If you’ve come to this blog, you’re either considering purchasing either Shopware, SAP, or both, and want to know how they work together, or you already have both solutions and are frustrated at how they don’t work together. Neither Shopware nor any of SAP’s products offer native integrations, which leaves businesses with two options: purchasing a third-party integration or developing a custom integration. Despite these difficulties, there are compelling use cases for integration, especially for those who already own both products. This guide to Shopware SAP integration discusses these use cases and benefits further before providing advice on choosing an integration option.
What is a Shopware SAP Integration?
First, here is a quick explanation of what exactly we’re talking about here. Shopware is a popular, open-source eCommerce platform for both B2B and B2C. It’s one of the leading eCommerce solutions because of its flexibility, scalability, performance, and advanced security features. SAP is an ERP (enterprise resource planning) platform that many businesses like due to its streamlined dashboards and powerful visibility tools. A Shopware SAP integration is a piece of software that allows the two solutions to connect and share data back and forth between them.
Why Integrate Shopware and SAP? 6 Use Cases and Benefits
| Use Case | Description | |
| 1 | Business Process Automation | Automating key processes like PO generation, inventory updates, and shipping label creation to improve efficiency. |
| 2 | Enhanced Inventory Management | Automatic inventory syncing between the two systems reduces issues like overselling and inadequate stock. |
| 3 | Real-Time Data Analysis | Businesses can quickly respond to customer needs, discover trends and patterns, and gain insights into preferences. |
| 4 | Improved Supplier Management | Integration provides tools to track supplier performance, negotiate better prices, and automatically place orders. |
| 5 | Better Customer Experience | The integration provides self-service capabilities for customers to manage their ERP data and how it’s used. |
| 6 | Simplified Quotations | Syncing quotes between the two systems eliminates the need for manual, human-error-ridden workflows. |
Since you can’t just connect these two solutions out of the box and instead have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on an integration, you may wonder why you should even try integrating them in the first place. The truth is that both Shopware and SAP are very popular solutions that offer numerous benefits, particularly for B2B eCommerce companies, and you may not want to compromise on specific features by choosing other software that more easily connects. Putting in the effort to integrate Shopware and SAP has numerous use cases and benefits, including:
1. Business Process Automation
Integrating Shopware and SAP can automate many business processes, improving efficiency and reducing the risk of mistakes. When an order is placed through Shopware, SAP can automatically create a PO (purchase order), update the inventory database, and generate shipping labels without any human interaction.
2. Enhanced Inventory Management
Integrating SAP with a Shopware store enables automatic syncing of inventory data between the two systems, significantly improving the accuracy of inventory management and making it easier to maintain healthy inventory levels across all channels. This integration reduces inventory-related problems that are common for eCommerce businesses, such as overselling and inadequate stock. It allows companies to track inventory in real-time, get restocking alerts, and even order new stock automatically, boosting both efficiency and customer satisfaction.
3. Real-Time Data Analysis
A Shopware SAP integration enables businesses to analyze eCommerce data in real time so they can quickly respond to changing customer needs and discover trends and patterns in customer sales data. These analytics can, for example, help identify bestselling products so they can be priced accordingly or determine marketing gaps for particular items that should be promoted more. SAP can also provide insights into eCommerce customers’ preferences and shopping behaviors so you can improve retention and ensure your products are meeting their needs.
4. Improved Supplier Management
Integrating Shopware and SAP allows businesses to manage eCommerce suppliers more effectively. This integration provides tools to track supplier performance, negotiate better prices, and automatically place orders and make payments. It reduces the risk of price fluctuations, delivery delays, stockouts, and disputes. Plus, it also provides real-time information about supplier inventory levels and lead times so businesses can make smarter decisions about what to order, how much to order, and when to order it.
5. Better Customer Experience
Shopware integration with SAP can improve the customer experience through the methods mentioned above, such as providing enhanced insights into their preferences and behavior and ensuring their favorite products are always in stock. Additionally, this integration provides self-service capabilities for customers to manage their data, giving them greater control over how it’s used. Not only does this aid in data privacy compliance, but it also provides customers with peace of mind that their information is only used in ways that benefit them.
6. Simplified Quotations
Managing quotes for complicated orders with special pricing can be difficult through a Shopware store, something that B2B eCommerce businesses often struggle with. Integrating SAP makes it significantly easier by syncing quote information from the ERP to Shopware, eliminating the need for manual, human-error-ridden workflows.
Choosing a Shopware SAP Integration Method
As we touched on earlier, there are two ways to connect your Shopware store to your SAP ERP. The first method is to purchase a ready-made integration and hope that it provides all the functionality that you need – something that isn’t guaranteed. The second is to build your own custom integration. The first approach is relatively fast and simple, but it lacks flexibility and locks you into a third-party provider’s feature roadmap. Creating your own integration provides the ultimate flexibility and customization of features, but it obviously requires you to have staff on hand with the time and expertise to develop, which can be a problem.
Businesses can strike a great balance between the two methods by hiring an outside team to develop their custom integration. For example, Atwix can craft a custom-tailored Shopware SAP integration that meets your specific needs and solves your unique pain points. We’re often faster than in-house teams and have the experience to easily handle any hurdles that pop up during the integration process. Our integration framework provides both the base layer of features and the ability to customize, significantly streamlining integration. We essentially give you the best of both worlds: the simplicity of an out-of-the-box solution and the flexibility and customization of a self-developed integration.
Reach out to consult with a Shopware SAP integration expert today.