apollon GmbH+Co. KG

Product data first, storefront second

apollon is a Shopware agency with an unusual second role: we also develop our own PIM/DAM platform, Online Media Net (OMN). That combination shapes how we build. A store is a sales channel, not a data store. Where product information is incomplete, inconsistent or scattered across systems, no storefront can compensate for it — not in search, not in filters, not in a second language, and not on a marketplace.

So we start with the data model and the systems around it, and build the Shopware storefront on top. For merchants with large or technically demanding assortments, this is usually the difference between a store that launches and a store that stays maintainable afterwards.

What we do on Shopware

• New Shopware 6 builds and relaunches, including our own themes (Twig/SCSS, no core modifications)

• Plugin and extension development for requirements Shopware does not cover as standard

• Migration from Shopware 5 to Shopware 6, including data, media, custom fields, SEO URLs and redirect mapping — delivered for Compass24 and SEALAND24, Hellmut Ruck and DG Nexolution Procurement & Logistics GmbH

• Migration from third-party systems to Shopware 6: data extraction, mapping, reconnecting interfaces

• B2B commerce: customer-specific and tiered pricing, customer groups, roles and approval workflows, net logic, accreditation checks before a business account is unlocked, as built for the specialist wholesaler Hellmut Ruck

• Configurators and product finders for assortments with many variants, such as the configurator and snow chain finder at pewag

• Branch and omnichannel features, for example in-store stock display tied back to the customer's ERP at Who's Perfect

• Subscriptions and recurring orders, as running in the marstall store

• Shopping Experiences, editorial landing pages, multilingual storefronts

• Store API and Admin API work for data-driven front-end features

• UI/UX design, mobile first, performance and Core Web Vitals

• Hosting, maintenance, monitoring and support — our service desk has been running customer stores for over ten years, in the case of Hellmut Ruck since 2014

Alongside these B2B projects we also work with consumer brands on Shopware, among them egle.

Integration depth: ERP, PIM, DAM

Most of the effort in a serious commerce project is not the storefront. It is the chain behind it: ERP, PIM, DAM, CRM, payment, logistics. We build that chain with our own middleware — a data hub with delta sync, logging and retry, so failed transfers are visible and repeatable instead of silently lost.

• SAP (ECC, S/4HANA, Business One) — in production at Dolezych, an industrial supplier of lifting and load securing equipment, with ERP-driven prices and stock across its German and Austrian sales channels

• Microsoft Dynamics 365, NAV and Business Central — supported; ERP-agnostic connectivity via REST, SOAP or file-based interfaces covers further systems such as proALPHA, Sage or individual in-house ERPs

• OMN as PIM/DAM — EFALOCK runs more than 350 product attributes and roughly 20,000 media assets for about 15,000 SKUs through OMN, including AI-assisted translation into English, French and Spanish before the data ever reaches the store

Where a customer already runs Akeneo, Pimcore, Contentserv or another PIM, we connect to it. OMN is an option, not a precondition.

Multi-shop, multi-country

International setups are a core discipline, not an add-on. For Compass24 and SEALAND24, a European mail-order group for motorboat, sailing and outdoor equipment, we relaunched 15 online stores in one programme — migrating from Shopware 5 to Shopware 6, redesigning the front end, optimising performance and hosting cost, and connecting the whole thing to OMN and the customer's ERP. Thirteen country domains are live from that setup, and the group processes roughly 100,000 orders a year across them. The customer maintains and extends large parts of the stores independently today, which was an explicit project goal.

Multi-shop does not always mean multi-country. Hellmut Ruck runs a B2B specialist wholesale store and the peclavus consumer brand store alongside it, both supplied with real-time data from OMN. DG Nexolution operates a subshop structure in which individual banks appear as their own storefronts on one Shopware base.

Marketplaces: two honest routes

Marketplace business starts with the data, and we would rather be precise about it than promise a button.

OMN holds the reliable product data base. From there, two routes are possible:

1. Direct connection of individual marketplaces. Each marketplace needs a one-time setup: create the channel, map mandatory attributes, map categories, connect the marketplace account and API. After that setup, listings and updates run automatically on a recurring basis.

2. A marketplace connector as dedicated middleware. This is the better route when many marketplaces are in play, or when the marketplace landscape changes often and new channels are tried out regularly. OMN supplies the structured data, the connector handles distribution.

Which route fits is a question of channel count and volatility, and we work that out before anyone starts configuring. Either way, the value comes from the same place: product data that is complete and consistent before it leaves the house.

Accessibility

The European Accessibility Act applies to online stores, and we treat it as engineering work rather than a plugin. WCAG 2.1 AA validation is part of the QA process in our Shopware themes — documented for example in the theme work for marstall: semantic HTML, keyboard operation, focus management, ARIA for filters, search and cart, contrast, form labels and error handling. We are transparent about the status: this is an implemented and audited process on our side, not an external BITV certificate. If a formal external audit is required, we plan it into the project.

Made in Germany, on-premises capable

Development, hosting and support come from Germany. We operate our own data centre in Pforzheim, and OMN can run on premises in the customer's own infrastructure — several customers use it that way. For organisations with data protection requirements, works council involvement or public sector obligations, that is usually the decisive point rather than a nice-to-have.

apollon builds digital commerce and product data systems and works as a Shopware partner from Pforzheim in southern Germany, in German and English.

How a project starts

Most of our Shopware projects begin with one of three situations: a Shopware 5 store that needs to move to Shopware 6, an ERP or PIM landscape that the current store cannot digest, or a growing assortment that has outgrown its data model. If one of those describes your situation, a first conversation is usually enough to tell whether we are the right partner — and we will say so if we are not.