How Shopware 6 sped up Southbag’s content creation by 300%

An off-season migration to Shopware 6

Southbag GmbH u. Co. Handels KG is in the business of bags. Founded in 1989, Southbag has megastores across Germany and Austria. The company is one of Germany’s largest omnichannel retailers of school bags, backpacks, and travel luggage.

An early adopter of ecommerce technology, Southbag has operated its flagship online store schulranzen-onlineshop.de since 2003. With around 30 employees and an annual online turnover of approximately €10 million, it is no exaggeration to say that Southbag is a major player in the DACH consumer accessories sector.

Southbag decided that it was time to level up its most important site, schulranzen-onlineshop.de, and two other major sites, schulrucksack.de and trolley.de. After carefully evaluating the options, Southbag chose to stay with Shopware. Based on its long-standing success with Shopware 5, the company was eager to take advantage of the advanced capabilities of Shopware 6.

But the migration had to be done within a tight timeframe. Southbag had just four months during the off-season to optimize and relaunch all three sites.

The challenge

Southbag’s goal was to continue to provide its customers with a secure, user-friendly, and engaging online shopping experience.

The peak season for school bags is typically July to August, just before the start of the new school year in Germany, Austria, and much of Europe. Southbag’s off-season runs between September and December.

Parents typically want to purchase school bags during this back-to-school period to have them ready for the first day of school. To avoid any loss in revenue in the first quarter of the New Year, the migration of all three sites from Shopware 5 to Shopware 6 had to be done as efficiently and effectively as possible. Keeping their loyal customers happy meant that there could be no delays in the implementation of the new software.

The company also wanted to integrate its WordPress blog into the shop environment to enhance user experience and further leverage content marketing synergies. Adding to the complexity, the entire migration process needed to be managed and executed by a single individual on the Southbag team.

The solutions

Shopware's clear structure, extensive plugin ecosystem, and flexibility ensured that both the migration process and the relaunch went without a hitch.

The introduction of the new Shopware 6 CMS structure was a key selling point for Southbag when choosing how to reach its goals. Shopware 6 provided a stronger technical foundation, improved flexibility in content management, and streamlined internal workflows.
CMS and Shopping Experiences tools enabled the team to quickly create visually appealing pages. Southbag’s customers were provided with more relevant and more personalized product recommendations. Visitors to the site could find more in-depth information, as Shopware’s intuitive CMS enabled the easy integration of editorial content into the main shop navigation. These enhancements translated into higher conversion rates and increased revenue opportunities.

As well as enhancing the user experience for Southbag’s customers, the upgrade improved functionality within Southbag’s own ecosystem. Stores could now place reorders based on popular products across the brand. The extensibility of Shopware 6 also allowed for the development of custom plugins tailored to specific business requirements.

The results

Upgrading to Shopware 6 gave Southbag added capabilities that vastly improved both the functionality of its sites and the user experience. The successful optimization and relaunch of its online stores resulted in big wins for the company and its customers, including a massive increase in sales.

The customized in-house plugins improved both the efficiency of the sites and the shopping experience. After the upgrade, customers could browse the entire product range more easily and compare products from different manufacturers within pop-ups without needing to reload the page.

Automated rules map products to dynamic slots based on brand, price, stock, margin, or seasonality. Out-of-stock items in CMS content are automatically replaced with smart fallbacks, preserving layouts and SEO integrity while avoiding dead ends. All customer interactions are now precisely tracked for analytics.
Because of these new ecommerce features, Southbag’s online sales skyrocketed, with annual revenue increasing by 30 - 40%.

The sales figures weren’t the only metrics to improve. The visibility of the flagship site schulranzen-onlineshop.de increased by 50% according to SISTRIX analytics. The migration to Shopware 6 and the meticulous work from Southbag’s project owner took the site index from an already high ranking of 2.4 up to an impressive 3.5 points.

The benefits of the switch to Shopware 6 streamlined Southbag’s promotions. The company runs a year-round promotion calendar anchored by the peak Back-to-School period from July to August, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. Using Shopware’s Rule Builder and Dynamic Product Groups (Product Streams), Southbag gained the ability to launch, stack, or not stack promotions based on detailed eligibility and exclusion rules.

Shopware’s capabilities cut setup time from hours to minutes, reduced support tickets from coupon issues, and helped protect margins on key brands.

As well as making it faster and easier to manage promotions, Shopware 6 also sped up content creation. The Southbag team can now create landing pages and CMS content in less time and with less effort. This resulted in a significant boost to Southbag’s agility and ramped up marketing productivity by 200 - 300%. Accelerated content production allows campaigns to go live faster and helps the company to quickly respond to emerging market trends.

“Even though I handled the relaunch on my own, the structure and flexibility of Shopware 6 enabled me to build a modern, high-performing, and visually appealing shop – all in record time.” – Albert Brüggemann, CTO and Project Manager Ecommerce.

Southbag GmbH u. Co. Handels KG has a strong relationship with Shopware. The partnership between the two companies goes back to 2009, when Southbag migrated its two ecommerce sites to Shopware 3. This move resulted in Southbag being awarded the Shopware Shop Usability Award 2010 and the Shopware Shop Usability Award for Online Shop of the Year in 2011.

Since then, the reliability and functionality of Shopware have continued to make it the ecommerce software of choice for Southbag GmbH u. Co. Handels KG. For Southbag, the customizable features and smooth integration capabilities put Shopware far ahead of its competitors.

“Shopware 6 won us over with its clear structure, high flexibility, and elegant integration of editorial content. It allows for efficient management on both the technical and content sides, which is ideal for our multi-shop setup and lean team.” – Albert Brüggemann, CTO and Project Manager Ecommerce.