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Shopware Visionary Award 2026

Villa Schmidt wins the Shopware Visionary Award 2026

The Hamburg family business for premium designer furniture impresses with a fully in-house developed online platform – bringing the luxury furniture trade resolutely into the digital age.

Hamburg/Reinbek, 16 June 2026 – Villa Schmidt GmbH has been honoured with the Shopware Visionary Award 2026. On the main stage of Shopware Community Day 2026, Shopware AG named the online shop villa-schmidt.de one of three winners in front of more than 1,300 guests. With the award, the e-commerce provider – the market leader in Germany, whose platform powers more than 30,000 active online shops – annually honours the most visionary retailers in its community: shops that stand out through innovative concepts, emotional user experiences and entrepreneurial courage.

Alongside Villa Schmidt, this year's awards went to BUS – Industrial Tools and MissPompadour. Villa Schmidt received the accolade for mastering the highest product complexity in the premium segment: its in-house online configurator makes even premium designer furniture with more than a trillion possible configurations directly orderable and customisable online – an ambition at which the furniture trade had largely failed until now.

“To this day, premium designer furniture is sold almost exclusively in the showroom. That is exactly what we are changing: we are bringing the premium experience online without losing what defines it – personal advice, quality and trust,” says Timeo Schmidt, Managing Director of Villa Schmidt GmbH. “That Shopware is recognising this path with the Visionary Award confirms for us that discerning furniture retail and e-commerce are no contradiction.”

A platform built by a small team

Behind the online shop is a bespoke commerce platform built on Shopware 6, which managing director Timeo Schmidt largely developed himself over around 18 months – supported by occasional freelance help. That such a small team could take on a project of this complexity at all was made possible only by the use of modern AI coding tools.

“Only AI-assisted development tools have made it possible for a small team like ours to build a platform of this complexity. A few years ago, we would have paid an agency an estimated quarter of a million euros for it,” says Timeo Schmidt. “Standing on an equal footing with the online shops of large corporations and entire developer teams, with such a small team, still feels surreal.”

Tradition meets the digital future

Since 2025, Timeo and Antonio Schmidt have led the family business, founded in 1995, as managing directors – driving the shift from classic, showroom-driven furniture retail towards a consistently online-first approach. The aim is to carry the advice and quality promise of bricks-and-mortar luxury retail into the digital space, opening up a market segment long considered unsuited to online.

Villa Schmidt donates the €2,000 prize money associated with the award to an animal welfare charity.

About Villa Schmidt

Villa Schmidt GmbH, headquartered in Reinbek near Hamburg with a City showroom in central Hamburg, is a family business founded in 1995 that specialises in high-quality designer furniture for indoor and outdoor spaces. The curated portfolio includes leading international brands such as DEDON, B&B Italia, Knoll International, Poltrona Frau and Thonet. The company's customers include the most exclusive hotels, luxury yachts and private residences worldwide – among them Lürssen, the Ritz-Carlton, the German Bundestag and the Hotel Fontenay in Hamburg. Since 2025, Timeo and Antonio Schmidt have led the company as managing directors in its second generation.

Further information: villa-schmidt.de

About: Timeo Schmidt

Timeo Schmidt has led Villa Schmidt GmbH as managing director since 2025, together with his twin brother Antonio Schmidt. He studied Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the renowned Imperial College London, ranked second in the world after MIT in the QS World University Rankings 2026. During his studies he specialised in sought-after future fields such as machine learning and robotics, graduating with top honours. Both software engineer and entrepreneur, he single-handedly conceived and programmed the company's commerce platform, which won the Shopware Visionary Award 2026. With this combination of technological depth and entrepreneurial vision, he and his brother are driving the digital transformation of the family business — with the aim of rethinking the retail of premium designer furniture and translating the premium experience, without compromise, into the digital realm.

Press contact

Villa Schmidt GmbH Timeo Schmidt, Managing Director Kückallee 2, 21465 Reinbek Telephone: +49 (0)40 727 33 33 3 Email: presse@villa-schmidt.de villa-schmidt.de

Note for editors: images (trophy, team/managing director, Hamburg showroom, product photography) and an interview with managing director Timeo Schmidt are gladly available on request.