A Closer Look at Shopware's B2B Features

Quick Ordering, Quotes, Organization, and Pricing

Shopware offers comprehensive B2B features that are specifically tailored to the needs of businessä business customers. These features are available starting with the paid Evolve plan [[https://www.shopware.com/de/preise/]] ü". With these features, companies can optimize their ordering processes, map out organizational structures, and implement customized pricing models. Four key B2B features worth examining in more detail are quick ordering/shopping lists, mapping the company’s own organizational structure, quotes, as well as tiered pricing and customer-specific prices.

Quick Order and Shopping Lists

CSV Import for Quick Orders

With Shopware’s Quick Order feature, B2B customers can place an order in seconds by uploading a CSV file. The file consists of two columns: product number (“product_number”) and quantity (“quantity”). After the upload, the product numbers are automatically recognized and the corresponding products are added to the quick order.

Structure of a Quick Order as a CSV File
If a product number cannot be found, the system transparently displays which products could not be matched. In addition, users can search for additional products and add them directly to the order. The compiled list can either be added directly to the shopping cart or saved as a shopping list.

Quick order after import: two item numbers were recognized, one is incorrect
Shopping Lists for Recurring Orders
Shopping lists are useful for recurring orders. Companies can compile lists of frequently needed consumables—for example, for existing machines or equipment. If needed, the customer can add the entire contents of a shopping list to the cart with a single click and complete the order immediately.
Integration with ERP systems

A particular advantage of these features lies in system integration: Customers can export order lists directly from their ERP system or create them in Excel and import them into Shopware. This enables extremely fast ordering processes. For larger companies with the appropriate technical infrastructure, a direct “punchout” from the ERP system to the online store is also possible—though this requires special extensions for the respective ERP system (e.g., SAP). Technically speaking, during a punchout, the shop is treated as an external catalog from which items are added to the shopping cart and then loaded into the customer’s ERP system, where the actual order is placed.

Mapping Your Own Organization

Employee Management and Roles

Shopware enables B2B customers to map their organizational structure independently within the shop—without any intervention from the shop operator. With a master account, subaccounts for employees can be created and managed.
When adding a new employee, the email address, first and last name, and a role are recorded. The employee receives an invitation email and remains marked as “inactive” until they activate the invitation link. This ensures that no one is added to the system against their will.

Role-Based Permissions

Shopware offers sophisticated access control via roles (RBAC). A standard buyer role, for example, could include the following permissions:•    View employees, roles, and budgets (but cannot edit, create, or delete them)
• View orders placed by colleagues
• View all quotes
•    Create and manage addresses

An approver role, on the other hand, can be granted more comprehensive permissions, for example, to manage budgets and approval rules.

Organizational Units and Departments

Permission management can be further refined by assigning employees to organizational units (departments). 

Configuration dialog for organizational units

Specific settings can be configured for each department:
Payment and shipping methods: Individual departments can be restricted to certain payment methods (e.g., no cash on delivery) or more affordable shipping methods

Category Access: Access can be restricted to specific product categories. For example, a purchasing department might only be allowed to order accessories, replacement parts, and consumables, but not new machines or subscriptions.

Budget Management

Budgets can be defined for each department. A budget includes the following parameters:
• Budget amount (e.g., €50,000)
• Validity period (from/to)
•    Automatic renewal (e.g., annually)
• Action when the budget is exceeded (e.g., approval required)
•    Notifications when budget is used up (e.g., at 90% or 95%)

Creating a budget in Shopware

A typical scenario: The purchasing department receives an annual budget of €50,000. As long as the budget has not been exhausted, employees can place orders freely. As soon as the budget is exceeded, orders must be approved by an authorizer. At the same time, the accounting department is notified as soon as 90% of the budget has been reached.

Approval Rules

In addition to budgets, flat-rate approval rules can also be created based on criteria such as the size of the shopping cart (e.g., > €5,000) or for specific shipping methods (e.g., express deliveries). An approval rule always requires two user roles: one role that must approve the order if it meets certain criteria, and another user role that can approve it.

Tiered Pricing and Customer-Specific Prices

Importance in the B2B Sector

Tiered pricing and customer-specific pricing are key tools for customer retention in B2B business. They make it possible to offer customers more favorable terms for larger order quantities while simultaneously agreeing on special prices for individual products or product categories through framework agreements.
Volume-based pricing

In their simplest form, volume-based pricing is based solely on volume and grants customers better terms when purchasing larger quantities. A pricing tier might look like this, for example:
• Up to 9 units: €273 per unit
• 10–50 units: €261 per unit
• 50 or more units: €252 per unit

Custom Prices

In Shopware, individual prices and tiered pricing can also be customized so that they apply only to a specific customer group or a single customer. With these custom price tiers, not only the price but also the threshold at which the discounted price takes effect can vary.
Technical Implementation in the Backend

For tiered pricing, the store administrator defines a pricing rule for the product in the backend under the "Advanced Prices." The following parameters can be set for each price rule:
• Rule name
•    Priority
• Condition (e.g., customer group “Business Customers” or customer number “xy”)
• Tiered pricing by quantity

Tiered pricing for a customer group

Additional conditions are required for customer-specific prices. An elegant solution is to use tags: For example, all customers of the company “ABC GmbH” are assigned the tag “ABC.” A pricing rule is then created at the product level that applies to all users with this tag.

Integration with ERP systems

For large product ranges and many customers, manually maintaining pricing rules quickly becomes time-consuming—after all, every product potentially requires its own rule for each customer. In practice, these pricing rules are therefore often imported from the ERP system and automatically applied via the Shopware REST API.

Shopware offers special API endpoints for customized prices. The following information can be transmitted via an HTTP POST request:
•    Customer ID
• Product ID
• Price
• Quantity tiers (lower and upper limits)

This automation makes it possible to efficiently manage even complex pricing structures involving thousands of products and hundreds of customers.

Quote Generation

Importance in the B2B Sector

The ability to request and negotiate customized quotes is often crucial for successful sales in B2B business. With its quote feature, Shopware offers a tool that digitally replicates this exact process. Customers can request a quote directly from their shopping cart, and the store owner can respond flexibly with discounts and terms. 

Request Quotes

To request a quote, the customer first adds the desired products to the shopping cart. In our example, a business customer selects two variants of an industrial pump.

Instead of proceeding directly to checkout, B2B customers have the option to “Request a Quote” in their shopping cart. The customer can also leave a short message. After submitting the request, the quote appears under the “Quotes” menu item with the status “unanswered.” 

Editing Quotes from the Merchant’s Perspective

In the Shopware backend, quotes are located in the same menu as orders. The store owner can see all open quotes at a glance, along with the customer’s name and a timestamp.

When opening an offer, the merchant can:
• Check the customer’s shopping cart (products, quantities, total value)
•    Grant a percentage or fixed-amount discount (e.g., 10%)
• Set a validity period (e.g., one week)
•    Optionally attach a document (e.g., a detailed offer PDF)
• Write a personal message to the customer

In our example, the merchant offers a 10% discount. After submission, the quote is automatically saved and the status changes to “replied to.”

Accepting or Negotiating Offers

The status of the offer is then updated on the customer’s end as well. When the customer opens the offer, they see the following information:

• Discount granted (absolute amount and percentage)
• Message history with the merchant
• Validity period

The customer now has three options:

1. Place an order – Accept the offer and order immediately
2. Request a change – Negotiate a further discount or other terms
3. Reject the offer – Discard the request

Shopware’s B2B features offer businesses comprehensive, out-of-the-box capabilities for digitizing and optimizing their sales processes. Quick orders and shopping lists significantly speed up recurring orders. Mapping organizational structures with roles, departments, and budgets enables customers to precisely control permissions and expenditures. Tiered pricing and customer-specific pricing models create incentives for larger order quantities and strengthen customer loyalty through customized terms.

In particular, the seamless integration with existing ERP and inventory management systems makes Shopware a powerful platform for B2B e-commerce. 

Asioso is the ideal partner for implementing such B2B scenarios because we take a holistic approach to Shopware projects—from PIM and ERP integration to complex pricing logic and tailored role and approval concepts. Thanks to our experience from numerous B2B e-commerceprojects, we know which features are actually used in practice, and we implement them in a way that fits your processes and customers—not the other way around.