Development of a specialized trade portal for KADECO with Shopware 6

For more than 30 years, the East Westphalian company KADECO has been successful on the market as a specialist for customized sun protection solutions. As a reliable partner for the specialized trade, KADECO offers a comprehensive range of products for interior and exterior sun, glare and privacy protection systems.

Our joint project with KADECO is related to an extensive modernization of the company’s online presence. An important part of this realignment is the provision of a dedicated B2B portal to support specialist retailers. In 2020, after intensive planning, the starting signal was given for the very extensive and ambitious project. With the aim of offering dealers a portal through which they can organize all relevant information on products, orders, documents and much more, the specialist trade portal for KADECO was to be implemented on the basis of the Shopware 6 Enterprise e-commerce system. In addition, the Oktopus Software Connector should be used to integrate an ERP system.

With the development of a very comprehensive self-service portal for specialist retailers based on Shopware 6, we have entered new territory together with our customer KADECO. The Shopware 6 Enterprise Edition already has extensive B2B functionalities through the B2B Suite, such as rights & role management or the self-administration function for corporate customers. On this basis, extensive customizations had to be made to adapt the system to the customer’s requirements. Part of the project included the integration of an innovative product configurator, a document management system, the creation of various service, info and download areas as well as the connection of the e-commerce system to the existing ERP system.

Shopware 6 Enterprise Edition

After in-depth consultation, the choice fell on the e-commerce system Shopware 6 in the Enterprise Edition as the technical basis for the specialist retail portal. The decisive factors were the flexibility and performance of the system and the comprehensive B2B suite. Due to its API-centric architecture, the system offers very good possibilities for integrating third-party systems and thus supports the best-of-breed principle.

Integration of a product configurator

By integrating the professional 3D product configurator redplant, specialist dealers* have the opportunity to put together KADECO products in a very comprehensive configurator. The configured products are immediately displayed in a 3D view. The configuration can be saved and edited later. By linking the configurator to the e-commerce system, customers can also add their configuration to the shopping cart and request a quote for their individual selection.

Service area with extensive individual filter options

The core of KADECO’s retail portal is the self-service offering for retailers. For this purpose, various content areas have been set up to enable dealers to view, organize and download comprehensive information, documents and images on KADECO products. In the info area, customers can find the contact details of their individual contact person and use extensive filter options to find specific information or resources. In addition, retailers can use the portal to organize and manage their own documents relating to orders, offers or products.

Connection of an ERP system with the software connector Oktopus

All ordering processes are organized in an ERP system. By connecting the ERP system to the e-commerce system through the Oktopus software connector, all necessary data is transferred and synchronized automatically. Products and categories are thus transferred from the ERP. Data on orders as well as customer data and various documents are also automatically exchanged and reconciled between the portal and the ERP system.

Integration of a document management system

By integrating an external document management system, documents and information material can be made available and retrieved in the trade portal.

Establishment of a seminar area

Another service offered on portal.kadeco.de is the seminar area. Here, dealers have the opportunity to find out about KADECO’s range of seminars and to book seminars directly on the portal.

Quick orders for bulk customers

Large customers can place large and complex orders by file upload via KADECO’s trade portal. Appropriately formatted order lists uploaded to the portal as XML files are automatically read, checked and processed by the system.

UX & UI design

As part of the extensive project, services in the area of UX and UI were also requested. The entire design was created by our UI designers. In the area of user experience, one focus was on the implementation of a consulting mode that allows consultants to set prices individually. For example, price markups can be entered, which are then added to the prices in the store.

We have completed a very extensive and exciting project with our customer KADECO. The implementation of a specialist trade portal based on Shopware 6 Enterprise Edition involved many individual adjustments. At the same time, the project clearly shows the great potential of the Shopware 6 store system in the B2B sector. In our view, the result is absolutely convincing and groundbreaking. We are looking forward to further trustful cooperation with KADECO.