Shopware Shop Checklist: Are You Ready?

Here's the honest truth up front: it's not the technology that decides how fast your shop goes live — it's how well prepared you are. At 21Days we build Shopware shops at a fixed price, and the most common cause of delays is never Shopware itself. It's missing product data, unfinished legal texts, or images nobody can deliver.

This checklist walks through every area — with the why and the how. Work through it honestly. What you prepare here saves you money and stress later.

1. Goals, Audience & B2B vs. B2C

Before anyone picks a theme, you need to know what the shop is for.

• What's your main goal? (Online revenue, taking pressure off the phone, a new audience)
• Who buys from you — consumers (B2C), business customers (B2B), or both?
• Gross or net prices? Customer groups with their own pricing?
• Mandatory registration or guest checkout?

Why this comes first: B2B and B2C are technically different worlds in Shopware. B2B needs net price display, customer groups, tiered pricing, often approval workflows, and "buy on invoice" as standard. If you only notice this after the design is done, things get rebuilt — and that costs. How: Write two or three sentences describing your typical buyer and how they order today. That's the foundation for every decision that follows.

2. Range & Product Data — the Crunch Point

This is where most preparation stalls. Product data is work, and nobody enjoys it — but without it, there's no shop.

• Complete product list as CSV or Excel
• Per product: SKU, name, description, price, tax rate, weight
• Variants structured cleanly (size, colour → each combination as its own row with its own SKU)
• Stock per variant
• EAN/GTIN (important for Google Shopping)
• Category assignment

Why it matters: Shopware imports products via CSV. The cleaner your table, the faster and more error-free the import. Chaos in the table means chaos in the shop. What the format looks like: One column per field, one row per product or variant. For variants you need a unique parent SKU and one row per option — so not "T-shirt" but "T-shirt-Red-M", "T-shirt-Red-L", each with its own stock and SKU. Separator usually a semicolon, character set UTF-8 so special characters don't break. If your data currently lives in an ERP or POS system, export a test extract and see which fields are missing. Those are exactly what we clarify in the kickoff.

3. Content & Brand — Images and Copy

A shop without good images doesn't sell. Full stop.

• High-resolution product images, min. 1500 × 1500 px, square, cut out or on a consistent background
• Format JPG (photos) or PNG/WebP (for transparency), sRGB colour space
• Logo as a vector (SVG or EPS)
• Brand colours (HEX codes) and typeface
• Copy for homepage, About, category descriptions
• Product copy — unique, not copied from the manufacturer

Why: Images are the first thing customers see and the most common reason for abandonment when they're poor. 1500 px minimum allows zoom without blur. A vector logo scales cleanly from favicon to header. How: Photograph, or have all products photographed, consistently — same background, same light, same framing. It looks professional and calms the eye. Don't copy manufacturer text: Google penalises duplicate content, and you want to rank in your own words.

4. Payment & Shipping

If the right payment method is missing, the customer bails at the final step. German buyers are particular here.

• Payment methods decided: PayPal, credit card, Klarna, buy on invoice, plus SEPA direct debit, instant transfer, Apple/Google Pay
• Account set up with the payment provider (e.g. PayPal Business, Mollie, Stripe, Unzer)
• Shipping carrier chosen: DHL, DPD, GLS, Hermes or UPS
• Shipping rules: cost by weight/order value, free shipping above €X, international yes/no
• Delivery times defined (legally required)

Why "buy on invoice" can't be missing: In Germany, invoice purchase is among the most popular payment methods — especially in B2B, but also B2C. Leave it out and you lose measurable revenue. Klarna or a provider like Mollie/Unzer bundle several methods including invoice purchase with default protection through one interface. How: Set up the accounts early — activation at PayPal, Klarna and co. can take days or weeks due to identity checks. For shipping, decide whether you'll frank yourself (DHL business portal) or connect a shipping tool.

5. Legal & GDPR — Not Optional

Cease-and-desist warnings in German e-commerce are real and expensive. Never improvise this part.

• Imprint (§ 5 DDG)
• Privacy policy (GDPR-compliant, tailored to your shop)
• Terms & conditions
• Right of withdrawal notice + sample withdrawal form (B2C)
• Cookie consent banner with genuine opt-in (e.g. Consent Manager, Usercentrics, Cookiebot)
• Prices incl. VAT, base prices where required (Price Indication Ordinance)

Why: Imprint, privacy policy, T&Cs and withdrawal notice are legally required. Faulty or missing texts are the classic grounds for a warning. The cookie banner must offer genuine opt-in — pre-ticked boxes are not allowed. How: Don't use copy-paste texts from the web. Use a legal-text generator with an update service (e.g. IT-Recht Kanzlei, eRecht24, Trusted Shops) or a lawyer. The texts are tailored to your payment methods, shipping rules and range — which is why you should finish point 4 first.

6. Domain & Hosting

• Domain in place, with access to DNS settings
• If migrating: access to the old shop/host
• SSL certificate (included with good hosting)
• Email addresses under the domain

Why: Without domain access the shop can't go live. An SSL certificate (https) is mandatory — without it, browsers warn and Google penalises. How: Have your domain registrar login ready. For hosting we recommend Shopware-optimised providers — the environment strongly affects load time, and therefore conversion and SEO.

7. Interfaces & ERP

• Do you use an inventory/ERP system? (e.g. JTL, Xentral, Afterbuy, DATEV integration)
• Should stock/orders sync automatically?
• Other tools: newsletter (e.g. CleverReach, Mailchimp), accounting, marketplaces (Amazon, eBay)

Why: If your warehouse runs on an ERP, you don't want to maintain stock twice. A clean integration saves time daily and prevents overselling. How: Decide early which system is the "master" — do you maintain products in the ERP or in Shopware? That one decision determines the whole architecture of the interface.

8. SEO Preparation

The area most often forgotten — and the one that decides visibility from day one.

• For a relaunch: export a list of all old URLs (e.g. via Screaming Frog or sitemap)
• 301 redirect plan old → new
• Keyword research for categories and key products
• Clean, readable URL structure planned
• Existing rankings & traffic documented (Google Search Console)

Why this is critical in a relaunch: If you have products online that rank on Google and the URLs change during migration, you lose those rankings — unless you 301-redirect every old URL to the new one. Without this plan, traffic can crash after launch. How: Crawl your old shop, export all indexed URLs and map each to a new target. For keyword research, look at what your customers actually search for — that steers your category names and copy. Search Console shows which pages bring traffic today; protect those first during the move.

And If Something's Missing?

Honestly: almost nobody has everything ready at the start. That's completely fine. That's exactly what our kickoff is for. We go through each of these points together, flag the gaps, and you know immediately what's left to do. The more you have ready beforehand, the faster and cheaper your project runs — but nobody has to tick this list off alone and perfectly.

Ready for the Next Step?

This checklist is your roadmap. The more boxes ticked, the smoother your fixed-price Shopware project runs.

Take a look at our packages — from Starter for a fast entry to Move and Scale for larger plans. Or send your project request directly, and we'll go through the open points together.