Get to know AXON – the application for sales representatives integrated with Shopware

For a very long time in B2B sales, there was a belief that if a company had an implemented e-commerce system, an administrative panel and connected order processes, then the sales team already had everything it needed for everyday work. In practice, this assumption very often proves to be wrong. A standard sales system may be well designed for managing the platform, the catalog, configuration and administration, but not necessarily for the work of a sales representative who sits with a customer using a tablet, moves between shelves in a showroom, completes an order in a warehouse or quickly builds an offer during a sales conversation. In such situations, what matters is not an extensive administrative panel, but speed of response, simplicity of the interface, resistance to a weak connection and the ability to work exactly where sales are happening.

It is precisely from such a problem that AXON grows – our new product designed as a PWA web application for B2B sales representatives, integrated with Shopware 6. It is not another administrative layer or an attempt to replace the standard panel of the platform. Quite the opposite. From the very beginning, we designed AXON as a specialized tool for a specific user and a specific work context. It is meant to show the sales representative exactly what they need, and nothing more. Thanks to this, instead of pushing through the logic of a system created to manage a store, the sales representative gets an interface created to serve customers, offers and orders. That is exactly why AXON should be understood not as an additional screen for Shopware, but as a new way of organizing sales work in B2B.

Why the standard e-commerce panel is not enough for a B2B sales representative

In many companies, the sales representative still works across several environments at the same time. One is used to check customer data, another to preview stock levels, a third to issue an offer, and yet another to verify pricing conditions or order history. Even if everything is technically available, the process remains fragmented and too heavy for situations in which a decision must be made quickly, with the customer present, without unnecessary clicking and without switching between many panels. In theory, the company has an implemented system. In practice, the sales representative still manually connects orders from several sources.

AXON responds precisely to this problem. Instead of expanded Shopware administration, we provide an interface narrowed down to sales work. There is a very deliberate assumption at the foundation of this product. The point is not to move the entire administrative panel onto a tablet, but to cut away everything from it that is unnecessary for the sales representative and leave only those processes that truly support sales. That is a major difference. The system stops being merely technologically accessible and starts being genuinely useful in the everyday work context.

Organized access to sales logic

One of AXON’s strongest features is that we do not try to move business logic into a new application. All rules – prices, limits, permissions, trade rules – remain in Shopware. AXON does not duplicate them and does not interpret them on its own. It passes them to the sales representative in a more convenient, faster and more field-oriented form. This is fundamentally important, because many tools for sales teams begin, over time, to live their own lives, creating an additional layer of logic next to the main system, which later becomes difficult to maintain, inconsistent and prone to errors.

In AXON, the philosophy is the opposite. Everything that decides the business remains in Shopware, and the application is a bridge between the company’s system and the customer. This approach is technically sensible and business-safe. It means that the sales representative sees exactly the prices, limits and conditions that apply to the customer in the system. If the company wants to limit the visibility of the customer database to a specific sales representative, it does so on the Shopware side. If it wants to manage roles, pricing policy or delivery conditions, it also does so centrally. AXON respects this order and, thanks to that, does not become a competing source of truth, but an organized work interface.

It is a product designed for real sales representative work scenarios

The greatest strength of AXON is not a single function, but the fact that we designed the entire product around real sales situations. A sales representative can sit with a customer using a tablet and build an offer at the table. They can work in a showroom on a laptop or computer and create orders by scanning barcodes with a scanner. They can also be in a warehouse and complete an order using the tablet camera. These scenarios are not an accidental addition to the documentation. They show that AXON did not arise from thinking about another web application, but from recognizing the rhythm of a sales team’s work.

This is especially important in B2B, where sales very rarely happen exclusively at a desk. A sales representative needs a tool that works on the move, does not lose the state of work, does not require stable internet and does not force them to refresh the system after every small change. This is exactly what we organize in AXON. Instead of building the user experience around administrative assumptions, we build it around the sales context. This is a difference that, in practice, translates not only into the aesthetics of the interface, but into the speed of work and the comfort of the sales representative.

Offline work stops being an addition and becomes the standard

One of AXON’s most valuable elements is that we did not treat resistance to a weak connection as a supporting feature, but as part of the core of the product. The application stores basic product and customer data locally, which means that search works immediately even without internet. When the connection returns, the data is supplemented and synchronized with the system. This solution has enormous significance in practice, because in many sales environments the problem is not a complete lack of internet, but its instability. Working on the road, in a warehouse, in a sales hall, in a car or at a customer’s location very often means temporary connection drops, low bandwidth and the need to act quickly despite those limitations.

AXON does not react to such situations with system panic. It does not log the user out, it does not destroy the state of the form, and it does not force manual repetition of every operation. It monitors the connection status, saves the time of the last synchronization, shows the user what is happening with their data and automatically resumes interrupted operations after connectivity is restored. This is a very mature model of designing a PWA for a B2B environment. This is not only about the offline slogan, but about an entire philosophy of working in imperfect conditions, which in the field are, after all, the norm and not the exception.

A faster path to completing an order

In AXON, our understanding of what working with products in B2B sales really looks like is also very clearly visible. Adding items to an offer has not been limited to classic text search. A product can be found by name, catalog number or EAN, it can be scanned with the tablet camera, and it can also be added in bulk from a list. Importantly, each of these approaches responds to a different work context. The search engine works well when the sales representative knows the product and wants to act quickly. The camera is natural in warehouse work or during a conversation with physical goods present. Bulk selection from a list works where a larger offer needs to be built without reaching for individual scans.

These are not three variants of the same function created merely to give the impression of an extensive application. These are three different sales representative work models handled in one system. It is also particularly valuable that Bluetooth or USB barcode scanners do not require special configuration. They work like a keyboard, and AXON receives their data in exactly the same way as the manual entry of a catalog number and confirmation with enter. This may seem like a technical detail, but in reality it is a very important product decision. The less implementation friction there is around hardware and operation, the faster the sales representative starts to actually use the tool.

Offer editing designed for speed, not for the system

In classic systems, editing an offer or order is very often heavy, multi-step and overloaded with additional windows. In AXON, we go in a completely different direction. The most frequently used view in the entire application, which is the offer details view, was designed to shorten the path between the sales representative’s decision and carrying out the operation as much as possible. Quantity, price or discount can be edited directly in the table. A new item immediately enters editing mode. Enter confirms changes, Escape reverses the operation, and the editing field shows the previous value as a hint, thanks to which the user does not have to remember it.

This is a very good example of how a B2B product should combine technology with work ergonomics. A sales representative does not want to operate a system. They want to change an item, add a product, enter a quantity, save an offer and move on. The fewer intermediate interactions there are, the greater the fluidity of work. AXON understands this logic. It does not impose a formal system rhythm on the user, but adapts the interface to their operational goal.

Sales organized according to context, not the system

It is also worth paying attention to the structure of the main views. The dashboard is not just a start screen, but a space that is meant to immediately give the sales representative orientation in the situation. The number of customers, turnover in the selected time window, offers waiting for a response, recent orders, top customers and elements requiring attention create a very practical entry point for further work. This is especially important where the sales representative does not manage one account, but a larger portfolio of relationships and has to quickly catch what requires action today.

The customer card works similarly. It is not just a set of contact data, but a place where the sales representative can see turnover, the number of orders, average basket value, activities and the history of cooperation. In projects using the Shopware B2B module, this is expanded with roles, employees, budgets, organizational units and approval rules. A customer view designed in this way stops being a form and becomes a tool for preparing for a sales conversation. And it is precisely in such places that the real value of a product supporting sales is born.

In this case, PWA is not a technical shortcut, but a model of distribution and convenience

AXON works as a Progressive Web App, which means that it can be installed on a tablet, laptop or computer like a regular application, without an app store and without a classic installation process. This is important not only from a technological perspective, but also from an operational one. The sales representative opens the address, installs the application and from that moment launches it from an icon on the device. After installation, AXON works in full-screen mode, without a browser bar, launches faster and looks like a native application, although it remains a web solution.

Such a model has major significance for companies that want to quickly deploy tools for the work of a field team without additional distribution complexity. PWA combines the flexibility of the browser with the ergonomics of a native application very well here. In AXON’s case, this choice also makes sense because from the beginning we are designing it for different devices and different work contexts. So this is not a technological decision for the sake of modernity itself, but a coherent architectural choice supporting the business goal.

A product built around stability and resilience, not around features

We treated application stability as a full-fledged element of the product. This refers both to data compression using MessagePack, and to automatic session renewal, protection against server overload, retrying operations in the event of temporary network errors, and the possibility of resuming interrupted work. This is very important, because in systems supporting field sales, the mere presence of functions is not enough. If the user loses data after a dropped connection or has to manually restore context after session expiration, even the best interface quickly stops being credible.

In AXON, we are moving in a direction that fits very well with contemporary B2B requirements. This product does not assume an ideal work environment. It assumes a real environment in which the connection may disappear, the server may respond with a delay and the user should not bear the cost of those events. This approach shows well that we are not designing a new product exclusively at the functional level, but that we are thinking about the entire user experience in everyday working conditions.

AXON = a sales representative work platform, not an offer overlay

AXON is a product for which we have developed a growth roadmap. The very first stage assumes full support for B2B sales in a standard Shopware environment, with offers, orders, customers, scanning and offline work. The following stages expand the possibilities with functions unavailable in standard Shopware SaaS, such as a calendar, fingerprint or face login, push notifications or integration with additional solutions that we are developing, among others for handling multiple warehouses, shipment splitting, advanced price management and limiting customer visibility per sales representative.

In the near future, we plan to develop AXON towards a text and voice assistant that will support all the previous functions of the application. The possibility of voice conversation on the road, a customer summary before a visit, a daily sales representative brief or importing items from a photo of a document is a direction that fits very well with our broader AI-first development logic. What is important, however, is that AI does not appear here as the first, superficial add-on. It appears only at the stage at which the product already has an established operational logic. We believe that modern technology should support the process, not cover up the lack of a mature foundation.

AXON shows how we think about products for B2B e-commerce

AXON shows very well how we think about technology for B2B e-commerce. We are not interested in multiplying functions or in building solutions that try to take over the entire logic of the system. We are interested in creating specialized tools, embedded in Shopware, matched to a specific user and a specific operational goal. Such an approach makes enormous sense in modern B2B, where an advantage increasingly depends not on the implementation of the platform itself, but on how well individual roles in the organization are able to use it.

AXON does not try to be everything for everyone. And that is exactly why it has a chance to be truly useful. It focuses on the sales representative’s work, organizes offering, orders and customer service, uses PWA, offline and scanning where that really matters, and leaves all business logic in Shopware.

How AXON helps achieve business goals

In companies that are developing B2B sales in a multi-channel way, there is increasingly a need to build a working layer for the sales team that will be neither a full ERP nor a full e-commerce panel, but a work environment designed exactly for sales tasks. AXON fills precisely that gap. It gives the sales representative access to customers, offers, orders, products and documents in a form that corresponds to the realities of work in the office, in the field, in the warehouse and with the customer.

From our perspective, this is exactly why this product may turn out to be important. Not as a technological curiosity, but as an answer to a very specific organizational problem. B2B companies today do not need only more administrative modules. More and more often, they need tools that shorten the path between the system and the sales representative, and between the sales representative and the customer. We designed AXON exactly at that intersection. And that is exactly why it can become one of the most interesting new products that we are developing in the area of B2B e-commerce.