner or directly from the Community Store. 
 To make a purchase in the Community Store, you must first have a Shopware ID. This is required to log into your Shopware account, which is the operational hub for managing all services connected to your shop. During the checkout process, you can select your preferred subscription and license. You can purchase additional plugins or themes for your shop in the Shopware Community Store at any time using your Shopware ID. 
 Further information can be found  here . 
  To the Professional Edition in the store  
 From the experiences of successful brands that use the Professional Edition 
 Ames makes colorful use of Storytelling and Shopping Worlds 
  Ames key facts:  
 
 Active use of Storytelling 
 Recipient of the Annual Multimedia Award 2017 
 Recipient of the German Design Award 2018 
 
    
 Using Storytelling, the online shop from Ames highlights furniture collections, accessories and textiles in a lookbook arrangement. Design pieces are presented using Sideview elements without tearing the customer from the shopping experience. In addition, information about the company and production methods are transparently integrated into the whole design, providing a seamless and informative shopping experience. As proof of their outstanding use of Storytelling, Ames was a recipient of the  Annual Multimedia Awards 2017  followed by the  German Design Award 2018 . 
  To the online shop  
 ARS24.com enjoys the personal support from Shopware 
  ARS 24 key facts  
 
 Migrated from XT-Commerce to Shopware in 2015 
 Shopware support with a Gold Subscription 
 
   
 ARS 24 sells car radios, speakers and amplifiers and is so successful in doing so that they won the audience award at the Shop Usability Award 2017. What makes their online shop so special? Their unrivalled ability to provide customers with a breadth of content surrounding the installation, service and maintenance of their products. 
 &quot;We decided to switch from our XT shop to Shopware in 2015. The Professional Edition was the best choice for us because the Gold Subscription provides us with fast, friendly and expert support directly from Shopware,&quot; explains Oliver Weiss, Managing Director of ARS 24. 
  To the online shop  
 GRACE Flowerbox impressed by the scalability of Shopware Professional 
  GRACE Flowerbox key facts:  
 
 Shopware support with a Silver Subscription 
 Use of the Shopware Premium Plugins &quot;Shopping Advisor&quot; and &quot;Advanced Promotion Suite&quot; 
 
   
 Startup company GRACE Flowerbox, which enjoyed an enormous boost in popularity from the German version of the TV show &quot;Dragons&#039; Den&quot; (&quot;Die Höhle der Löwen&quot;), uses the Professional Edition as the basis for its online shop: &quot;When we decided to go with Shopware, has already used two other shop systems that same year., both of which offered limited functionality and weren’t able to support our growth. But with Shopware, it was a different story. In addition to the scalability and extensibility due to the large selection of plugins, it is important for us to have a direct contact person at Shopware when we need support&quot;. 
 GRACE Flowerbox uses the Shopware Premium Plugins  Advanced Promotion Suite  and  Shopping Advisor . With the latter, customers can configure their own Flowerbox. 
  To the online shop  
 &amp;nbsp; 
 
 More eCommerce tips: 
  Sales psychology – 3 tips for effective email marketing  
  5 ways to optimise your checkout for increased conversion  
  More turnover through fewer returns  
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-07-11T06:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Sales psychology – 3 tips for effective email marketing</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/sales-psychology-3-tips-for-effective-email-marketing/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/sales-psychology-3-tips-for-effective-email-marketing/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Make your Email marketing more efficient. In this article, Shopware technology partner CleverReach outlines three powerful principles from sales psychology that help you set the right purchasing impulses and strengthen your sales.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Make your email marketing more efficient. In this article, Shopware technology partner  CleverReach  outlines three powerful principles from sales psychology that help you set the right purchasing impulses and strengthen your sales. 
 Principle 1 - Targeted price anchoring 
 When a customer is valuing a product, how do they determine whether it’s a bargain or too expensive? They follow the rational decision making model and compare it with similar products. 
 Retailers can have an invisible hand in this decision making process using price anchoring. Following this principle, the first price the customer perceives becomes the “anchor”, so the standard price to which all others are be compared. Essentially, an anchor price provides the customer with orientation when determining the value of a product. When placed in the immediate vicinity of a more expensive product, the anchored product will seem like a more reasonable offer. 
 The classic example: If you want to sell a watch for 2,000€, place it next to a model that costs 10,000€. 
 Naturally, this doesn’t work for every product. Everyone has a rough feeling for reasonable prices. However, there is a profitable margin between rough feeling and concrete knowledge. If a newsletter offers three products at different price points, the majority of customers will opt for the medium-priced product, which they assume has best price-performance ratio. 
 So, if you want to increase sales for a certain product, create context and frame your offer with a more expensive product from the same category. That’s how you control and influence your sales! 
 Want to increase your revenue? Here too, price anchoring becomes a decisive marketing tool, especially for discount campaigns. Always display the original, more expensive price next to the discount price. 
   
 (image source: CleverReach®) 
 Through teasing the bargain, your customers get the sense they are making a more informed decision and can better judge the value offered. 
 Principle 2 – Use the paradox of choice 
 Although a wide selection of services and products may seem attractive, abundance can actually have an inhibitory effect. 
 Why? Customers get overwhelmed when faced with too many choices – a vast selection essentially paralyses the purchasing decision. In his book “Paradox of Choice”, author and psychologist Barry Schwartz argues that “choice overload” actually leads to higher levels of buyer’s remorse and dissatisfaction. 
 Customers want to be confident they’ve purchased the best available option. As the number of options increases, so does the “fear of missing out”. If you choose product A, you miss out on the benefits of products B – Z. The greater the choice, the greater the risk of choosing the wrong product. The consequence: the customer prefers to not buy anything! 
 A classic experiment by field researchers Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper illustrates the paradox of choice. In an A/B testing, customers at an upscale supermarket were offered different varieties of jam to taste while shopping - 6 varieties in test phase A and 24 varieties in test phase B. 
   
 (image source: CleverReach®) 
 The larger selection attracted 60% of browsing customers to the stand, while the smaller selection attracted only 40% – at first glance, offering larger variety seemed beneficial, as it motivated more potential customers to taste jam. 
 However, the purchasing behavior tells a different story. Of the larger selection, only 2% of the customers actually made a purchase, whereas 12% made a purchase from the stand with reduced options. 
 This profound outcome can be applied to your email marketing: limit your offer! 
 Instead of overwhelming customers with 5 different shirts, 8 dresses and 10 brand jeans, narrow the selection down to two to three products per category. If you still want to weigh in on the assumption that having more choice is attractive, be sure to help your customers narrow down their options. 
 
  Social Proof:  Product reviews are one of the most valuable resources for customers when deciding whether a product is a secure investment. 
  Categorize:  Product characteristics subdivide the range and help the customer chose products that best match their personal preferences (i.e. &quot;Low Sugar&quot;, &quot;Bio-Product&quot;, &quot;Strong Berry Flavor&quot;). 
  Highlight:  Showcase a product that was recently added to your assortment, or draw attention to a seasonal favorite or special offer of the day. 
  Personalization:  Use your existing knowledge of your customer’s purchasing behavior to highlight personalized product recommendations (you need a well-maintained customer database to do so). 
 
 Principle 3 – Play into the need for balance 
 Our decisions are driven by a hard-wired need to feel balanced with ourselves and others. We tend to take action when we feel unbalanced. For instance, gifts or special favors motivate us to return something of equal value. 
 As a shop owner, you can capitalize on this need in a number of ways. When you offer complimentary products or free downloads, the customer feels more inclined to reciprocate this gesture by making a purchase in your shop. 
 For instance, wine and spirits sell in larger quantities when also offered with a free additional product. Discount vouchers offered for a future purchase have the power to turn first-time customers into regular customers. Moreover, freebies are an effective way to make customers feel more committed to you than your competitors. 
 There are various ways you can influence your customer’s purchasing decision using slight changes in your product offering, all of which are particularly suitable for email marketing. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 
 More eCommerce tips: 
  5 ways to optimise your checkout for increased conversion  
  More turnover through fewer returns  
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-07-10T06:30:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">How to use TF*IDF analysis for the perfect product description</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/how-to-use-tf-idf-analysis-for-the-perfect-product-description/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/how-to-use-tf-idf-analysis-for-the-perfect-product-description/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            If you’re not a digital marketing expert, you might think that TF*IDF sounds complicated. Despite its mathematical foundation, anyone can use TF*IDF to improve written content on their websites - beginners and experts alike.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 If you’re not a digital marketing expert, you might think that  TF*IDF  sounds complicated. Despite its mathematical foundation, anyone can use TF*IDF to improve written content on their websites - beginners and experts alike. 
 TF*IDF helps you to create relevant website texts for your users, and at the same time shows Google that your webpage is relevant enough to be ranking high up in the search results. 
  In practice, TF*IDF is useful when creating and improving website texts for two main reasons:  
 
 It shows you the most relevant keywords for your topic, so you know which terms to add or remove from your content to improve your rankings. 
 It gives you keyword, structure, and topic inspiration. 
 
 You can use TF*IDF for all of your website texts – from blog articles, to product pages, career pages, company information, and of course product descriptions. In this article, we’ll focus on how you can use this formula to help improve or create the perfect product description. 
 What is TF*IDF? 
 TF*IDF stands for term frequency, inverse document frequency. Term frequency is the number of times a term appears in a document. This is divided by the total number of terms in the document. The formula looks like this: 
   
 Luckily you don’t need to understand exactly how the formula works. The logarithms ensure that common words such as “and” or “the,” that would in theory end up with a high term frequency (TF), are not given a high score. 
 Inverse document frequency is the number of documents containing the term, divided by the total number of documents (corpus). This is the formula: 
   
 Again, the logarithm ensures that only relevant words will end up with a high TF*IDF value. 
 How is TF*IDF relevant for rankings? 
 So how will this complicated formula help you improve your website texts? When you publish texts on your website, you should aim to rank for a certain keyword if you want users to be able to find your page via organic search, rather than by paid advertising. Your website texts should therefore be optimized for this keyword. This keyword is often referred to as a “focus keyword” or a “target keyword”. 
 A TF*IDF analysis shows you which terms have the highest TF*IDF value when searching for the focus keyword, showing you what the most relevant terms for this keyword are. These are the terms you should be including in your content if you want to rank well. If you use  Ryte’s Content Success  for your TF*IDF analysis, this data comes from the first page of the Google search results. 
 For Google, relevancy of texts is even more important than ever, as Google’s aim is to provide the best possible content to their users. In 2011, they introduced the  Panda update  to weed out weak content. Just two years later in 2013, the  Hummingbird update  was introduced. This placed even more value on the semantics of texts so that search results would be able to answer users’ questions more accurately. Relevant content is therefore more important now than it was before, and TF*IDF helps you find out what are considered the most relevant terms by Google. 
 A TF*IDF analysis is also a great way to get keyword inspiration and can help you structure an article or product pages. For example, you can use terms with a high TF*IDF score as headings for a webpage, and relevant text under the headings will come naturally. 
 TF*IDF is a great way to get inspiration for working out what to include in your texts so that Google considers you relevant, increasing your chances of ranking highly. 
 How to make the perfect product description 
 When you write product descriptions, the user has priority - you shouldn’t just be thinking about the ranking potential of your pages. Writing great product descriptions is important because if they’re persuasive and interesting, your customers are more likely to convert. You’ve probably heard from many digital marketers that there’s no such thing as optimizing for search engines; you only need to optimize for the user. If your website is easy to use with texts that are enjoyable to read, KPIs such as time on page and bounce rate (i.e. the classic SEO metrics that are usually cited as ranking factors) will improve. This will send Google signals that your website is great, leading to better rankings. 
 You can find some useful tips regarding what to consider when writing product descriptions in  this article from Kissmetrics . These are some of the things you need to think about: 
 
 Make sure you know who your target audience is and create descriptions that are relevant to them. 
 Make sure you describe the features and benefits of the product. 
 The tone of the description should reflect your brand personality. 
 Users should easily be able to scan over it. 
 Very important: your product description should be persuasive! 
 
 How to use TF*IDF analysis for your product descriptions 
 Now that we’ve established how TF*IDF works, its benefits, and the importance of writing good product descriptions, it’s time to put the two together. 
 There are many tools you can use to carry out a TF*IDF analysis.  Ryte Content Success  is one of them. With this tool, you can carry out a TF*IDF analysis based on a specific language and region, you can directly compare your content with your competitors’, and you get easy writing assistance with the Content Optimizer. Let’s look at an example to see how you can implement TF*IDF practically in your product descriptions. 
 Example of using TD*IDF analysis 
 You have a shop selling furniture, and you want your couch to rank in the top spot in Google or at least pretty high up. Obviously, there are some fierce competitors that will be hard to beat (I can think of a Swedish one for example). You also have to bear in mind that search results are often full of adverts, meaning there might not be more than 5 organic search results on the first page. 
 Run a TF*IDF analysis for “couch”. With  Ryte , you can set the target language and region of your TF*IDF analysis, particularly useful if you want to appeal to a local target group. These are some of the top terms I found when carrying out a TF*IDF analysis for the focus keyword “couch”, based on the search results for the United States. 
 
 Sofas 
 Leather 
 Delivery 
 Fabric 
 Cushions 
 
   
  Figure 1: TF*IDF analysis for “couch” from Ryte  
 Of course, you can see on the results that important terms for this keyword included “sofa,” “sofas” and “couch”, but you don’t need to be told to include too many of these fairly basic keywords. Instead, look at the unique or unusual keywords. For example, this product description from Ashley furniture contains “leather,” “fabric,” and “cushions”, and “upholstery”. 
   
  Figure 2: Product description from Ashley ( source )  
 Be careful not to use a certain term too much - this might be seen by Google as spam. If you’re concerned about using a certain term too often, use the Content Optimizer from Ryte to find out. This will provide you with suggestions regarding which terms you should add, and which ones you should remove so that your text can be as optimized as possible for your target keyword. 
    Figure 3: Content Optimizer from Ryte’s Content Success  
 TF*IDF has the power to help you create and improve content in many ways. Giving you keyword inspiration for your product descriptions is just the beginning: TF*IDF can help form the basis of your entire content strategy. If you have a blog, the unique terms suggested to you by a TF*IDF analysis can provide inspiration for article ideas, for example how-to guides, or useful information on related topics. 
 Conclusion: TF*IDF analysis for online shops 
 Using TF*IDF is a fantastic but simple way to help improve your website texts. It helps you cater toward both search engines and the user. Firstly, you provide your user with relevant and engaging texts, meeting their expectations and fulfilling their needs, which in turn provides positive signals to search engines. Secondly, you show Google’s algorithm that your page is relevant for the focus keyword, increasing your chances of ranking highly. If you don’t use TF*IDF yet, now is the time to start! 
  Get a free SEO analysis from Ryte  
  Learn more about Ryte’s Content Success  
     
 &amp;nbsp; 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-06-26T06:30:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">eBay&#039;s &quot;product-based shopping experience&quot;: Changes affecting all eBay merchants</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/ebay-s-product-based-shopping-experience-changes-affecting-all-ebay-merchants/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/ebay-s-product-based-shopping-experience-changes-affecting-all-ebay-merchants/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            eBay is implementing major changes to product placement in order to offer an improved shopping experience. Learn what this means for retailers in our guest blog from magnalister.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Customers browsing eBay can expect product placement to look a bit different in the near future. That’s because eBay is implementing major changes in order to offer an “improved purchasing experience” or “product-based buying experience” – and with these changes come new requirements for how retailers have to list their offers. 
 Instead of displaying similar products from several suppliers in the search results, the product will only be displayed once. In addition, the customer receives a summary of which dealers currently offer the product in question. With this significantly improved overview, eBay customers now have a better shopping experience, as they can find, compare and purchase products quickly. 
   
 Source:  eBay seller center  
 Changes made with the eBay update 
 Technically, this brings about considerable changes. eBay must now be able to recognise identical products and list them with only one title and product description. The same goes for product images, which are to be consolidated and shown on one product page. eBay even provides a team to ensure the quality of the product summaries. 
 Clear product identifiers such as the Global Trade ID Number, EAN code or manufacturer product number can help eBay automatically compile this data. And this is exactly where your part as a eBay dealer comes into play. 
 What eBay dealers have to pay attention to 
 If you sell products on eBay, now is the time to take action. When posting your listings, always be sure to link your products with one that is offered in the eBay catalogue, should there be an existing catalogue entry. eBay reserves the right to deactivate products that are not linked with an existing offer. This makes it all the most important that you use a structured data set or make use of the eBay product catalogue. 
 Support from the magalister plugin 
 If you use Shopware in combination with the  magnalister plugin , the magnalister software does most of the work automatically. The system checks whether unique criteria such as the EAN, brand or item manufacturer number are stored for the affected eBay categories both on eBay and in your online shop. If this is the case, magnalister transmits the data so that your product meets eBay’s new criteria. 
 For items that cannot be automatically assigned, you can manually make a direct comparison using the “Product Matching” tool and assign the product from your online shop to that of the eBay product catalogue. 
 In addition, you have full control over what happens after the comparison. The inventory tab shows you the current status, and which shop title was assigned to which eBay title. Using a direct link to the eBay product, you can also quickly see the details. 
  To the magnalister plugin  
 First eBay changes already live 
 eBay has already started: Since April 2018, only a few products have had to be linked accordingly for the USA, UK, Canada and Australia eBay marketplaces. But the process of linking offers with the eBay catalogue will gradually become mandatory in upcoming months. 
 eBay will start with selected product lines such as Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick or Google Home (the complete product list can be found  here ). eBay will inform you in due time when they are to expand which brands and product lines require product linking. As of July 2018, you will also receive information in the Seller Cockpit Pro concerning which of your offers are not yet linked and therefore need to be revised by you. 
 In magnalister, the assignment works automatically or via the &quot;Product Matching&quot; tool. 
 Questions? 
 If you have any questions about the magnalister plugin or the functionality described in this article, please contact the magnalister team at Tel.: +49 30 - 120 76 741 2 or by email to support@magnalister.de. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 
 
 About magnalister 
  magnalister  is a close partner of Shopware and marketplaces like eBay and Amazon and works in direct exchange on the constant development of interfaces. With over two billion euros in processed orders and 70 million product uploads, magnalister is one of the most sought-after and professional suppliers on the market. 
 
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-06-19T07:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Ben Hammersley, Futurist and Author in interview</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/ben-hammersley-futurist-and-author-in-interview/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/ben-hammersley-futurist-and-author-in-interview/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            At the Shopware Community Day 2018, Ben Hammersley shared exciting insights into the challenges and potential surrounding Artificial Intelligence. In interview, he delves into how companies can prepare for a digitally evolving world.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Ben Hammersley is a pioneer in Internet technologies and the digital future. Ben Hammersley is host of Cybercrime for BBC World News, editor-at-large for British  Wired  magazine and the author of five books. Next to his role as an author, he is a consultant and technology expert, focusing on the impact the Internet and digital networks have on business, politics and society. 
  Mr. Hammersley, you are an author, journalist, broadcaster, speaker and consultant. Your mission is to explain the present and outline challenges for tomorrow&#039;s society. Did you imagine the world as it is today 20 years ago?  
 To a point, yes. The role of a futurist is not to make predictions in the sense of a perfect image of the future, but to show the evolutionary pathways that social systems are on. So, for example, with the evolution of the media and content industries, asymmetric warfare and foreign policy, and the changing nature of the workplace, I was either right or I was wrong in a usefully interesting way. The parts where Donald Trump is the President of the United States, and the UK is leaving the European Union? No. But then again, no one else did. 
 Digital challenges in the working world 
  The working world is undergoing radical changes due to digital developments. What developments will employees have to prepare for in the future?  
 The main changes are coming from changes in business models, which mean that jobs or tasks that had to be done locally can now be done either somewhere else, or by something else. This includes, but isn’t limited to, artificial intelligence. After all, there’s no real difference to you or I if our jobs are taken by an AI or if they go to a real human in another place. Mainly, though, the challenge is having to deal with change itself, at a pace and scale that we’ve never seen before. 
   
  Ben Hammersly speaking at the SCD18  
  What are the challenges facing companies?  
 Most companies are living about 8 years behind today. So the biggest challenge is just realising they are actually in 2018. In your opinion, what other areas of daily life are affected by digitisation in particular? All of it, if you want it to be. What do you think shopping will look like in 20 years? Exactly as it does today, only with more electronic payments. We’ll still go to the shops to buy clothes, and the market to buy vegetables. We’ll just pay with something more interesting than physical money. Shops and markets and so on are technologies that have been refined over thousands of years. They’re hard to kill, and definitely won’t die because of something fashionable like virtual reality. 
 New challenges for eCommerce industry 
  We are currently seeing a trend towards increasing isolation of states, looking at the USA and Brexit as key examples. Could this be a panic reaction to increasing digital networking?  
 In part, yes. Certainly to the profound change in the world economy brought by the internet, of which digital networks are an obvious and impressive example. But they’re also enabled by those very same networks: the very thing that enables the modern world that so scares racist idiots also allows racist idiots to act together as racist idiots. Happily it also allows us to identify the racist idiots, so the story isn’t over yet. 
  You consult the UK Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the European Commission on digital development. But is the state still in a position to control and regulate what is happening on the Internet? And to what extent should they be able to do that?  
 The UK isn’t, no, after Brexit. But the European Commission certainly can: the GDPR laws being an example that is about to happen. And they should be able to do that, yes, if their democratic systems show that this is what their citizens want. 
 
 See Ben&#039;s full presentation from the SCD18 
 Artificial Intelligence will be a challenge to your job and your business, but not in the way you think. At the Shopware Community Day 2018, Ben addressed the changes to come, what they are, and what they are not, and how to prepare for the world of the future, today. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  &amp;nbsp;  
  To the SCD18 recap  
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-06-12T05:30:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Talking trends with leading UK eCommerce consultancy Space 48</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/talking-trends-with-leading-uk-ecommerce-consultancy-space-48/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/talking-trends-with-leading-uk-ecommerce-consultancy-space-48/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Today we are proud to highlight a Shopware Enterprise Partner that is bursting with personality and eCommerce virtuosity: Space 48
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 At the beginning of the year, we reported a  500% growth rate  in the UK and Irish market – an achievement we largely attribute to partnerships with innovative agencies and technology partners. In this blog, we are proud to highlight one of Shopware’s many brilliant partner agencies,  Space 48 , in interview with Managing Director  Jon Woodall . 
   Jon (third from right) together with UK &amp;amp; Irish partners, including GPMD, Williams Commerce, CB Squared and Open Reply UK, at the Shopware Community Day 2018  
 New&amp;nbsp;eCommerce partnership in the UK: Space 48 and Shopware 
  Shopware: A lot has happened at Space 48 in the past year. Next to relocating the entire team to new offices in Manchester, you also started working with Shopware. As an award-winning Magento agency and advocate of the platform, can you explain your reasons for partnering with Shopware?  
  Jon Woodall:  Already well known for our expertise with Magento, the partnership with Shopware is part of our move towards becoming the leading eCommerce consultancy in the UK, whilst establishing Space 48 as a platform agnostic consultancy to give our customers a better service. 
 Shopware’s reputation across Europe, especially in Germany, is well-established, but as you partner with more UK agencies and eCommerce businesses, the platform’s growth within the UK market looks set to skyrocket. 
  These days it’s not enough to have a good product – eCommerce is completely saturated with good products. As an expert eCommerce strategist, what advice do you give brands looking to claim their space online?  
 Surround yourself with the best people. Think about who you need on your team and build the best team you can. This extends to your agencies, eCommerce specialists and technology partners. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that you should carefully build your team with the skills that you need to match your vision and be mindful that as you grow managing change will become as big a challenge as competing in a saturated market. 
 Content marketing is crucial in eCommerce 
  How exactly can brands incorporate content into commerce?  
 Content is ever more important to eCommerce brands. I don’t like the phrase content is king but it is very important to get it right in a busy eCommerce world. You need to stand out from the crowd and offer your customer more. Many online shoppers are hungry for knowledge about your product and as an eCommerce professional it’s your job to make sure the customer gets as good an experience as they would in store. Clever use of articles, product information, images and video incorporated into your eCommerce website is now fundamental. As is choosing a platform that supports this. The  content and commerce feature  from Shopware is a key feature on their platform and it really does make them stand out from the crowd. It’s perfect for content rich eCommerce brands and part of the reason we wanted to partner with Shopware as we wanted to make sure we could provide the option that best suits our customer. 
  You once said that eCommerce is largely a H2H (human to human) business. In which ways is technology used as a means to this end?  
 H2H is definitely something I read somewhere, but it sounds great. In the technology world that we live in we get lost in the latest and greatest eCommerce platform or ground breaking marketing tactics. We look in some cases for something that doesn’t exist. I have worked with many different eCommerce businesses of all sizes and the one thing that the successful ones all have in common is simple! They focus on product, price, promotion and customer service. Technology becomes an enabler where you pick the best platform for your project, based on requirements and the experience of the people on your team. 
 The impact of AI on eCommerce 
  At the Shopware Community Day, AI was addressed in many shapes and forms. How do you imagine AI will impact eCommerce in the future?  
 AI is already impacting eCommerce. It’s already helping drive better online experiences by personalising user journeys and it’s also helping to save valuable time for overstretched eCommerce teams. The rate of change is exponential in our busy world; AI and other technology will only accelerate in the coming years. It’s exciting to see how AI can shape the online experience for customers. 
  In closing, as you just experienced your first Shopware Community Day, we are curious to hear about your impressions of the event.  
 The Shopware Community Day is a must attend event and will be one of the first events I put in my calendar next year. The line-up of speakers was excellent, thankfully Shopware provided translation, I would have been lost without it. The venue also didn’t disappoint, set in an industrial park it provided the perfect environment. 
 But here’s one of my key takeaways that I tweeted on the day: 
 
 I’m not sure if there’s a way of measuring a great company culture, but I’ve just witnessed lots of high fives and hugs from the  @shopware  team for a super successful day  @scd_2018  it’s clear to see they are winners  #Shopware   #TogetherStronger  credit to you  @s_heyne  &amp;amp; team 
—  Jon Woodall  (@Jon_Woodall)  May 18, 2018  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  We want to thank Jon for this interview and look forward to the many exciting projects that will result from this partnership. Find out more about Jon and his team on the Space 48 website or learn about the brand’s vision in this video:  
    
 About the new Shopware partner in the UK: Space 48 
 
 
  Space 48  is a leading and ecommerce consultancy and website development agency, based in England. Established in 2008, Space 48 has a wealth of experience in ecommerce and omnichannel retail. As the business looked to grow its operations, Space 48 recently moved its HQ to Manchester, where the stunning new office has been designed to reflect the culture and values of the business. 
 MD Jon Woodall founded Space 48 and grew the business with Technical Director Tony Brown, using their combined knowledge of ecommerce and web development and by recruiting the right balance of people that embody the brand’s DNA. By 2014, the team had quadrupled in size and this made an office move inevitable. Now, Space 48’s head office is based in the centre of Manchester; a buzzing hub of digital innovation. 
 
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-06-06T06:15:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Janssen-Fritsen migrates to Shopware Enterprise</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/janssen-fritsen-migrates-to-shopware-enterprise/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/janssen-fritsen-migrates-to-shopware-enterprise/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Founded in 1950, Janssen-Fritsen has become a trusted supplier of sporting equipment to the Olympics and World Cup. They are now embarking on a mission to transform their online presence with the help of Shopware Enterprise. 
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 Dutch sports equipment manufacturer Janssen-Fritsen is professionalising their online strategy and replatforming with a new Shopware shop. Janssen-Fritsen distributes sports equipment worldwide and has been a repeated supplier of the Olympic Games, World Cups and European Championships. Implemented by Shopware Solution Partner  Calago B.V. , the shop is set to go live in the course of the year. 
 The decision to replatform came when the existing shop and PIM system were no longer able to cope with the increasing number of online orders. The company was also looking for more modern means to meet current expectations in terms of user-friendliness. With the growing success of their brand, the company came to realise that a professional online presence and shop are essential for customer loyalty. 
 Clearly defined vision for their new online presence 
 When selecting their new shop system, Janssen-Fritsen’s requirements were clearly defined from the start. Every brand is to have an independent subshop with its own branding to ensure that customers can be individually targeted. Considering goods are widely distributed worldwide, its necessary that products and customer information be translated directly into several languages and integrated into the shop system. Janssen-Fritsen also wanted a platform where they could centrally manage products in a new PIM system. A solution will now be created from the separate mobile and desktop shops to reflect the modern purchasing behaviour of customers. The ERP system used will be linked to the PIM system and the online shop. 
 Future-proof migration to Shopware 
 Together with Dutch partner agency Calago, Janssen-Fritsen opted for Shopware due to the fact that the platform fully meets their software requirements. &quot;The solutions and expertise of PIM systems in combination with Shopware are exactly what we are looking for. Plus, Calago is able to transform our expectations into a suitable solution,&quot; says Dominique Hendriks, Marketing Manager at JF Group. 
 Other reasons for choosing Shopware include the broad feature set that’s available for retailers in the standard version, the more advanced features such as Customer Streams for targeting customers, and the ability to quickly make customisation and display multiple brands separately in subshops in different languages. 
 Due to the complex range of features that are particularly important for B2B customers such as schools, cities and sporting event organisers, which is where Janssen-Fritsen is particularly active, Janssen-Fritsen decided to also make use of  Shopware&#039;s B2B Suite . 
 According to Janssen-Fritsen, the biggest advantage of the migration is that it makes it easier to intelligently manage products and to connect them with other management systems. Dominique Hendriks on the migration to Shopware: &quot;With the new PIM and Shopware, we want to make our business future-proof and take it to a whole new level.&quot; 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 
 
 Curious to learn more about Shopware? 
 With any questions, you can reach our team of eCommerce experts M-F by calling +44 (0) 203 095 2445 (UK 8am – 4pm GMT) / 00 800 746 7626 0 (worldwide 9am – 5pm CET) or writing an email any time to sales@shopware.com. We look forward to speaking with you personally about your project requirements! 
  Get in touch now  
  Discover more case studies  
 
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-06-05T05:30:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">5 ways to optimise your checkout for increased conversion</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/5-ways-to-optimise-your-checkout-for-increased-conversion/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/5-ways-to-optimise-your-checkout-for-increased-conversion/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            In this blog article, Shopware Technology Partner Skrill shares 5 tried and trusted tips on how to optimise your checkout for new customers and increase customer retention.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 It’s no secret in eCommerce that customers respond to what is easy. After you’ve caught their attention with your product, the next logical step is to make it as easy as possible for them to get it. In this blog article, Shopware Technology Partner  Skrill  shares 5 tried and trusted tips on how to convert new customers and increase customer retention in your shop’s checkout. 
 1. Give your customers options 
 Customers want to see products and services that are familiar to them and a purchasing process that is simple and quick. One crucial point in your online shop that can make or break a sale is the payment process. When you offer straightforward and convenient payment methods, you ensure the products in your shop remain the focus of your customers’ shopping experience. The easier the payment process, the more appealing your online store will be to the customer who values convenience above all else. 
 How to meet payment expectations 
 
 Get the basics right. Make sure your checkout is functional, easy to understand and supported by the latest technology. Customers are not tolerant of payment glitches – any hiccups in your online shop will deter the customer from completing a purchase. 
 Ensure your customer can pay on the device of their choice. Be optimised for mobile, desktop and tablet. 
 Be modern and adaptable to meet growing demand. 
 
 2. Put your customers in control 
 To ensure a seamless shopping experience, put yourself in your customer’s shoes when designing the checkout process. Do not force them to create an account. Many people don’t like this - they want to get in, pay quickly and get out. It’s always better to give them the option of creating an account after the payment is complete. 
 Help them pay on their terms 
 Customers love what is easy and familiar. They know their online banking and trust its safety. Many are interested in the security and familiarity of their online banking when making payments online.  Skrill , a digital payments company, can help merchants tap into this need through their instant bank transfer service.  Rapid Transfer  allows consumers in Europe to make payments to online merchants directly from their bank account. Instant and convenient, users do not have to leave the merchant website to complete a payment. 
 3. Protect their privacy 
 Especially due to GDPR, this has become a key issue in the modern digital economy. Above all, customers need to trust that their personal details are safe. A Skrill digital wallet protects private financial information and allows payments to be made using only an email address and password. Integrate with Skrill and connect with millions of wallet holders around the world who want safe online payments. 
 4. Avoid long forms by checkout 
 Checkouts are abandoned all the time when people see long, detailed forms that span more than 2 pages. The length of a checkout form can be cut by as much as half with some simple tricks: 
 
 Instead of “Name” and “Surname” fields, just go for a single “Full Name” field. 
 Make the shipping and billing address the same by default and hide the “shipping address” fields. 
 
 5. Offer a range of payment options 
 Cards, online banking, cash vouchers and local payment methods - the more the better. You can cover all these at once by opening a Skrill business account. With a simple  integration , your checkout could be offering all the above payment options in a matter of hours. 
  About the author  
 
 
 Skrill is an international online payments business making digital payments simple, secure and quick in 185 countries and 40 currencies. Skrill meets the needs of more than 156,000 businesses worldwide. Merchants using Skrill have the freedom and flexibility to drive business growth and build a global customer base. 
  Learn more about Skrill’s Rapid Transfer  
  To the Skrill plugin  
 
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-05-28T06:15:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Looking beyond the horizon at the SCD18</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/looking-beyond-the-horizon-at-the-scd18/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/looking-beyond-the-horizon-at-the-scd18/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Over 2,000 eCommerce enthusiasts have come together for the Shopware Community Day 2018. For the first time in SCD history, the event takes place on the spectacular grounds of the Landschaftspark in Duisburg, Germany.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Every child has creative potential and the ability to come up with unconventional solutions. But as we get older, this potential dwindles more and more. Here at the Shopware Community Day 2018 we are looking at how each individual can counteract this tendency in order to retain their visionary power and tackle future challenges with courage and imagination. 
 This year&#039;s motto – &quot;Beyond Horizon&quot; – describes a special attitude with which we look at ourselves and at others. It illustrates our efforts to leave our own comfort zone, regularly lift our gaze above the everyday and be open to new things. This is the only way we can help shape tomorrow&#039;s eCommerce together with our community. 
 More than 2,000 retailers, partners, developers and eCommerce enthusiasts from all over Europe have accepted our invitation to join us in celebrating the biggest Shopware Community Day of all time. 
 Shopware 5.5 and new platform presented 
 In his eagerly anticipated keynote speech, Shopware founder Stefan Hamann presented the latest innovations to emerge from the Shopware universe, including the upcoming version 5.5. With the forthcoming release, all Shopware products – including those from external plugin manufacturers – will no longer be encoded with the encryption software IonCube. This update not only makes all Shopware products open source, but also leads to even more flexibility; in forgoing IonCube, Shopware will be compatible with the latest PHP version 7.2. 
 In supporting the community’s growth across borders, Shopware 5.5 will also contain several functions that make it easier for shop owners to more effectively market and sell their products internationally. These include improvements for creating country-specific tax rates and translation options within the backend. 
 While the community was pleased with the new Shopware version, the announcement of a new platform called “Shopware Playground” provoked an excited and curious reaction from the audience. The new platform offers considerable added value for retailers and developers who are eager to experiment with emerging technologies. As a part of Playground, Shopware also delivers a number of additional projects, such as augmented reality approaches, voice commerce and access to the new API, all of which can be tested by users and enriched with their ideas. 
   
 Top-class speakers broaden horizons 
 With the keynote officially kicking off the Shopware Community Day, visitors can now look forward to presentations from an array of international speakers on the main stage and four adjacent session stages, opening up new perspectives for the audience under various main themes. Top international speakers include Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt, Chief Innovation Evangelist at Google, Stanford Professor, advisor to the UN and the German Football Association, who will provide interesting insights about innovation and Ben Hammersley, author, futurist, consultant and inventor of the term &quot;podcast&quot;, who will shed light on current trends and look into the future of digitalisation. 
 The Shopware Community Day 2018 in brief: 
  Location:  Landschaftspark / Duisburg-Nord Germany  Key figures:  Over 2,000 retailers, agencies and developers, 50 exhibitors, 40 speakers  Main theme:  &quot;Beyond Horizon&quot;  Keynote topics:  New Shopware version 5.5 and new platform Shopware Playground  Speakers:  Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt, Ben Hammersley, Peter Wippermann and many more. 
  Learn more about the Shopware Community Day  
 
 Follow the Shopware Community Day now on Twitter 
 Couldn’t make it to the Shopware Community Day? You can follow as the action unfolds on Twitter. Using the hashtag  #SCD18 , we are providing you with exciting insights into what has become regarded as the most unique event in eCommerce. 
  Follow SCD on Twitter  
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-05-18T11:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">After winter comes spring: How Pally&#039;Hi updated their entire product assortment</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/after-winter-comes-spring-how-pally-hi-updated-their-entire-product-assortment/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/after-winter-comes-spring-how-pally-hi-updated-their-entire-product-assortment/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Get valuable tips on how to upload a completely new product assortment into your Shopware shop from Pally&#039;Hi 
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 In a previous series, we accompanied Amplid and Pally&#039;Hi as they updated  from Shopware 4 to Shopware 5.2.  Now many months later, we are meeting again to discuss a different side of shop maintenance: how to update your complete product assortment. 
 Tips for uploading products in your Shopware shop 
 True to the motto &quot;From the community, for the community&quot;, Peter Bauer, CEO of Amplid and Pally&#039;Hi, and his colleague Johannes Ritter, Brand Manager at Pally&#039;Hi, report on how their product import went in detail, what challenges they faced what free tips you can take with you when you also have to change your product range. 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
  Peter Bauer  
 Founder and CEO of Pally&#039;Hi 
 
 
 
   
 
  Johannes Ritter  
 Head of Brand and Sales at Pally&#039;Hi 
 
 
 
 
  Peter and Johannes, customers can now look forward to the new Pally&#039;Hi spring collection. How many new products including variants found their way into the shop? 
 Peter: We have about 70 new items, each available in five sizes. Some products are available in several colours, but each colour version is a separate product in terms of logic. We work with a one-dimensional variant depth, being &quot;size&quot;. When we started Pally&#039;Hi four years ago, with a rather small collection, we wanted to appear a bit larger than we actually were. Meanwhile, our collection has become quite extensive - maybe we will change to the variant depth &quot;colour&quot; and &quot;size&quot; at one point. 
  What was the process to import and export your data? Did you use the Shopware plugin at any point?  
 Johannes: We worked with the  IMPORT/EXPORT ADVANCED  function. The most sensitive source of errors is the master data sheet, as a CSV file. Just a small comma error somewhere, and the whole import process doesn&#039;t work. The human error factor has to be taken into account, so it&#039;s best to let everyone in the team look at it carefully. We also had the eagle eyes of our agency  dasistweb  thoroughly look over our data sheets before the import, because 16 eyes are more reliable than 8. 
  Which ERP system do you use?  
 Peter: For merchandise management and financial accounting we use  MENTION . The system is very extensive and complex, but we have adapted the necessary key functions so that it works well for the textile sector. Three years ago, dasistweb built an interface for us that transfers customer data, including orders, from the shop into the ERP, but also uploads the stocks in the shop in the other direction when B2B orders have reduced the stock. Interesting to note: We do not use the ERP as the heart of all product data, but rather Shopware. In our shop, we host and maintain all images, all products with an EAN code and product number, plus the short and long description in three languages. This is simply because it’s more comfortable to work directly in Shopware than in the ERP. However, we do maintain all order and invoice-relevant data in the ERP. 
  Were you able to import all products from your spring collection in one upload?  
 Johannes: We uploaded two separate CSV files: First one with all product-specific data such as the product number, EAN codes, colours, prices, etc., and then a second one for the language shops, i.e. short and long descriptions in French and English. 
  Were you able to keep the shop live during the upload process?  
 Peter: Yeah, of course. Three people were involved in the process: Michi, our graphic designer, uploaded all photos into the backend and uploaded the new CSS or Less file and activated the Shopping Worlds - i.e. the start pages, lookbook, etc. - at the same time. I created the categories or assigned the new products and copied them to the other language shops. Johannes did the final adjustments and corrections. During this process, errors creep in, especially because it had to go so fast. 
   
  How fast were you able to upload the new product data?  
 Peter: The actual upload only takes one minute per file. Checking the data maybe two hours. In these two hours the other one uploads the product photos. If everything is well prepared, the process will be complete in a little over two hours. During this time, it could happen that a visitor first enters the winter landing page, only to find themselves switched over the summer; but a positive surprise, because they are suddenly presented the new product range. 
  Did everything work out as you imagined or were there any hurdles?  
 Johannes: Of course, nothing ever goes as planned! We had some faulty logic at the very beginning – the descriptions for the default shop, in our case &quot;German&quot;, were missing in the main data sheet. We wanted to upload them with the language CSV afterwards. But Shopware requires the language for the default shop, otherwise nothing is displayed at all. Our agency immediately recognized our bug and copied the column with the German description into the correct CSV. 
  Have you fixed an annual date to change your product range or is the change dependent on specific factors?  
 Johannes: Actually, we plan to change the product range as soon as the collection is in stock. But on the other side, it makes no sense to do so if there is still snow in half of Germany on Easter. In this case we will wait a few days until it smells of spring and people feel like shopping for summer clothes. 
  Which specifications do you have for your product presentation?  
 Peter: All styles are now photographed on busts. These images are not only used in our webshop and workbooks, but also by other retailers who offer Pally&#039;Hi online. 
  Do you have tips for other retailers planning to share their shop assortment?  
 Johannes: We recommend using separate CSV files, simply because of the troubleshooting. This was the smoothest process for us and saved us a lot of headaches. And you should let as many colleagues as possible look over your files - but make sure beforehand that everyone works with Libre-Calc, and not with Excel. Excel opens a CSV file as an Excel worksheet and saves it differently with some hidden formula automatisms. That cost us a few ulcers two years ago. 
  Were there any other changes when updating the product range, such as adaptations to the design or usability?  
 Peter: We actually created a new navigation or category structure and added another menu depth. Up until now, visitors could only select whether T-SHIRTS or LONGSLEEVES were displayed using the attribute filter. Meanwhile, the product range is so extensive that we already offer customers various &quot;product categories&quot; in the menu, which are differentiated by subcategories. 
   
  Were there any other changes in your shop?  
 Peter: The lookbook, which is built on the basis of a Shopping World, will constantly adapt a little bit in the course of the seasons. With drag and drop and the copy function into other languages, this is done in five minutes. We’re also constantly updating the premium products, depending on stock and season. But now we are concentrating on the sale of the current collection - or already with the design of the winter collection 2019/20, which is crazy! 
 
 
 Shopware&#039;s Import/Export tool 
  To the Import/Export plugin in the Community Store  
  Shopware Wiki: How To&#039;s on the Import/Export in your online shop  
 
 
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-05-07T06:15:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Shop Usability Award: 34 Shopware shops in the finale </title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/shop-usability-award-34-shopware-shops-in-the-finale/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/shop-usability-award-34-shopware-shops-in-the-finale/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            The Shop Usability Award is one of the most prestigious eCommerce awards in the German-speaking market. Once again, this year&#039;s contenders include Shopware shops from all walks of the industry. 
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Admittedly, we are already a bit spoiled when it comes to leading brands utilising our software in outstanding ways. In recent years, exceptional Shopware shops have repeatedly won trophies at the Shop Usability Award - the most important eCommerce award in the German-speaking market. Last year, the Bundesliga club BVB even took the lead with its fan shop and received the trophy as  the overall winner . 
 This year is no different: the shortlist shows that the chances are once again quite high for our retailers. We are very happy to share that 34 Shopware shops are in the final and have the best preconditions to win an award. Considering the 704 shops that were in the running for the award ceremony, a nomination alone is a huge success for retailers and their agencies. 
 Representing each branch of the market, these are the Shopware shops nominated for the most prestigious eCommerce award in the German-speaking market: 
  Category &quot;Accessories, Gifts &amp;amp; Lifestyle&quot;:  
  www.heldbergs.com  - implemented by  RHIEM Intermedia GmbH  
  www.schwester-schwester.de  - implemented by  webcookies - digital bakery  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Category &quot;B2B&quot;:  
  www.goin.de  - implemented by  dasistweb GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Category &quot;Electronics, Software &amp;amp; Mobile&quot;:  
  www.ars24.com &amp;nbsp;- own implementation 
  www.devolo.de  - implemented by  Netshops Commerce GmbH     
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Category &quot;Food &amp;amp; Drink&quot;:  
  www.tofukind.com  - implemented by  conexco UG  
  www.doncarne.de&amp;nbsp; - implemented by  KOMMERZ - digitale Marken- &amp;amp; Einkaufserlebnisse GmbH  
  www.biozentrale.de  - implemented by  ACID21 GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Category &quot;Leisure, Hobby &amp;amp; Pets&quot;:  
  www.franzis.de  - implemented by  best IT GmbH &amp;amp; Co. KG  
  www.zooroyal.de  - own implementation 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Category &quot;Household, Home &amp;amp; Garden&quot;:  
  www.frankfurter-brett.de &amp;nbsp;- own implementation 
  www.lurch.de &amp;nbsp;- implemented by  Netshops Commerce GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Category &quot;Furniture &amp;amp; Living&quot;:  
  www.loeffler.de &amp;nbsp;- implemented by  hmmh multimediahaus AG  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Category “Fashion”:  
  www.dorothee-schumacher.com  - implemented by  superReal GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Category &quot;Special Interests&quot;:  
  www.liebeslust.de &amp;nbsp;- implemented by  Ottscho IT-Service &amp;amp; Consulting  
  www.universaledition.com &amp;nbsp;- implemented by   Altamira Softworks s.r.o.  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Category &quot;Toys, Kids &amp;amp; Baby&quot;:  
  www.kokadi.de &amp;nbsp;- implemented by  sternpunkt.internetideen OG  
  www.timkid.de &amp;nbsp;- implemented by  NetzKombyse GmbH  
  www.framily.de &amp;nbsp;- own implementation 
  www.stabilo.com &amp;nbsp;- implemented by  SOWHAT! c/o Websling GmbH  
  &amp;nbsp;  
  Category &quot;Sports &amp;amp; Outdoor&quot;:  
  www.shop.bvb.de  (winner of the Shop Usability Awards 2017) - implemented by  best IT GmbH &amp;amp; Co. KG  
  www.salewa.de  - implemented by  von Affenfels GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Category &quot;Wellness, Beauty &amp;amp; Health&quot;:  
  www.finkhof.de &amp;nbsp; 
  www.satisfyer.com &amp;nbsp;- implemented by  Interlutions GmbH &amp;nbsp; 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 These shops are nominated in the special categories 
  Special category &quot;Best Brand Shop&quot;:  
  www.ortovox.com &amp;nbsp;- implemented by  onacy GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
   Special category &quot;Small Business&quot;:   
  www.finkhof.de &amp;nbsp; 
  www.heldbergs.com &amp;nbsp;- implemented by&amp;nbsp; RHIEM Intermedia GmbH  
  www.craft-and-caviar.com&amp;nbsp; - implemented by  NetzKombyse GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Special category &quot;Most Innovative Shop&quot;:  
  www.notlikeyou.com  - implemented by  elio GmbH  
  www.virusworldwide.com &amp;nbsp;- implemented by  Format D GmbH  
  www.shop.suteria.ch &amp;nbsp;- implemented by  olai GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Special category &quot;Best Discounter&quot;:  
  www.shop.penny.de  - implemented by  best IT GmbH &amp;amp; Co. KG  
  www.cosmo-onlineshop.de &amp;nbsp;- own implementation 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Special category &quot;Best Manufacturer B2B&quot;:  
  www.goin.de &amp;nbsp;- implemented by&amp;nbsp; dasistweb GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Special category &quot;Best Online Shop in Austria&quot;:  
  www.kokadi.de  - implemented by  sternpunkt.internetideen OG  
  www.hagan-ski.com  - implemented by  CosmoShop GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Special category &quot;Best Online Shop in Switzerland&quot;::  
  www.shop.suteria.ch  - implemented by  olai GmbH  
  www.virvsworldwide.com  - implemented by  Format D GmbH  
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Keep your fingers crossed for the grand finale on 3rd May 2018 
 All nominated Shopware shops have received an invitation to the grand finale on May 3, 2018 at the Gloria Palace in Munich. Next to the overall winner, Johannes Altmann, CEO of shoplupe GmbH and host of the ceremony, will award the twelve category winners. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 
 About the Shop Usability Award 
 The Shop Usability Award was launched by Shoplupe GmbH in 2008 and has since established itself as the most renowned eCommerce award in Germany. A top-class jury, made up of the best-known eCommerce experts and representatives of the most important shop systems, selects the best German-language online shops every year. 
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-04-27T06:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">7 tried &amp; tested tips for a successful online shop</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/7-tried-tested-tips-for-a-successful-online-shop/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/7-tried-tested-tips-for-a-successful-online-shop/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            A number of factors need to be taken into consideration in order for an online shop to truly prosper. Here we have summarised seven tips on how to kick off your path to eCommerce success. 
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Your  eCommerce software  provides you with the basic framework for an online shop and saves you a great deal of development work. However, even when your shop is up and running, there are a multitude of factors to take into consideration in order to truly prosper online. Today we want to take you through 7 tips to kick off your path to success. 
  Whether in the planning stage or already up and running, you should keep these points in mind at all times in order to reach success online:  
 
 Make online shopping as comfortable as possible for your customers! Stay away from congested design, long blocks of text and a complicated checkout process: these have all been proven to be sales killers. 
 Take care of your product presentation and descriptions. This makes your online shop more trustworthy, entices interest in your product, reduces the number of returns and offers emotional appeal in your shop. 
 Turnover via mobile devices has been growing for years. Be sure your shop is optimised for mobile and offers usability that is intuitive and straightforward. 
 Customers are accustomed to fast shipping and convenient payment options – your payment and logistics processes must always work perfectly. 
 Work continuously with SEO, SEA and social media. Set goals and KPIs for your shop and check them regularly. 
 
 Make your online shop as comfortable as possible 
 Welcome to the harsh reality of eCommerce: When an online shop lacks structure or has a complicated checkout process, the customer goes straight to the search engine and purchases the product from somebody who, frankly, does it better. More often than not, the online giant Amazon already offers an equivalent in its product range. That’s why the usability of your shop could make or break your business. When a customer comes to your shop, it’s essential they are met with intuitive usability and a clear structure. Fortunately,  Shopware 5  already provides you with a basic shop structure in the standard that is user-friendly and includes a simplified checkout process. 
 Product presentation is everything 
 When you go shopping in a stationary store, odds are you prefer a tidy and clearly arranged shop. Stationary retail invests a great deal of money into product presentation and staging so that customers are emotionally drawn into the shopping experience. These rules also apply in eCommerce. 
 Online shops whose product presentation is clearly and emotionally designed are particularly successful. With the right call-to-actions in place, they achieve high conversions. Make use of this principle and let your products live through expressive images combined with contextual placement. Get inspired by other online shops who do a particularly beautiful job with their product presentation  here . 
   
 Mobile optimisation is a must 
 With steady revenue growth rates from mobile commerce, it’s imperative that content in your online shop is optimised for mobile devices. Text lengths and image sizes play a particularly important role here: text that is too long trigger a scroll process; images that are too large lead to long loading times, which can cause higher jump rates. When using Shopware as the basis for your shop, you automatically have a responsive basis to work with. You can even play out specific content for different devices using our  Shopping Worlds feature . 
   
 Build consumer confidence 
 Customers are often very sceptical of new online shops. To establish your shop on a long-term basis, it’s important you prove to your customers you are trustworthy. One of the most effective ways to build consumer confidence is through content marketing. 
 Reach out to your customers and engage them by offering valuable content in your blog. &quot;Content is king, but relevance is queen&quot; means that only relevant content counts. Keep your customers informed via a regular newsletter and prove your competence in your field. 
 In addition, certifications such as the  Trusted Shop seal  or popular shipping and payment methods play a major role. In the  Shopware Community Store , you can find numerous plugins that allow you to easily integrate the shipping and payment methods most relevant to your customer’s needs. 
 Lever for online success: SEA and SEO 
 When creating content for blog posts or landing pages, you should always include relevant keywords. Don&#039;t always use the same words religiously – it’s recommended you use suitable synonyms from time to time. The more content you produce on your blog, the better the likelihood of placing higher in the organic search engine ranking. You can also achieve short-term success with paid ads. But note: In order to make AdWords as effective as possible, make sure that your URL contains your offer. You should also consider making a dedicated landing page that matches the offer made in your ad. 
   
 In the best case, visitors to your shop want to buy multiple products. With remarketing, you can place targeted ads for users who have already visited your shop and provided their email address. Remarketing helps you keep the traffic of returning visitors high. But don&#039;t be too pushy - too much advertising leads to annoyed users. 
 Customer service: payment and logistics 
 An online shop is only as good as the provider&#039;s underlying logistics processes. Due to online retailers like Amazon or Zalando, customers are particularly spoiled when it comes to customer service and returns management. Test your logistics and returns management and constantly optimise your processes. Offer shipment tracking - your customers want to know when they can expect their package to arrive. If possible, send your products via parcel services that have a nationwide network, whether for returns or parcel stations. 
   
 Social media marketing for online shops 
 Meet your customers where they are on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Fill each channel with life by sharing your blog posts, drawing attention to your campaigns and entertaining your target group. Be careful when selecting social media channels and check whether your target groups are active on these channels. An online shop selling printers probably won’t need to invest resources in caring after a Snapchat account. Note that users do not want to be bombarded by blunt advertisements, so here once again valuable content plays a crucial role. 
   
 
 Popular articles like this: 
  More turnover through fewer returns  
  10 eCommerce Personalization Trends &amp;amp; Tips for 2018  
 &amp;nbsp; 
 
 
 
 Curious to learn more? 
 To learn more about how Shopware can serve your online business, you can reach us M-F by calling +44 (0) 203 095 2445 (UK 8am – 4pm GMT) / 00 800 746 7626 0 (worldwide 9am – 5pm CET) or writing an email any time to sales@shopware.com. We are look forward to speaking with you about your project! 
  Contact Shopware today  
 
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-04-26T07:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">ISAAC develops an online experience for Checkpoint Mol</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/isaac-develops-an-online-experience-for-checkpoint-mol/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/isaac-develops-an-online-experience-for-checkpoint-mol/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            To encourage their customers to visit their physical store in Mol, Belgium, Checkpoint Mol set out to offer their customers an emotional online shopping experience without the traditional eCommerce functionalities.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 Here at Shopware, we typically report about online shops which utilise the full potential of our software’s eCommerce capabilities to grow their sales online. However, today we want to portrait a different kind of story and share how one company made innovative use of our software to fulfil the unique business objectives of their brick-and-mortar store. 
 
 Although the website from Checkpoint Mol contains over 2,000 products, 60 brands and 50 individual categories, no revenue is generated. Why? Very simple: since the beginning of 2017, the company has used www.checkpointmol.be as an expansive digital shop window and means to inspire their customers online and convert exclusively offline in their physical store in Mol, Belgium. 
   
 Shop with a clear focus on user experience 
 Checkpoint Mol prides itself on its 1-to-1 customer consultation and personable services, which includes an in-house tailor who is available to individually alter garments on the spot. For that reason, when deciding to provide their customers with a more unified digital experience, the company was looking for a way to simultaneously inspire and provide detailed product information online, while encouraging visitors to visit their offline store in Mol. 
 The solution is a shop that focuses on user experience rather than direct online sales. Conceptualised and implemented in cooperation with Shopware Solution Partner  ISAAC , the shop seamlessly guides the customer through a myriad of outfit combinations and highlights the company’s innovative mix of Scandinavian, English and Italian brands with a stylish edge, without traditional eCommerce functionalities. 
 “The customer should be guided and informed online as best as possible, so that they are eventually triggered to visit the shop in Mol. Because of Checkpoint’s proposition of inspire online and sell offline, the Shopware platform was the perfect match,” Ludo Beumer, Project Manager at ISAAC, says about developing the online experience. 
   
 To digitise the popular lookbooks from Checkpoint’s magazines, ISAAC developed a custom “ looks module ”, which features more than 50 seasonal looks; from a chic business look to sporty casual everyday wear, there is the right outfit for every man. Clicking on a look brings the customer to a detailed breakdown of the pieces used to construct the outfit. Checkpoint in turn, can easy add or change looks in the Shopware backend. 
   
 ISAAC: Perfect partner to create an experiential customer journey 
 Drawing on their expertise in web development, ISAAC developed the design, frontend and backend, and is responsible for the ongoing hosting and technical maintenance of the shop. 
 Next to the custom looks module, ISAAC developed a link between the shop and the product information; an integration that includes a daily import of the product details and images, up-to-date prices, stock-information and sizes on the website. 
   
 Checkpoint Mol is ISAAC&#039;s first project with Shopware in the Belgian market. The implementation of the project took four months. During this time, ISAAC&#039;s project managers and developers were in close contact with Shopware to implement Checkpoint&#039;s clear ideas in the best possible way, which also had a positive impact on the implementation period. 
 “We notice the advantages of Shopware. There are many out-of-the box features that are appropriate to develop a good webshop, but customisation is also possible. Besides that, the training and support from Shopware are both outstanding and worth naming!” - Ludo Beumer – Project Manager ISAAC 
  To the Checkpoint Mol shop  
  Read more about the project (Dutch)  
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-04-24T06:30:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">The ultimate guide to the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) </title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-new-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/the-ultimate-guide-to-the-new-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force on May 25 2018, and with it comes new demands and requirements for basically all businesses and especially eCommerce. This must-have guide provides you with important tips so that your online business is prepar...
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 On 25 May 2018, the  General Data Protection Regulation  (GDPR) will take effect and replace the current European regulations. The GDPR will standardise the processing of personal data across the EU and apply to all companies and institutions operating in the EU that work with data such as names, addresses, bank data, birthdays, photos, etc. Since nearly every company nowadays comes in contact with personal data, the implementation of these regulations is essential for every shop owner. 
 The most important facts about the GDPR 
 Although the GDPR brings higher standards of privacy protection, the new regulations can pose challenges to companies when it comes to their implementation. Infringements of the new regulation could result in fines of up to 20 million euros or 4% of the company&#039;s global annual turnover. The concrete measures that a company must initiate are very different and depend on several factors. Here we have summarised the most important changes to the law: 
 GDPR: What every shop owner has to know 
 
  Consent is mandatory:  If a company wishes to collect personal data that is not absolutely necessary for the fulfilment of a contract, the consent of the person concerned must be obtained in advance, e.g. by using a checkbox. 
  Accountability:  A company must be able to demonstrate compliance with legal principles where necessary. To ensure this, a company needs a functioning data protection management system in which responsible persons and processes are defined and recorded. 
  Right to take data with you:  The law stipulates that customers must be allowed to take or pass on their own personal data to another recipient. 
  The right to be forgotten:  According to the law, every person has the right to have their collected data deleted. The GDPR obliges companies to delete the data immediately if necessary. This should happen, for example, if a data subject files an objection or data processing has not been carried out lawfully. 
  Record of all processing activities:  With the introduction of the GDPR, a company is obliged to create a record listing all the processing activities carried out. The record should provide information on persons responsible, the purpose of the data collection and deadlines for the deletion of data. 
 
 The GDPR is of course not limited to these 5 points, but contains many other important regulations, e.g. newsletter dispatch or obligation to report data protection violations. Our free whitepaper, produced in collaboration with Trusted Shops and C3 Media, provides you with important tips so that your online business is prepared for the change. 
  Download free GDPR whitepaper  
 We created a supplemental wiki article that is equally relevant for shop owners, developers and agencies that answers the most important questions regarding Shopware and the GDPR: 
  To the wiki  
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-04-04T07:45:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Shopware recognised as one of the best employers in Germany</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/shopware-recognised-as-one-of-the-best-employers-in-germany/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/shopware-recognised-as-one-of-the-best-employers-in-germany/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Shopware is now the second-best employer in the Münsterland region of Germany and sixth in the entire ITC industry. However, the crowning achievement is that Shopware was awarded sixth place among all participating companies throughout Germany. Shopware is once again a top emp...
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 After participating in the employer competition Great Place To Work for the first time last year and achieving above-average results across the board, we were eagerly looking forward the outcome of this year’s results. Well worth the wait, because of the 740 participating companies, Shopware was distinguished as the sixth-best employer in Germany! 
   
 Extensive evaluation criteria 
 Every year, Great Place To Work awards the best employers from various categories. The basis for the evaluation includes a detailed anonymous employee survey on workplace issues such as trust in managers, quality of cooperation, appreciation, identification within the company, career development opportunities, remuneration, health and work-life balance. 
 In addition, the management of each company is questioned about beneficial measures for personnel. The results of the two research instruments (employee survey + culture audit) are weighed in a ratio of 2:1; with the evaluation from the employees in the foreground. 
 Placing strong in the respective categories 
 With such a large number of applicants, we are all the more pleased to have scored so well in the respective categories. In addition to placing 6th in the nationwide competition, Shopware took second place in NRW and Münsterland and was awarded sixth place in the &quot;ICT companies&quot; category. 
 Become part of the team! 
 If you want to work for one of the best and most modern employers in Germany, apply now! We are always looking for eCommerce enthusiasts to join us as we revolutionise digital commerce! 
  To the open positions  
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-04-03T08:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Eight days of Easter Sale in the store! Save min. 15% on select plugins</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/eight-days-of-easter-sale-in-the-store-save-min.-15-on-select-plugins/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/eight-days-of-easter-sale-in-the-store-save-min.-15-on-select-plugins/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Over the course of our eight-day Easter Sale in the Community Store, you can save min. 15% on select plugins. 
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Easter is still a few days away, but you can already find attractive Easter offers hidden throughout the Community Store. Starting today and spanning until April 2nd, you can  save min. 15%  on select plugins at our major Easter Sale. 
 How to spot Easter offers 
 When browsing the Community Store, you&#039;ll know you&#039;ve found a deal when a plugin is marked with a red Easter egg. When checking out, simply enter the discount code found in the plugin description. 
  Tip:  Not every manufacturer offers discounts for the entirety of the sale period, so be sure to check back regularly for new deals (26.03 – 02.04). 
  Search for Easter deals now  
 20 % Easter discount on Shopware Premium Plugins 
 You can save a whopping 20% on every Premium Plugin for the entirety of the Easter Sale. Use the voucher code found in the plugin description when checking out and save 99 Euro. 
  Discover Premium Plugins and save  
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-03-26T06:00:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">The top 10 Shopware shops with Storytelling</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/the-top-10-shopware-shops-with-storytelling/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/the-top-10-shopware-shops-with-storytelling/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            The following list of top 10 best practice shops provide you with ideas of how you can use Storytelling to effectively stage your products. All Shopware shops were built close to the standard, so these truly show you do not need complex customizations to convince your customer...
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Several factors influence the decision to make a purchase, which often takes place on a subconscious level. Fortunately, we equipped Shopware 5 with the best possible tools to positively influence this decision and stage your products so that hitting “Buy now” feels natural for your customers. 
 With tools like  Shopping Worlds and Storytelling , you have the benefit of adding attractive banners, photos or videos that can be used to create a compelling case for your products. Through using these tools, you’re also transporting brand values and helping the customer develop an individual connection with your brand – with this combination, you can truly separate yourself from the competition an ensure customer loyalty. 
 Model examples of storytelling in eCommerce 
 The following 10 shops represent best practices of Storytelling in online sales – they show engaging examples of product presentation or do an excellent job illuminating a company philosophy. All examples below were built close to the Shopware standard and show you that complex customizations aren’t required to create a powerful message. 
 A company&#039;s history told through Storytelling 
   
 What began in 1953 as an embroidery shop has developed into an international force in the fashion industry: SPORTALM Kitzbühel stands for high-quality products in fashion and ski-wear. Visitors to the online shop can gain an insight into this impressive corporate development and branding in the &quot;Our World&quot; section. Step by step, visitors receive brief, concise information on the milestones of SPORTALM, enriched with exciting photos from the company&#039;s history. This online shop was realized by our partner&amp;nbsp; dasistweb . 
  To the shop  
 Storytelling as an important feature of SALEWA&#039;s brand message 
   
 Oberalp is a family-run company with a long tradition of manufacturing and selling mountain sports equipment. The company also includes SALEWA among its own brands. The multi-specialist for mountain sports equipment is the European market leader in the alpine sector. With the help of Storytelling, Oberalp impressively details the company&#039;s location and the design of the headquarters. Expressive images and text underline what home means for SALEWA and how the sustainable concept for their headquarters led to them being awarded the &quot;KlimaHaus Work&amp;amp;Life Certificate&quot;. The shop was implemented by the Shopware partner&amp;nbsp; von Affenfels . 
 Find out more about the relaunch of SALEWA with Shopware based on the Enterprise Edition  here . 
  To the shop  
 Green Cup Coffee tells the story of their coffee beans 
   
 For many people, coffee is not only a stimulant, but very much a part of their lifestyle. Our customer Green Cup Coffee offers fair trade coffee and espresso from the best coffee-growing regions of the world. The  journey of the coffee bean , from sustainable cultivation to the online shop, is presented transparently on the basis of Storytelling. With short text blocks and appealing pictures, customers can interactively learn everything they need to know about the individual types of coffee. The implementation of the online shop was supported by Shopware parter  Webneo . 
  To the shop  
 Lookbooks and arrangements 
     
 The slogan “ames – culture of diversity” truly speaks through the use of Storytelling and Shopping Worlds.  Furniture collections ,  accessories  and  textiles  are stylishly displayed in a lookbook and in attractive arrangements. Design pieces are presented using a Sideview element without tearing the customer from the experience of the shop’s mood. In addition, information about the company and production methods are also transparently integrated into the whole design, making a seamless and informative experience for the customer. The online shop was implemented in collaboration between Shopware partners  webpiloten  and  achta . 
 As proof of their outstanding use of storytelling, Ames was a recipient of the  Annual Multimedia Awards 2017 . 
  To the shop  
 Exclusive pieces as a USP at DÜRMEISTER 
    &amp;nbsp; 
 DÜRMEISTER convinces the customer through genuine handwork, where luxury watches are custom-made by German master craftsman. This high level of quality and explicit attention to detail are reflected both the  product range  and  production . Within the stylish and inspiring Shopping World, the customer can look through individual elements in detail using Sideview and Quickview elements without disrupting their browsing. 
 The production process of their exclusive items is an absolute USP of the company. DÜRMEISTER proudly presents their process within a separate Shopping World, “ Manufacture ”, and emphasizes the importance of this process as a part of their  company philosophy . The shop was brought to life with the help of Shopware partner  Reihe 0 . 
 DÜRMEISTER relies on  Digital Publishing  for creating their high-quality banners. Using this feature, they are able to easily create and implement banners, all without leaving their Shopware backend. 
  To the shop  
 Elten convinces with creative images and Sideview/Quickview elements 
     
 Whoever believes that Storytelling is only applicable for emotionally charged products most definitely hasn’t seen the online shop from Elten. Although safety shoes aren’t regarded as the most emotional product, the online shop nevertheless makes  creative use  of videos, Sideview and Quickview to set their products in an appealing scene. The customer receives even more detailed information thanks to a 360-degree product viewer, which was customized to meet the exact needs of the Elten shop. The implementation of the shop was supported by Shopware parter  BS-Style . 
  To the shop  
 Atmospheric lighting ideas 
     
 Paulmann believes light should be used in every room of the house to create an inviting and relaxed mood – the ultimate “homey” atmosphere. The family company created several inspiring Shopping Worlds with  lighting ideas  so that you can create too can create a warm atmosphere in your home. With various lighting fixtures and lamps on display, visitors can easily find even more products and lighting ideas thanks to Sideview and Quickview elements. Shopware partner  hmmh multimediahaus  supported Paulmann during the project implementation. 
  To the shop  
 Inspired living spaces 
     
 Milanari offers unusual furniture design and home accessories in its impressive online shop. Depending on your personal style of home furnishings, you can get inspirational ideas for creating unique spaces in your home within their special “ Magazine ” section of their online store. The setup of the shop allows you to delve into which products were used to create the stylish rooms displayed, with Quickview being used to easily guide you through the set of products in the display. The project was supported by Shopware parter  KOMMA-D . 
  To the shop  
 Tradition and craftsmanship in style 
     
 Holz Leute has created impressive handmade wooden designs since 1873. Next to their local business in Munich, the products are also available in their new online shop, where visitors are able to discover how the products can be used to accessorize their own home. Here Storytelling is used in  5 separate ways , with each scenario depicting the products in a private space. Furthermore, the visitor can click on a high quality image and see exactly which products are on display – these images were created using Digital Publishing, which ensures ultimate scalability and presentation across every device. Holz Leute ranked first in the category for “Small Business” at the 2016 Shop Usability Award, where the jury was particularly impressed by the intuitive frontend that utilized emotional stories and impressive images to attract visitors. The shop was supported by Shopware partner  KOMMA-D . 
  To the shop  
 Bringing interior design to life through Storytelling 
     
 Anyone looking for new flooring will find themselves spoiled with options at Bodenverkauf. In most cases, when a visitor makes their way to an online shop, they only have an inkling of what they’re looking for; to help, Bodenverkauf does a wonderful job inspiring the visitor with new design ideas through their  use of Storytelling . Whether parquet, laminate, cork or vinyl, the visitor is able to gather a well-rounded impression of how the versatile options could look in their own home. This online shop was implemented by  bekalebs Webmedien . 
  To the shop  
 These 10 shops were hand selected by: 
 
 
   
 
 Aaron Schaarschmidt 
 Team leader Product Design at Shopware    Twitter:   @AaronSchaarschm   dribbble:   Aaron Schaarschmidt  
 
 
 
    
 
 Further information about Storytelling with Shopware 
  Storytelling, Digital Publishing &amp;amp; Product Streams - A summary the highlights  
 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-03-22T07:00:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Why content is critical - Recap of Commerce 2020 in Dublin</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/why-content-is-critical-recap-of-commerce-2020-in-dublin/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/why-content-is-critical-recap-of-commerce-2020-in-dublin/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            Shopware and Etnerprise parter StudioForty9 organised a customer event in Dublin under the headline &quot;Commerce 2020&quot;, where Heike Zellerhoff held a presentation titled &quot;Why content is critical&quot; and outlined the advantaged of Shopware for Irish brands. 
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                 On March 7th, Shopware teamed up with  StudioForty9  and held a customer event in Dublin. StudioForty9 is a leading agency for eCommerce solutions in the Irish market and is trusted by numerous big brands. Shopware and StudioForty9 have been Enterprise partners since August 2017. 
 Content-packed event for eCommerce managers 
 Following the theme “Commerce 2020”, the event invited StudioForty9 customers to more closely examine upcoming eCommerce trends. Next to addressing the advantages of an omnichannel approach to retail, the event gave advice on how to increase conversion through effective design and tips for increasing site speed and performance. Of course, one of the hottest topics at the moment – GDPR – was also a part of the full programme.&amp;nbsp; 
   
 Empowering commerce with content&amp;nbsp; 
 Closing the second day, Heike Zellerhoff – Key Account Manager at Shopware – held a presentation titled “Why content is critical”, drawing attention to ways in which digital sales can be empowered through great content. 
 To succeed online, retailers must always keep in mind that customers want to be inspired; experiences matter more than ever. Whether planning your next holiday or scrolling through social media, consumers want to experience something real. That’s why authentic communication with your customers is so important; it’s the basis of a sustainable relationship and, ultimately, customer loyalty. 
 Putting the customer in the focus 
 The way people buy online has moved from a transactional to an inspirational, content-led experience. The following Customer Centric Operating Model illustrates how the disruption of the traditional retail works.&amp;nbsp; 
   
 If you want to disrupt traditional retail processes, you have to truly concentrate on your customers and think less in commodity and more on customer engagement. Be different and catch your customers&#039; attention. You have to move away from pure product thinking and focus instead on creating a exciting shopping experiences. 
 Customers are in complete control of what they view, how they view, and what they share, and getting their attention is one of your biggest challenges. Analyse the customer journey of your shop and determine your brand’s touchpoints. Once these are identified, you can start addressing your customers with relevant content. 
 Storytelling as a form of inbound marketing 
 Inbound marketing focuses on bringing people closer to your company and product through delivering relevant content. Brands can no longer simply push a message across; they need to draw in customers with engaging, useful content. That is exactly how storytelling works. After all, we are not &quot;businesses&quot; connecting with &quot;consumers&quot;; we are people connecting with other people. Use storytelling to connect and inspire an audience to act. 
 Shopware’s “content &amp;amp; commerce” features 
 With Shopware, you are allowed to create content-driven&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Shopping Worlds  and that engage on an emotional level. You can offer a unique shopping experience that emphasises your value proposition. Tell your story! Shopping Worlds is an exclusive feature that helps you increase customer involvement with your brand. Shopware’s Sideview and Quickview elements prevent any disruption of the shopping experience. To build brand recognition, it’s important you follow a consistent and recognisable corporate design concept across every channel. and can easily engage on an emotional level. 
 Do you want to learn more about Shopware? Then get a  free consultation  or check out our  demo &amp;nbsp;shop. 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-03-19T06:00:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Why the March &quot;Plugin of the Month&quot; is a must-have</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/why-the-march-plugin-of-the-month-is-a-must-have/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/why-the-march-plugin-of-the-month-is-a-must-have/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            &quot;Test Environment&quot; allows you to easily and securely test new plugins or updates on new systems. Find out why this plugin has received 5-star reviews across the board. 
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 Every month, we highlight a plugin in the Community Store that offers shop owners an exceptional service or feature with the “Plugin of the Month” award. Today we’re excited to introduce you to this recipient of this month’s award:   Test Environment  . 
 With this plugin, you can safely and securely test new plugins or updates on new systems. For this reason, we’ve deemed Test Environment a must-have. Your productive shop remains unaffected, so you don&#039;t have to worry about any disruptions. Shop owners have access to the test server, where they can easily test and confirm changes to the live shop. 
 Customers who have updated to  Shopware 5.4  have access to extended features. Moreover, this plugin is open source and unencrypted, giving you complete access to the source code. 
 Who developed the plugin? 
 The plugin was developed by  netzperfekt . Next to their several years’ experience consulting and supporting shop relaunches, netzperfekt offers more than 30 plugins in the Community Store. The seasoned plugin manufacturer and Shopware certified partner is characterised by their exceptionally fast response to support requests and high plugin ratings. 
 What is a silver certification? 
 Test Environment has been decorated with a silver badge in the Community Store. This means the plugin has been downloaded more than 75 times, received a high number of positive reviews and the manufacturer has been active in the Community Store for at least twelve months. You can find more information about the various certification levels  here . 
 What have other shop owners said about Test Environment? 
 “Making true test attempts without endangering the live shop is indispensable. Depending on your server configuration, installation is quick and the documentation is easy to understand. We highly recommend using this plugin to every shop owner.” 
  To the plugin  
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-03-16T07:45:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">More turnover through fewer returns</title>
            <id>https://en.shopware.com/news/more-turnover-through-fewer-returns/</id>
            <link href="https://en.shopware.com/news/more-turnover-through-fewer-returns/"/>
            <summary type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                
                                            A high return rate can prove to be the undoing of small online retailers. Get tips on how to improve your returns management while increasing customer satisfaction.
                                        ]]>
            </summary>
            <content type="html">
                <![CDATA[
                  Zum deutschen Artikel  
 As an online retailer, you face a multitude of challenges that seem to evolve in complexity. In addition to providing an optimal shopping experience, prompt shipping, smooth delivery and competent customer service, there is one topic that seems to be a sticking point: returns management. Whether the customer doesn&#039;t like the goods, they do not fit, or they were ordered twice – today, customers expect a quick and easy return process. Online Shopper 2017 now ranks &quot;return processing&quot; as the most important criterion* for shipping and delivery.&amp;nbsp; 
 Legislation also has a clear view on this: it must be as easy as possible for customers to return anything they cannot touch in a store. This rule makes sense for the consumer, but also results in online retailers like yourself sometimes having to record high return rates. More than ever before, poor returns management can quickly prove to be the undoing of smaller online retailers, which is why we are giving you tips that you can implement today. Convenient service for customers is something of a balancing act for online retailers. If the retailer includes a return slip with the delivery, this sometimes seems like an invitation to send something back. If they don&#039;t include a return slip, the returns process quickly takes up more time, and therefore more money. 
 Avoid uncertainty with detailed product descriptions 
 The return rate is comparatively high in the fashion industry, where customers often order the same garment in different sizes or are unhappy with the material when it arrives. You can counteract this with a detailed product description. If customers can get comprehensive information on the size and quality of the garment in your online shop, they can decide with more certainty whether it will suit them and, if so, in what size. Of course, aspects such as high-quality photos and videos that clearly show the material and colour of the garment all help. A&amp;nbsp; Shopping Advisor  that asks customers about their style or body shape also make a difference. Of course, the product descriptions can also be adapted to other items that need explanation in other industries. 
 Best practice example: 
   
 You can view a best practice example in the online shop of our customer  Paulmann : The items are described comprehensively and yet in a way that is easy and quick to read. All the technical information is listed and can be downloaded as PDF, as can the assembly instructions. There are also attractive and informative product photos and videos, as well as links to additional accessories that might be needed. 
 Display products that suit your customer 
 The  Shopware Customer Streams &amp;nbsp;are also ideal for putting together tailor-made offers for selected customers. You can individually choose which customer groups you want to target, and gain attention with start page content, newsletters, etc. that are individually tailored to their interests. This might not only reduce the returns rate – it could also sustainably increase the conversion rate. 
 Avoid incorrect deliveries with the right ERP 
 Another factor in reducing the return rate is avoiding incorrect deliveries. A scanner-based picking system or the right ERP helps to ensure that the items can be scanned easily and end up in the right package. The high-performance&amp;nbsp; Shopware ERP powered by Pickware  offers you the best possible support and is also integrated free of charge as of the  Professional Edition  of Shopware 5.2 and later. 
 Checklist to improve your return rate 
 
 Describe your products in detail 
 Create attractive product photos and/or videos 
 Provide product details, such as the colour, as clearly as possible 
 Use a powerful inventory management system 
 Use the Shopping Advisor to guide your customers to the most suitable product for them 
 Use Customer Streams for targeted offers 
 
 Through keeping these points in mind, you will succeed in improving your return rate. Unfortunately, you probably won&#039;t ever manage to completely reduce it to 0 %. This makes it all the more important for you to continue the positive customer experience in your shop when the goods are delivered. After all, if you not only offer your customers a quick delivery but also a smooth returns process, you can boost your conversion rate in advance and look forward to return customers. 
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2018-03-08T06:00:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
</feed>
