Social Shopping - Instagram, Pinterest & Facebook
Installation
Social Shopping is an extension that is part of the Shopware Rise plan.
If at least the Shopware Rise plan is stored for the store domain in the Shopware account, you can download and install it under Extensions > My Extensions.
The prerequisite is that you are logged in with your account in the Shopware Account tab.
After the extension has been installed, you can activate it via the button on the left side.
General Information
The extension provides additional sales channels that allow easy integration into the well-known social media services. In most cases this is done through an export feed, which is integrated into the respective platform
If you want to disable Social Shopping, it is necessary to delete the sales channels created with Social Shopping beforehand.
In the customer and order areas of the administration, the column "Referral" is added to the entries for customers and orders. This tells you where the customers or orders come from if they were placed via a social shopping sales channel. For this, however, the referral code must be included in the individual templates. Information on this can be found in the various template areas.
The "Facebook" sales channel provides the data required for export to Facebook in an XML feed.
Configuration
Language selection (1): Here you define for which language you want to setup the configuration. It is not necessary to maintain the settings in each language, because these settings are always inherited from the main language, if no own settings are made in a language. However, it may be useful to select the respective storefront sales channel domain for each language, for example, to direct customers to the appropriate language.
In the tab General (2) you can configure the export feed generated later. The tabs Statistics (3), Unpublished Products (4),Intergration (5) and Template (6) will only be displayed after the basic configuration has been completed and the settings have been saved.
General
Name (7): Enter a name for the sales channel here. This is used, for example, in the sales channel overview in the menu on the left side.
Active (8): Activate the generation of the feed. If the feed is not active, no further generation takes place and it cannot be accessed through the URL.
Storefront sales channel (9): Select here which storefront should be used for the integration. This storefront will be used to display or purchase the articles through Facebook.
Storefront sales channel domain (10): Based on the selected storefront sales channel you can choose the domain to be used. This is especially important if the storefront is accessible through different domains or if different languages are used.
Currency (11): Here you define the currency in which the products should be displayed. You can choose from the currencies that are available in the assigned storefront sales channel.
Dynamic product group (12): By assigning a dynamic product group, you define which products should be exported to the feed for Facebook. To learn how to create a dynamic product group, please refer to the appropriate documentation.
Additional settings
Import variants as own products (1): With this setting you can determine whether each variant of variant products is transferred to Facebook as an independent product. Alternatively, a collective product is used, in which the general product information is listed. However, information on the individual variants is not included.
Generation interval (2): Use this setting to define how often the feed should be regenerated for export. If you select "Live", the feed is generated each time it is called up. For production systems, we recommend that you do this using the scheduler. More information about the scheduler you can find here.
Generate by Scheduler (3): This option allows you to have the feed generated via the Message Queue System with a scheduled task. Please note that the feed will only be generated when the generation interval has expired. To learn how to set up Scheduled Tasks, see the Scheduled Tasks article.
Default Google Product Category ID (4): The Google Product Category ID determines the category in which the products will be included on Facebook. Please note that only purely numeric values can be used here. You can find more information on this on the Google help page, which is also linked in the admin section at the appropriate place.
Time of last generation (5): Here you can see when the export feed was last generated. This also allows you to see if the generation by the scheduler is executed correctly.
Please note that the item options only becomes available after the sales channel has been created (saved initially).
Delete sales channel (1): Here you can delete the sales channel within Shopware. It may be necessary to make additional adjustments to Facebook.
Statistics
With the statistics, you can view various key figures of your orders via Facebook. These are divided into orders, customers and turnover. Each statistic can be limited to different time periods, such as the last 24 hours or the last 30 days, via an option in the upper right corner.
Without the respective variable for the referral code in the template, the statistics cannot be calculated. You can find more information on this in the template section.
Unpublished products
Please note that the unpublished products tab is only available after you have set up and saved the general configuration.
Validate products (1): You can validate products at this point.
Result of the validation (2): After the validation has been carried out, you can see here whether the products are transferd complete. If the validation should determine that products are not valid, the corresponding products are listed here. In this case you should then check whether any data is missing or whether the existing data is invalid (e.g. due to characters that cannot be displayed correctly).
Integration
Shopware itself provides you with the data required for integration into Facebook in an export feed. The integration with Facebook is done directly in your Facebook settings.
Please note that the Integration tab is only available after you have set up and saved the general configuration.
Export-URL (1): The generated feed can be accessed under the export URL and can be queried from Facebook.
You can find more information in the Facebook documentation.
General information about the shop on Facebook
https://de-de.facebook.com/business/help/238403573454149?id=206236483305742
Information on catalog management
https://www.facebook.com/business/help/125074381480892?id=725943027795860
and
https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/lessons/manage-inventory-with-catalogs
Template
The template determines the structure of the product export file. The template is divided into a header line, a product line and a footer line.
If you use a template in the General tab, usually no adjustments are necessary here. The correct document templates for the respective comparison portals are already included in the templates.
The Test template(1) button checks whether there are any syntax errors in the template. With Generate preview(2) you can directly view the content of the created export file.
More information about the templates you can find here.
Under Variables (3) you can see which data you can use for the template.
With a click on the arrow, you can see a dropdown with all available variables. There you can copy the variable you want to the clipboard by clicking on the copy symbol again.
Referral-Code
In order for the statistics to be calculated, the Facebook sales channel template must contain the following variable:
{{ socialShoppingSalesChannel.salesChannelId }}This variable is automatically added to the standard template for new social shopping installations or updates. However, if you have previously adapted the template yourself, you must manually add this variable once and thereby extend the variable to the SEO URL, so that the following line is then created:
<g:link>{{ seoUrl('frontend.detail.page', {'productId': product.id}) }}?referralCode={{ socialShoppingSalesChannel.salesChannelId }}</g:link>The Instagram sales channel provides an XML feed that contains all information relevant to Instagram.
Configuration
Language selection (1): Here you select for which language you want to hear the configuration. It is not necessary to maintain the settings in each language, because these settings are always inherited from the main language, if no own settings are made in a language. However, it may be useful to select the respective storefront sales channel domain for each language, for example, to direct customers to the appropriate language.
In the tab General (2) you configure the export feed generated later. The tabs Statistics (3), Unpublished products (4), Integration (5) and Template (6) will only be displayed after the basic configuration has been made and the settings have been saved.
General
Name (7): Enter a name for the sales channel here. This is used, for example, in the sales channel overview in the menu on the left side.
Active (8): Activate the generation of the feed. If the feed is not active, no further generation takes place and it cannot be accessed through the URL.
Storefront sales channel (9): Select here which storefront should be used for the integration. This storefront will be used to display or purchase the articles throughInstagram
Storefront sales channel domain (10): Based on the selected storefront sales channel you can choose the domain to be used. This is especially important if the storefront is accessible through different domains or if different languages are used.
Currency (11): Here you define the currency in which the products should be displayed. You can choose from the currencies that are available in the assigned storefront sales channel.
Dynamic product group (12): By assigning a dynamic product group, you define which products should be exported to the feed for Instagram. To learn how to create a dynamic product group, please refer to the appropriate documentation.
Additional settings
Import variants as own products (1): With this setting you can determine whether each variant of variant products is transferred to Instagram as an independent product. Alternatively, a collective product is used, in which the general product information is listed. However, information on the individual variants is not included.
Generation interval (2): Use this setting to define how often the feed should be regenerated for export. If you select "Live", the feed is generated each time it is called up. For production systems, we recommend that you do this using the scheduler. More information about the scheduler you can find here.
Generate by Scheduler (3): This option allows you to generate the feed by cronjob at a certain time. Please note that the feed is only generated when the generation interval has expired.
Default Google Product Category ID (4): The Google Product Category ID determines the category in which the products will be included on Instagram. Please note that only purely numeric values can be used here. You can find more information on this on the Google help page, which is also linked in the admin section at the appropriate place.
Time of last generation (5): Here you can see when the export feed was last generated. This also allows you to see if the generation by the scheduler is executed correctly.
Please note that the item options only becomes available after the sales channel has been created (saved initially).
- Delete sales channel (1): Here you can delete the sales channel within Shopware. It may be necessary to make additional adjustments to Facebook.
Statistics
With the statistics, you can view various key figures of your orders via Instagram. These are divided into orders, customers and turnover. Each statistic can be limited to different time periods, such as the last 24 hours or the last 30 days, via an option in the upper right corner.
Without the respective variable for the referral code in the template, the statistics cannot be calculated. You can find more information on this in the template section.
Unpublished products
Please note that the unpublished products tab is only available after you have set up and saved the general configuration.
Validate products (1): You can validate products at this point.
Result of the validation (2): After the validation has been carried out, you can see here whether the products are transferd complete. If the validation should determine that products are not valid, the corresponding products are listed here. In this case you should then check whether any data is missing or whether the existing data is invalid (e.g. due to characters that cannot be displayed correctly).
Integration
In order to integrate the products exported through the feed with Instagram, it is necessary, among other things, to link the Instagram profile to your own Facebook account.
Please note that the integration tab is only available after you have set up and saved the general configuration.
- Export-URL (1): Under the export URL, the generated feed is accessible and can be queried by Instagram.
For details on this and how to integrate the data, please refer to the documentation on the Instagram
https://business.instagram.com/tag-in
Template
The template determines the structure of the product export file. The template is divided into a header line, a product line and a footer line.
If you use a template in the General tab, usually no adjustments are necessary here. The correct document templates for the respective comparison portals are already included in the templates.
The Test template(1) button checks whether there are any syntax errors in the template. With Generate preview(2) you can directly view the content of the created export file.
More information about the templates you can find here.
Under Variables (3) you can see which data you can use for the template.
With a click on the arrow, you can see a dropdown with all available variables. There you can copy the variable you want to the clipboard by clicking on the copy symbol again.
Referral-Code
In order for the statistics to be calculated, the Instagram sales channel template must contain the following variable:
{{ socialShoppingSalesChannel.salesChannelId }}This variable is automatically added to the standard template for new social shopping installations or updates. However, if you have previously adapted the template yourself, you must manually add this variable once and thereby extend the variable to the SEO URL, so that the following line is then created:
<g:link>{{ seoUrl('frontend.detail.page', {'productId': product.id}) }}?referralCode={{ socialShoppingSalesChannel.salesChannelId }}</g:link>Google Shopping
In order for the domain of the Google Shopping sales channel to be verified, an HTML tag must be stored. This file must be located in the public directory of the Shopware installation and be accessible on the web. Instructions on how to create the HTML tag file and everything else can be found in the Google Merchant Center.
The "Google Shopping" sales channel provides all information relevant to Google Shopping in an XML feed.
Configuration
Language selection (1): Here you select for which language you want to hear the configuration. It is not necessary to maintain the settings in each language, because these settings are always inherited from the main language, if no own settings are made in a language. However, it may be useful to select the respective storefront sales channel domain for each language, for example, to direct customers to the appropriate language.
In the tab General (2) you configure the export feed generated later. The tabs Statistics (3), Unpublished products (4), Integration (5) and Template (6) will only be displayed after the basic configuration has been made and the settings have been saved.
General
Name (7): Enter a name for the sales channel here. This is used, for example, in the sales channel overview in the menu on the left side.
Active (8): Activate the generation of the feed. If the feed is not active, no further generation takes place and it cannot be accessed through the URL.
Storefront sales channel (9): Select here which storefront should be used for the integration. This storefront will be used to display or purchase the articles through Google Shopping.
Storefront sales channel domain (10): Based on the selected storefront sales channel you can choose the domain to be used. This is especially important if the storefront is accessible through different domains or if different languages are used.
Currency (11): Here you define the currency in which the products should be displayed. You can choose from the currencies that are available in the assigned storefront sales channel.
Dynamic product group (12): By assigning a dynamic product group, you define which products should be exported to the feed for Google Shopping. To learn how to create a dynamic product group, please refer to the appropriate documentation.
Additional settings
Import variants as own products (1): With this setting you can determine whether each variant of variant products is transferred toGoogle Shopping as an independent product. Alternatively, a collective product is used, in which the general product information is listed. However, information on the individual variants is not included.
Generation interval (2): Use this setting to define how often the feed should be regenerated for export. If you select "Live", the feed is generated each time it is called up. For production systems, we recommend that you do this using the scheduler. More information about the scheduler you can find here.
Generate by Scheduler (3): This option allows you to generate the feed by cronjob at a certain time. Please note that the feed is only generated when the generation interval has expired.
Default Google Product Category ID (4): The Google Product Category ID determines the category in which the products will be included on Google Shopping. Please note that only purely numeric values can be used here. You can find more information on this on the Google help page, which is also linked in the admin section at the appropriate place.
Time of last generation (5): Here you can see when the export feed was last generated. This also allows you to see if the generation by the scheduler is executed correctly.
Options
Please note that the item options only becomes available after the sales channel has been created (saved initially).
- Delete sales channel (1): Here you can delete the sales channel within Shopware. It may be necessary to make additional adjustments to Google Shopping.
Statistics
With the statistics, you can view various key figures of your orders via Google Shopping. These are divided into orders, customers and turnover. Each statistic can be limited to different time periods, such as the last 24 hours or the last 30 days, via an option in the upper right corner.
Without the respective variable for the referral code in the template, the statistics cannot be calculated. You can find more information on this in the template section.
Unpublished products
Please note that the unpublished products tab is only available after you have set up and saved the general configuration.
Validate products (1): You can validate products at this point.
Result of the validation (2): After the validation has been carried out, you can see here whether the products are transferd complete. If the validation should determine that products are not valid, the corresponding products are listed here. In this case you should then check whether any data is missing or whether the existing data is invalid (e.g. due to characters that cannot be displayed correctly).
Integration
In the tab Integration you will find further information on how to integrate the feed into Google.
Please note that the integration tab is only available after you have set up and saved the general configuration.
Export-URL (1): Under the export URL, the generated feed is accessible and can be queried by Google Shopping.
How you can add items to Google Shopping is explained in detail in the Google documentation
https://support.google.com/merchants/topic/7294771?hl=de&ref_topic=7259125
Template
The template determines the structure of the product export file. The template is divided into a header line, a product line and a footer line.
If you use a template in the General tab, usually no adjustments are necessary here. The correct document templates for the respective comparison portals are already included in the templates.
The Test template(1) button checks whether there are any syntax errors in the template. With Generate preview(2) you can directly view the content of the created export file.
More information about the templates you can find here.
Under Variables (3) you can see which data you can use for the template.
With a click on the arrow, you can see a dropdown with all available variables. There you can copy the variable you want to the clipboard by clicking on the copy symbol again.
Referral-Code
In order for the statistics to be calculated, the Google Shopping sales channel template must contain the following variable:
{{ socialShoppingSalesChannel.salesChannelId }}This variable is automatically added to the standard template for new social shopping installations or updates. However, if you have previously adapted the template yourself, you must manually add this variable once and thereby extend the variable to the SEO URL, so that the following line is then created:
<link>{{ seoUrl('frontend.detail.page', {'productId': product.id}) }}?referralCode={{ socialShoppingSalesChannel.salesChannelId }}</link>Pinterest is not integrated through export feeds. Meta data is used here, through which Pinterest can retrieve the required information.
Configuration
Language selection (1): Here you define for which language you want to setup the configuration. It is not necessary to maintain the settings in each language, because these settings are always inherited from the main language, if no own settings are made in a language. However, it may be useful to select the respective storefront sales channel domain for each language, for example, to direct customers to the appropriate language.
In the tab General (2) you can configure the export feed generated later. The tabs Statistics (3) and Intergration (4) will only be displayed after the basic configuration has been completed and the settings have been saved.
General
Name (5): Enter a name for the sales channel here. This is used, for example, in the sales channel overview in the menu on the left side.
Active (6): Activate the generation of the feed. If the feed is not active, no further generation takes place and it cannot be accessed through the URL.
Storefront sales channel (7): Select here which storefront should be used for the integration. This storefront will be used to display or purchase the articles through Facebook.
Storefront sales channel domain (8): Based on the selected storefront sales channel you can choose the domain to be used. This is especially important if the storefront is accessible through different domains or if different languages are used.
Currency (9): Here you define the currency in which the products should be displayed. You can choose from the currencies that are available in the assigned storefront sales channel.
*Options
Please note that the item options only becomes available after the sales channel has been created (saved initially).
Delete sales channel (6): Here you can delete the sales channel within Shopware. It may be necessary to make additional adjustments to Pinterest.
Integration
In the tab Integration you will find some basic information on how the integration in Pinterest works. There is also a button for validation. This button calls up the Rich Pins Validator page at Pinterest. To view the page, you may need to log in to Pinterest. This validator then checks whether all data relevant to Pinterest can be called up. You can find more information about the Rich Pins in the documentation of Pinterest.
Please note that the integration tab is only available after you have set up and saved the general configuration.
Customise default templates
The templates of the Social Shopping sales channels use a standard template. However, it could happen that your products require further details or you simply want to add information. The template language TWIG allows you to customise the template according to your wishes. Code snippets for frequently requested additions can be found here.