Shopware 6 for B2B: Pricing Rules, Roles and ERP Integration

In Shopware 6, you implement pricing rules for a B2B store with three building blocks: customer groups classify customers, the Rule Builder defines conditions, and advanced prices store different prices per rule and quantity. Whether this works reliably is decided before configuration: the pricing rules must exist in writing, and customers, terms and prices need a single leading data source – usually the ERP.

This article shows how to map price types to Shopware building blocks, plan roles and approvals, and set up an ERP integration that stays traceable even when errors occur. Which B2B functions your edition includes depends on version and plan; check with the vendor before you fix requirements. Whether Shopware is the right platform at all is covered in the comparison of Shopware, WooCommerce and Shopify.

What makes B2B stores different

In B2B, a single person rarely buys for themselves. Several employees of a customer order through a shared account with different rights: the buyer orders, the department head approves larger orders, accounting sees invoices. Add quick order by item number, recurring shopping lists and quote requests. Business customers search specifically by item number, need data sheets and want to see availability before they order. An efficient ordering process counts for more than emotional staging.

Price types and how to map them in Shopware

Do not start in the system, but with a list of the price types that actually exist in your company. Then assign a building block to each price type:

Price type	Example	Implementation in Shopware 6
List price	Standard price in the catalog	Product price, net or gross per currency
Customer group price	Price list for reseller A, B or C	Rule based on the customer group plus advanced price
Tiered price	Price from 10, 50 or 100 units	Advanced prices with quantity tiers
Customer-specific price	Framework agreement with a key account	Rule based on the customer, or price from the ERP via import or real-time query
Time-limited price	Spring promotion for resellers	Rule with a date-range condition
Country- and currency-dependent price	Delivery to Austria or Switzerland	Currency, sales channel and delivery-country condition in the rule

Customer groups, Rule Builder and advanced prices

Customer groups

Customer groups classify customers, for example consumers, resellers and wholesalers. They control whether prices are shown net or gross, and can be combined with a reseller registration in which new business customers are – depending on configuration – only activated after review. That way, nobody ends up by accident in a group with reseller prices.

Rule Builder

In the Rule Builder, you define conditions – such as customer group, customer number, delivery country, cart value or time period – and link them to prices, shipping methods, payment methods or promotions. Because rules take effect in many places, they need a naming convention, for example with prefixes for price, shipping and payment rules. Define – and test – which rule wins when they overlap; rule priority exists for exactly that.

Advanced prices and tiers

Advanced prices let you store different prices per rule and quantity for an item. This lets you map reseller price lists, quantity tiers and customer-specific terms. With very large ranges and many rules, the number of price rows grows quickly, so plan import, indexing and caching from the start.

Document the rules in writing first

Document rule sets in a table before the first rule is created in the system: condition, priority, affected items, validity and responsible person. For manufacturers with a reseller structure, many active rules add up quickly; without documentation, nobody knows after a few months why a customer sees a particular price. The fewer rules, the better: bundle terms into customer groups and tiers, and create individual rules only for genuine framework agreements.

Roles, approvals and accounts

Multi-user accounts, budgets and approval processes are standard in B2B. Depending on the edition and extensions, Shopware offers functions such as employee management, roles and permissions, order approvals and shopping lists; where the standard falls short, you implement custom workflows via plugins or apps. Typical roles in a customer account:

• Administrator: manages employees, addresses and permissions of the customer account
• Buyer: creates carts and orders within their budget
• Approver: reviews and approves orders above defined limits
• Read-only: sees order history and invoices without ordering themselves

It is important that customers manage their employees themselves wherever possible. That relieves your inside sales team, because new contacts or changed budgets do not have to be requested by email first. Also clarify early whether assortments should be visible or blocked per customer group – the effort to implement this varies depending on edition and extensions.

One leading source for customers and prices

Data ownership is decisive for a stable B2B store. Customer master data, terms and prices need exactly one leading source – usually the ERP. Duplicate maintenance in store and ERP sooner or later leads to discrepancies, and in B2B, wrong prices are not a cosmetic flaw but a business risk. Three basic models come into question:

Model	Suited for	Risk
A: prices calculated in the ERP and passed to Shopware regularly	Large, stable price lists with few changes per day	Freshness depends on the transfer interval; large data volumes
B: rules maintained in the store, only master data synchronized	Clear terms by customer group and tier	Duplicate maintenance if the ERP continues to calculate its own prices
C: standard prices in the store, customer-specific prices via real-time query to the ERP	Complex framework agreements and individual terms	Dependence on ERP availability and response time; cache and fallback required

For complex terms, a mix of A and C often makes sense: standard prices and tiers live as rules in the store, customer-specific prices come from the ERP.

ERP integration in practice

A robust interface covers more than items and prices. Typical data flows:

• Items, stock and prices from the ERP to the store
• Customers, contacts and terms from the ERP to the store
• Orders from the store to the ERP
• Delivery status, tracking numbers and invoices back to the store

For bulk changes, Shopware offers an Admin API with a sync endpoint; queues and partial syncs prevent the entire range from being transferred with every change. Just as important are unique keys such as item and customer numbers, retries on errors, logging and alerting, so that a failed transfer is noticed before a customer asks. One example from our projects is a B2B wholesale portal with ERP integration and more than 5,000 items. How store, ERP and CRM are connected in general is covered in the article connecting ERP, CRM and store; you can find our offering under Shopware integrations.

Also think about invoicing: e-invoicing directly affects B2B business. The obligation to receive e-invoices has applied since January 1, 2025, and the obligation to issue them is phased in from 2027 and 2028. Invoices are usually created in the ERP; check whether the format and the path back into the store’s customer area fit.

Practical example: a manufacturer with a reseller structure

Suppose a manufacturer of fastening technology supplies specialist resellers in three price tiers and has a few key accounts with framework agreements. The ERP knows all terms. In Shopware, three customer groups map the price tiers, the quantity tiers are stored as advanced prices per group, and the key accounts’ framework prices come from the ERP on a customer-specific basis – imported regularly or, where needed, via real-time query. Resellers register through a form and are assigned to the right group after review. Before go-live, inside sales compares carts for selected reseller constellations line by line with the prices in the ERP, instead of testing with dummy customers only.

Pitfalls and the path to a B2B store

Typical pitfalls in a B2B project

• Unclear pricing rules: terms exist only in the heads of individual employees or in scattered spreadsheets.
• Too many special cases: every exception becomes its own rule instead of bundling terms sensibly.
• Unclear data ownership: prices are maintained in both store and ERP until nobody knows which value applies.
• Synchronization without monitoring: sync errors go unnoticed until customers see wrong prices or stock.
• Performance with large ranges: many rules and price variants require clean caching and optimized queries.

To a B2B store in six steps

1. Capture requirements: clarify roles, approvals, ordering paths and special cases with sales and inside sales.
2. Document pricing logic: record all rules in a table and set priorities.
3. Settle data ownership: decide which system leads for customers, prices and stock.
4. Plan interfaces: define data flows, intervals, error handling and monitoring.
5. Implement and test: check prices with real customer constellations, not just dummy customers.
6. Train and support: prepare inside sales and customers for the new ordering path.

How Nano Concepts can help

We support the concept and development of your B2B store with our Shopware development: from documenting the pricing logic through the ERP interface to testing and training your inside sales team. Our packages set the framework – Starter from €2,500, Professional from €8,000, Enterprise individual; in the free initial consultation we clarify where you stand and which path fits.

This article does not replace legal or tax advice.