Choosing an Integration Strategy for Shopware 6

Launched in 2019, the new and totally revamped version of Shopware has been a great success so far. Shopware took the ambitious and ballsy step to recreate its commerce platform with totally fresh technology. And with success, their Symfony core with a headless administration panel is robust, fast, and ready for growth. But to be honest, we are a bit subjective to the fact that our platform happens to have the same technology stack.

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Kick-start your next integration

The Shopware integration template is available for kick-starting your project. Alumio has created a so-called connector template that connects to the API of Shopware. This API-led integration strategy makes sure that our customers benefit from a standardized and optimized connection, that evolves alongside the Shopware platform. The only thing you have to do is map the data from your other endpoint (the software you want to connect).

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Shopware API versions automatically maintained

And that's where it gets interesting. Because Shopware rolls out newer versions of their API every once and a while. Where Shopware started with API version 1, the latest Shopware 6.3 comes with the API version 3. It is to be expected that newer versions of the API will be rolled out over the upcoming months and years to follow.

These new API versions come with changes. Changes that impacts a merchant’s e-commerce platform and integrations. Because the integrations that have been built, by developers or plugin builders, need to be updated. This may cause pain points, because custom code or specific plugins need to be upgraded manually and by developers, within the actual code of the platform. This results in potential conflicts with other custom code or plugins. And only development experts can do these kinds of updates. In the early stage of an e-commerce website, this won't cause real problems. But it will, over time. More systems will be connected, more custom functionally will be added together with plugins, and domain knowledge will disappear once your favorite developer is not available anymore. This will cause unwanted data issues and development costs. The initial investment will be topped by unforeseen maintenance costs, which causes a high total cost of ownership.

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An integration strategy is key for digital success

As a merchant, agency, or developer, starting off a project with a decent integration strategy is key to create a solid fundament for the future of an e-commerce platform.

• Easy extend software and data integrations, add, or change new software in a short time. It allows you to start in an agile way and remain flexible over time. Pre-built integration templates are helping you to kick-start your integration. Choosing an iPaaS integration solution prevents you from a mixed-up IT landscape with too many custom code or plugin solutions.
• Comply with privacy regulations such as GDPR, by being able to report and act on an ever-expanding set of rules that businesses must comply with. An iPaaS solution organizes all integrations in one place and will help you with handling your data.
• Monitoring and logging capabilities support you to solve problems quickly. With an iPaaS in place, you can prevent huge business impact because of the capabilities to zoom in on issues and repair them via the user interface.
• With the Alumio iPaaS and the Shopware connector template, you'll be assured that your integration will be future-proof and that it supports newly released API versions. And all of that flexibility and robustness without custom code or plugins within your Shopware platform.

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Be ready for the future

Moving to a new eCommerce platform is a great way to prevent common pitfalls and to rethink previous made decisions. Choosing a middleware integration platform, like Alumio will untangle your data and create a rock-solid integrated landscape ready for the future.

Interested in our Shopware integration solution?

Please feel free to contact us with your questions or ideas. We are happy to assist you by sharing our knowledge. Make your next e-commerce project a successful and future-proof business, with a short time to market and a low total cost of ownership. Contact us today.