Like last year, the Shopware Community Day, or SCD for short, took place again in the Landscape Park Duisburg-Nord. An impressive location in which industrial culture and nature have combined to form a place that visitors will remember.
The 6,000 square meter power center was the heart of the SCD. In addition to the Expo, visitors could also visit 3 of the 4 stages, make a detour to the Meeting Area or get to know Shopware 6 on the Experience Trail. The smaller blower hall was assigned to the developers and therefore only topics related to development, coding and programming were dealt with here.
Start your journey
But not only the location was impressive. Even the opening with the keynote "Your Freedom to Grow" by Sebastian Hamann (Co-Founder & CEO) captivated the visitors. Shopware has understood how to captivate the viewers of the keynote with a perfect interplay of music, light and various video sequences. But of course that wasn't the only reason why the "Inspiration Stage" was overcrowded right from the start of the day. Because in this keynote, Shopware 6 was publicly presented for the first time with its countless innovations, which promises easier and yet more effective handling. Under the motto "Start your Journey", Shopware not only opened the event. Throughout the day, visitors could explore the advantages of Shopware 6 in countless Shopware presentations and go on a journey together.
Shopware Community Day 2019
From modifying the shopping worlds, improving customer streams and integrating an AI to even easier integration and use of a wide variety of channels such as Facebook and Instagram. The improved integration of other channels and the customer stream, which accompanies the customer journey and user experience even more optimally from the first contact with the product and the procurement of information to the purchase and in aftersales, was particularly emphasized. The optimized shopping worlds with the new, pre-designed blocks, which of course were all designed to be responsive, were of great importance in many presentations.
Experience Trail
Another nice idea was the Experience Trail. Here, the visitors were able to try their first clicks within Shopware 6 under guidance. Unfortunately, it was very full all the time and it was therefore not possible to get to know each other under calm conditions. But since Shopware also presented the roadmap that day and announced that the developer preview is now available and that early access would start in July 2019, it is foreseeable when it will also be possible to get to know Shopware 6 outside of the SCD.
But not only the lectures of the "Shopwareians", as the Shopware employees call themselves, were well attended, but also the lectures of the many guest speakers. Probably the best known and therefore also a highlight of the day was TV star and entrepreneur Judith Williams, who spoke about her eventful history and her journey to success in her lecture.
The small but fine expo was also worth a visit. Around 50 exhibitors such as Amazon Pay, DHL, Klarna and PayPal were ready to answer visitors' questions and to convince them with their portfolio.
Although the SCD set a new visitor record with over 2,500 visitors, you only noticed the crowds when it was time to organize lunch at one of the countless food trucks provided by Shopware free of charge. The greatest difficulty here was making a decision from the diverse range of tarte flambée or falafel to burgers and currywurst.
Conclusion
Overall, the SCD was very exciting and interesting for all Shopware enthusiasts. The event was well structured and prepared. The lectures and the location very impressive and informative. With breakfast, lunch, cake, coffee and a wide variety of cold drinks, the visitors were always provided with culinary delights and entertained by the many thematically different lectures. Only the missing information regarding the final Shopware 6 release was a small downer.