Integrating the Online Store and CMS for Content Commerce

Content commerce can boost sales and conversion rates. What solutions are available? And should you integrate your CMS and online store, for example in Neos or TYPO3?

A woman is drawing a wireframe on the wall

Today, selling successfully online often means producing a lot of content—that is, providing useful editorial content that can be linked to product offerings. This concept has successfully established itself under the term “content commerce.” Integrating a CMS with an online store isn’t always necessary—but this approach is certainly the cleanest and most professional solution for content commerce.

Content commerce is particularly well-suited for marketing niche products or high-priced offerings. This involves combining content marketing with an online store: You attract visitors with useful content and then offer them relevant products directly on the page. This way, you reach customers who are ready to buy, who are already interested in the products on offer, and who view the link to the online store as a service. Digital products such as e-books, white papers, digital subscriptions, etc., are also ideal for content-driven marketing.

For example, a content page that describes a specific product or provides a product overview could display a “Buy” link directly within the article that leads to the product in the online store. Alternatively, relevant products could be displayed automatically. The possibilities are vast.

Rights management also plays a role with digital products: How can you ensure that customers have access to the content they’ve purchased?

Questions to consider:

For platforms with existing users/subscribers: How can I set up a paywall that drives sales effectively?
How do I manage access to digital products and how do I deliver them?
How can the payment process be made as simple as possible?
How can I thoughtfully integrate content with the store’s offerings?
Should I go with a standalone e-commerce solution? Or a CMS? Don’t I need both?

The most sensible and effective approach is to intelligently integrate a CMS and an online store for content commerce. This allows you to leverage the best of both worlds and generate “shoppable content.” Additionally, the user experience—from content to the checkout process—can be designed to drive sales.

Integrating a CMS and an Online Store

Depending on whether you’re using a CMS like TYPO3 or Neos as a foundation or an online store system, the question arises of how to integrate the two:

I’m already working with a CMS: How do I integrate a sophisticated online store system—including well-designed checkout processes, user-friendly design, context-based product recommendations, etc.?
I’m already working with an online store: How do I organize, maintain, and present my content—in a way that actually drives sales?

This is also linked to cross-channel content marketing, such as through newsletters, subscriptions, or even print publications. Here, it pays to set up the system from the start in a way that allows for extensive automation and ensures valuable content is utilized optimally—that is, across multiple channels.

The cross-channel aspect, in particular, is becoming increasingly important. Today, content is delivered via the web, apps, newsletters, and other channels to meet all user needs and optimally reach the target audience. Add to that tablets, smart TVs, and e-books. A technically sound and automated solution for delivering content is indispensable here. And if the ultimate goal is to sell products from an online store, careful consideration must be given to how the store and content offerings come together.

Based on our experience, the best solution for successful content commerce and the integration of content and the online store—combining useful content with products—is the tight integration of a CMS and an online store.

There are several approaches to this. For TYPO3, for example, we’ve had positive experiences with Aimeos . For larger or custom projects, we work with an API-based solution. This is where Sylius comes into play.

Seamless Integration Thanks to Sylius

With the help of the Sylius shop framework, complex e-commerce applications can be implemented and integrated with the CMS. Here are some examples of the possibilities offered by API-based communication between the shop and the CMS:

Placing products on content pages—regardless of whether the products are retrieved from the shop system or stored in the CMS.
Seamless integration, such as displaying products and content in the CMS while handling payment externally via the shop—similar to Amazon.
Subscription-based access control—linking the payment process to content access, including upsell and other marketing opportunities directly from the content pages.
Automated display of relevant or related products on all content pages.
Integration with various CMS platforms such as TYPO3 or Neos.

The be.in.value platform from VVW-Verlag, which we implemented using Sylius and Neos, demonstrates how this can work in practice. The site is heavily content-driven, with digital information products and physical products such as books displayed in the appropriate context. The portal also features a subscription model with various subscription plans and corresponding access rights to content.

Insurance Industry Publishing House

Breaking New Ground with Neos CMS The project presented an exciting challenge, as it involved the integration of e-commerce, complex content management at various levels with corresponding access control, cross-channel capabilities including conversion tools… And all of this was brought together in the Neos content management system.

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We are a Sylius hosting partner and appreciate the system's flexibility:

A very modern, clean technology stack
We can create highly effective, customized solutions for our clients
Well-suited for micro-architectures, offering greater flexibility and scalability

Sylius is a forward-looking technology and particularly appealing to online store operators who are still working with outdated systems or a convoluted patchwork of solutions and want to put their store on a new footing. This is because the technology is very clean, highly extensible and scalable, and ensures excellent integration with the CMS.

If you’re currently setting up a new online store or want to expand an existing content-driven platform to include a store, Sylius is also a great choice.

We’d be happy to assist you with setting up or restructuring your online store and with the effective use of content commerce.