Why Shopware? Because it continually innovates and adapts to cater to the evolving needs of merchants and customers alike. This article will prove it! 2023 has been a year marked by substantial updates and enhancements, as the platform released updates to improve performance, usability, and functionality. Time for a comprehensive review of these updates, starting from Shopware 6.4.19.0 (February) to Shopware 6.5.3.3 (July).
Shopware 6 Innovations
Starting from the release of the ability to sell digital products to the introduction of innovative artificial intelligence (AI) features, 2023 has seen some of the most significant updates in Shopware 6. Sometimes it’s easy to miss them if you don’t watch carefully, so we’ve prepared a summary of the first half of the year for you.
Let’s start with the newest!
Shopware 6.5.3.0 - 6.5.3.3: A Focus on Automation and Flexibility
The July updates to Shopware 6 brought a focus on increasing automation and flexibility within the platform. We received expanded capabilities for the Flow Builder, a superior multi-inventory feature, among numerous other advancements. Exciting!
Enhanced Flow Builder
Shopware has added a remarkable feature to its Flow Builder, enabling the integration of unique triggers through its app system. This allows the Flow Builder to react to external system events, thus expanding its range of actions.
Throughout the past year, Shopware has evolved the Flow Builder, bringing forth the Adaptive Flows approach. This approach empowers merchants to tailor the Flow Builder to their specific use cases, whether the flows are exclusively within Shopware or involve interactions with external systems via webhooks.
As we can read in Moritz Naczenski's LinkedIn article about flows, this advancement holds significant value as it fulfils Shopware's two key customer promises:
- Easy Integration and Operation. Shopware offers a simple yet potent extension system that enables seamless integration with existing stacks and ensures fast, reliable, and scalable operation.
- Comprehensive Automation. Shopware facilitates the automation of activities, from routine store processes to complex enterprise scenarios, generating useful insights and actionable steps.
Multi-inventory Feature
The Multi-Inventory feature in Shopware provides its Beyond users with the capability to oversee multiple warehouses and track inventory levels, contributing to more efficient deliveries.
This feature has undergone significant enhancements to improve its performance and ease of use. Developers will now find it more convenient to expand its functionality, and it operates more swiftly and smoothly, even when dealing with large product quantities.
Data Protection Compliance and HTML Sanitizer
Introducing the flexibility to disable the HTML Sanitizer as needed. The HTML Sanitizer, a feature first introduced in Shopware 6.5, enhances editor security and usability by eliminating unsafe HTML code and ensuring consistent code rendering across various platforms and browsers.
User feedback has underscored the need for the ability to disable this feature, particularly because it tends to remove custom styling from Shopping Experiences blocks. In response to this, developers can now disable the sanitizer via a flag in the YAML config. For more details and recommendations, refer to the HTML Sanitizer Tutorial.
It's worth noting that the suggestion to provide an option to disable the HTML Sanitizer, which received 31 votes from the community in just two weeks, was quickly implemented. This underscores the value of user feedback and its potential to influence product development. Shopware is always welcome to get more suggestions via their feedback portal.
Shopware 6.5.2.0: Refining Product Categorization
The June 2023 Shopware 6 update provided merchants with more refined control over product categorization. A new condition was introduced to the Dynamic Product Groups, enabling the differentiation between digital and physical products. This feature helps merchants create dynamic groups exclusively for digital products and automatically add or remove products based on predefined rules, thereby reducing manual operations.
Dynamic Product Groups with digital or physical products
A new condition has been added to the Dynamic Product Groups, which allows users to specify the product type. This distinction is based on whether the products are digital or physical.
The condition can be used, for example, to create a Dynamic Product Group exclusively with digital products. Dynamic Product Groups in Shopware can be showcased in various areas of your online store, such as Shopping Experiences, categories, or product sliders.
These groups allow for the definition of rules to determine which products should be included, which will be automatically added to the product group.
This eliminates the need for manual adding or removing of products.
Adjust order status using bulk editing
The bulk edit feature, useful for shop owners who handle large amounts of data manually, has been improved. This feature allows for numerous data adjustments with just a few clicks, removing the need to select and edit each order one by one.
A past challenge was that not all order statuses were consistently available for selection. This issue has now been resolved, and users can freely select any order status without issues.
Improved snippets editing on the detail page
While the details about this feature are not fully outlined, it appears that there have been improvements made to the editing of snippets on the detail page. This feature is commonly used for text translation and customization.
Shopware 6.5.1.0: Enhanced Performance and AI Integration
May 2023 in Shopware brought further enhancements to the platform. These included improved performance and usability, making the platform more intuitive for merchants and customers.
Revamped Dynamic Image Slider
Shopware's Shopping Experiences now boasts a visually engaging feature—the drag & drop image rearrangement in the slider. The company has implemented this popular community-voted feature to allow users to sequence their images captivatingly. Those interested in the updated sliders and CMS possibilities within Shopping Experiences can consult Shopware's comprehensive documentation for more details.
Expanding the Rule Builder's Conditions
Shopware has enriched its Rule Builder with an array of new conditions designed to automate eCommerce processes. Users can now define specific rules for content management, marketing, shipping, or payment. The newly introduced conditions permit users to verify various order details, check if a shopping cart reaches a shipping cost threshold, or ascertain if a customer has a certain default payment method or has submitted several reviews.
Introduction of US English Language Support
Shopware now offers "US English" as a default language option.
Boost in Page Performance
Shopware has taken user experience up a notch by enhancing performance in crucial areas like the shopping cart page and administration. Users can now revel in quicker load times and smoother navigation.
Administration Usability Enhancements
Shopware has rolled out several usability improvements to make administrative tasks smoother. Users can now filter product listings by sales number and current sales figures, thanks to a contribution from community member Melvin Achterhuis. Locating promotions is now faster—users simply enter the promotion code in the search field.
Shopware 6.5: Major Update
Shopware had a significant leap from version 6.4 to 6.5, introducing impactful changes.
Remarkable Performance Boosts
Shopware achieved 5x faster order performance, 4.5x better median response times, 3x higher request throughput, and a 200% increase in administration speed. The file sizes were cut by up to 600%, thanks to the incorporation of lazy loading.
Technical Improvements
The update encompassed enhancements to the core and admin, Open Search integration, and a more streamlined design.
Enhanced Customer Communication
Early delivery restriction notices minimized cart abandonment by enhancing transparency.
Address Format Customization
Merchants got the ability to customize and validate address formats as per regional requirements.
Rule Builder Enhancements
The rule creation process became more intuitive with new explanatory fields.
Order Management Revamp
The order management module underwent substantial improvements for ease of use and better organization.
External Tax Services Integration
Shopware started integrating external tax services to simplify tax calculations during checkout.
Customer-Centric Conditions
New conditions were introduced in the Rule and Flow Builder, based on customer data, enhancing customer-focused business strategies.
Shopware 6.4.19.0: The Advent of Digital Products
February 2023 marked a significant step for Shopware 6, with the release of the feature that allows merchants to sell digital products. This update revolutionized the retail scope within the platform, enabling merchants to offer items such as e-books, music downloads, movies, TV series, games, software and software extensions, font styles, and graphics. The digital product feature has expanded opportunities for merchants.
Summary
We are excited to see that Shopware 6 has made considerable strides throughout 2023. From facilitating the sale of digital products to integrating artificial intelligence and refining product categorization, these enhancements serve to improve the merchant experience significantly.
As they move forward, Shopware 6 continues to cement its position as a comprehensive and user-friendly eCommerce solution that keeps pace with the ever-evolving retail landscape.
Do you feel like Shopware is a perfect platform for your business? Do you need some help with Shopware 6 update? Or maybe you’re just not sure yet and require some help with choosing the right technology? We’re here for you! Contact us and let us know what are your ideas to scale up your business.
