Automated B2B Shop with Pimcore and Shopify at NORO

NORO Gesellschaft für Rohrsysteme GmbH, headquartered in Rehden, is a medium-sized B2B company for piping and distribution systems made of steel and stainless steel – standard range: pipes, fittings, distribution systems and connecting elements. Sales previously ran through an international network of sales partners and existing customers, managed in the SAP Business One ERP system. Because product data was maintained decentrally, expansion and efficient customer support were difficult.

basecom took on the design and implementation of a future-proof system landscape in two consecutive phases: first, a central, consistent product data foundation as the single reliable data source, followed by a modern B2B online shop as a digital sales channel – closely integrated with the ERP system and featuring an automated ordering process for B2B customers. The project kicked off in November 2024 with intensive pre-project workshops to structure the data.

NORO’s product portfolio is technically highly complex: pipes, connection systems and fittings exist in countless combinations of material, surface finish, diameter, connection system and wall thickness – and not every combination is actually deliverable. Invalid variants had to be reliably blocked in the shop, older article generations cleanly versioned and managed in the background, while only the current version is ever visible in the shop. On top of that came the requirement for bilingual data management (German/English).

On the system side, SAP Business One had no native interface to Shopify – the integration had to run via automated workflows and an external logistics provider. And because the market launch was meant to be controlled, the shop was not allowed to go fully public immediately after go-live, but was initially limited to a verified group of users.

Pimcore: Structured Data Modeling with Attribute Classes and Field Collections

basecom established Pimcore 11 Professional as the central PIM system, validated by an upfront proof of concept with NORO. At the heart of the data model is the „Article“ product class, each assigned to an „Article Group“. Since every article group defines its own attributes (from diameter and length to material and surface finish), an article automatically has access only to the relevant fields, via a central attribute class enriched with object relations and field collections. Invalid variant combinations are filtered out directly in the PIM, product content is maintained bilingually, and automatically passed on to the shop.

Shopify: Automated Product Data Export and API Mapping

Pimcore acts as the „single source of truth“: an automated, time-triggered sync transfers all product data unidirectionally to Shopify. In the process, the category-specific attributes from Pimcore are translated into flat metafields that Shopify processes natively, including the bilingual content. Asset management is also fully automated: product images move directly from the Pimcore DAM to the Shopify CDN. A validation script checks the completeness of all attributes before every export – only then is the data released for the API transfer.

Order-to-Cash Workflow via n8n, Matrixify and FTP Interfaces

Since SAP Business One has no native Shopify interface, basecom built the order-to-cash workflow using the automation platform n8n and the import/export tool Matrixify: orders first land as draft orders in Shopify, are processed by n8n and transferred via FTP to the external logistics provider „unirez“, which feeds them into the SAP Business One ERP system. Once processing, invoicing and payment are complete, unirez reports the status back the same way – n8n updates the order in Shopify and adds the official NORO order number. This keeps order processing error-free and free of manual steps.

Modern Infrastructure and Agile Quality Assurance

For stable operations and safe testing before going live, basecom relies on a Docker-based staging environment, a GitHub repository and an automated CI/CD pipeline. Code quality is monitored by SonarQube, Sentry handles real-time error monitoring, and RumVision tracks the shop’s Core Web Vitals. The project was delivered in an agile Scrum setup, with regular Scrum events replacing rigid milestones.

Controlled Market Launch through User Testing and Checkout Blocks

In winter 2025/2026, a selected group of verified B2B partners tested the user journey and ordering process in advance as part of the UX work – communicated via Shopify checkout blocks displaying notices about the ongoing test phase directly within the ordering process. In parallel, comprehensive SEO consulting (robots.txt configuration, URL handle review, structured data via JSON-LD on the homepage and product detail pages) ensured technical discoverability. After evaluating the feedback, the shop opened to the full target audience in early 2026.

This digitalization project shows how a highly complex, variant-rich product world can be efficiently mapped by intelligently interlinking modern systems. With Pimcore 11 as the „single source of truth“ and the integration of Shopify B2B with SAP, manual effort at NORO was significantly reduced – more than 400 tickets were processed across both sub-projects. The collaboration ran for around 20 months: from the PIM build-up in November 2024, through the Shopify project starting in May 2025, to the full market launch in early 2026. basecom continues to support NORO beyond go-live as part of an ongoing support model.

NORO Gesellschaft für Rohrsysteme mbH, headquartered in Rehden, is a medium-sized sales and manufacturing company for piping and distribution systems. Founded in 1987, the company merged in 1997 with its parent company MT Metallbau Twistringen. Today, it operates its own modern pipe manufacturing facility at its headquarters in Rehden, along with an additional production site in Poland and a sales office in Russia. The product range includes high-quality pipes, fittings, distribution systems and connecting elements for aspiration and bulk material lines. Through automated manufacturing processes, NORO ensures high product availability and supplies B2B customers and partners worldwide.