Wuppertal is one of Germany's early industrial cities. Textiles and dyeing gave rise to chemicals and pharmaceuticals here; in the Bergisch city triangle with Solingen and Remscheid, the tool and cutlery industries grew, and in neighbouring Velbert, lock and fittings technology. Many of these firms have been family-run for generations and supply trades, industry and automotive suppliers far beyond the region. Their ranges are deep rather than wide: the same tool in many sizes, materials and standards. A shop for catalogues like these needs filters that think technically, and product data that comes straight from the ERP or PIM.
Structural change has transformed the city: where weaving mills once stood, software firms, design studios and university institutes now work. In Elberfeld and Barmen, the two centres along the suspension railway, specialist retailers are building an online channel to reach customers across the Bergisches Land. Cultural institutions in a city known internationally for its dance theatre need websites with schedules and programmes in several languages. That leads to very different briefs: a B2B portal for the tool manufacturer, a multilingual TYPO3 website for the institute, a modest shop for the specialist retailer.
For manufacturers and wholesalers in the Bergisches Land, we mainly use Shopware 6 as a B2B shop: products with many technical attributes, tiered prices, framework agreements, ordering by part number or by uploading an order list. We connect the purchasing systems of large industrial customers via OCI/punch-out. A B2C channel for tradespeople and consumers can run on the same installation. After launch, responsibility stays with us: Shopware updates tested on staging, security fixes, plugin maintenance, checks on ERP imports. A maintenance contract with an SLA sets when we respond — 24, 8, 4 or 2 hours — and none of that requires a trip to Wuppertal.
In Wuppertal, TYPO3 suits companies and institutions with a lot to explain: manufacturers from the city triangle maintaining product worlds in several languages for export markets, research and education institutions, cultural and social organisations with large editorial teams. We build new websites on TYPO3 v14 LTS. For older installations dating from before Composer, we first check whether an upgrade through the LTS stages or a rebuild with data migration makes more sense, and quote both routes with their effort. Then we take over ongoing TYPO3 maintenance: security patches, minor updates, PHP and database — with a log of what was applied when.
At just under three hours' drive, Wuppertal is not a place we can visit on the spur of the moment, and there are plenty of agencies between the Rhineland and the Ruhr. Sharpness is an option if you are looking for specialisation in Shopware and TYPO3, hosting on our own servers in Germany and a team that stays responsible after launch. By arrangement, we bundle kick-off and key workshops into full-day sessions at your premises in Wuppertal; the A29 and A1 take us there directly. Development and support run remotely. You can reach us Monday to Thursday, 9:00 to 16:00, and Friday, 9:00 to 13:00 CET, on +49 441 21 21 63 0.