We often receive the inquiry from our customers:
Is it possible to connect our webshop solution to SAP® Business ByDesign® without any problems? Can you explain to us how an integration would work and what the whole thing costs? What about availability checks? And which system is leading in terms of new customer registrations or pricing, for example?
We will try to address these points and explain how such an integration with becomeCloud would work.
As the leading open-source system for online stores, Magento offers a wide range of possibilities and is used by countless e-commerce companies. The core of the system is based on PHP. Magento is available in paid versions as well as in a free community edition. In 2018, Magento was acquired by the American company “Adobe”. Due to its widespread use, many customers already use an integration with the Magento store system in SAP® Business ByDesign®.
Shopware is attacking the top dog Magento more and more. The store system has been spreading very strongly since 2019 and the webshop variant already has over 100,000 customers. Well-known companies, such as the soccer club Borussia Dortmund or also Thyssenkrupp, are also among the Shopware customers. Furthermore Shopware offers paid models as well as a free community edition. Shopware’s popular API approach (interface approach) enables flexible integration into SAP® Business ByDesign®.
Shopify is establishing itself on the market primarily through its native HubSpot integration. Another unique selling point of the store system is the 24/7 support. Shopify is available in various rental models, all of which are subject to a fee. The customizability of the system makes it easy to integrate with SAP® Business ByDesign®.
Customers who use WordPress as their content management system (CMS) often turn to the most popular WordPress store plugin: WooCommerce. Through its REST API, WooCommerce offers possible standard interfaces that can be directly integrated with SAP® Business ByDesign®.
Oxid is characterized by different “packages”, which are specifically tailored to different businesses. For example, for startups, mail order companies and other B2B types of companies. Oxid is also widely used in the Americas. Through completed integration projects with our customers, we can confirm a full integration capability with SAP® Business ByDesign®.
The unique selling point of xt:Commerce is above all the close cooperation with the payment service provider Klarna. The open source system, like the other widely used store systems, supports large customers such as the St. Pauli soccer club and Radeberger. The store system is available in a ready-to-use professional version and can be connected to SAP® Business ByDesign® via a familiar interface.
JIMDO is widely used, especially through its television advertising in German-speaking countries. JIMDO is initially designed to be as easy to use as possible – but the core of the system can also be used for interface integrations in the direction of SAP® Business ByDesign®. The available models range from Basic, through Business, to the VIP variant.
Through intensive advertising via social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram, the store system WIX is currently enjoying more and more popularity. The manufacturer also offers payment options in its portfolio. Thanks to corresponding interfaces, all relevant information can be exchanged between SAP® Business ByDesign® and the store system.
If you couldn’t find your store system in our list: don’t worry! Thanks to the standardized interfaces of SAP® Business ByDesign®, all external systems, as well as other webshops, can be connected to the system at any time. Through the standard integration paths such as “SOAP”, “REST” and “ODATA”, SAP® Business ByDesign® offers almost all known webshop systems a possibility for integration.
During customer registration, the most important thing is to check for possible duplicates. The standard duplicate checks of SAP® Business ByDesign® are used for this purpose. It is also mandatory that SAP assigns customer numbers so as not to collide with possible number ranges. Some of the customer master data is filled in by the user through an interface in the webshop (for example, name, address, etc.), while other – SAP-relevant data – can be determined directly by the webshop or generated automatically by SAP afterwards (for example, sales organization, distribution channels, etc.).
If your webshop works with guest orders, the topic “dummy customer” plays a major role in SAP.
For product replication it is necessary to first define the scope of data to be transferred. For example, are description and article texts sufficient, or should product images also be transferred from SAP to the web store. The availability check is triggered in real time by the customer’s product selection. First, an initial replication run is started during product replication. In live operation, SAP proactively informs the web store about new products or changes to existing products. The web store then obtains the detailed information about the changes via SAP standard interfaces.
Since the web store itself only contains the replicated list prices of the products (this is advisable for performance reasons), the detailed information is retrieved when the shopping cart is filled. This includes, for example, the customer-specific prices, discounts, freight costs and other price conditions. To prevent unnecessary creation of documents in SAP when a shopping cart is cancelled, SAP® Business ByDesign® uses special costing objects that do not appear on the user interface and can be removed via automatic cleanup runs.
If the webshop customer decides to place the order, the order details are forwarded to the corresponding payment provider. Which payment provider is used to process the payment for the goods is initially irrelevant in the process. Important is, that the webshop receives positive or negative feedback about the payment. If the payment is processed successfully, the web store updates the costing object in SAP and automatically converts it into a sales order. This sales order can then be processed fully automatically via various system settings and the customer account can be balanced in financial accounting. The invoice PDF generated by SAP is then made available to the customer in the web store.
No transmission issues
Thanks to the data transfer via technical interface, master and transaction data is transferred error-free and securely between your web store and SAP® Business ByDesign®. Clerical errors and transposed numbers are eliminated. At the same time, the workload in your master data team is reduced.
Real-time synchronization
Thanks to automated integration, orders from the web store are immediately transferred to SAP® Business ByDesign®, where they can be processed and edited. Changes to master data or goods availability are also transferred in real time from SAP® Business ByDesign® to the web store. A smooth shopping experience for the end customer is guaranteed.
Fully automated e-commerce process
Let your SAP system handle the assignment of payments to customer orders, timely shipment of goods, calculation of taxes and freight, and generation of business documents. This makes your e-commerce process not only easier, but also more secure, stable and transparent.
