Are you searching for an open-source, open-source eCommerce platform to create your online store? If yes, then PrestaShop could be the perfect solution for you. In this PrestaShop Review, we’ll look at its capabilities and address all your questions about the answer.
Does that sound good? Let’s get started.
PrestaShop Review: Overview
PrestaShop is an e-commerce platform that is hosted by self or open-source solutions. It means you can download the Software and alter it however you like. The program was introduced in 2007, and its headquarter was in France.
PrestaShop recently announced their PrestaShop Ready version, their Software as a Service (SaaS) or hosted version. In contrast to their open-source counterpart, this version restricts the ability to access the codes you need to customize the site, but it’s also more user-friendly.
PrestaShop Review: Key Features
Here’s a list of the top features PrestaShop offers.
Usability
Installing PrestaShop could take a tiny amount of time due to the fact that its back end is more complicated. But, PrestaShop offers a demonstration that walks you through the entire procedure.
Once the process of setting up is completed, The following step will be to determine the modules you’ll need to use to run the online shop you have created. If your knowledge of technology isn’t extensive, it’s best to hire a web designer to handle the integrations on your behalf.
It’s a good thing that once you’ve finished the configuration, integrations, and modules, the day-to-day activities like creating products or management of orders, as well as inventory management, are all accessible.
Store Personalization
The fact is that Open source software is definitely the method to go if you wish for your site to have a unique look. In the competitive world of online shopping, creating an iconic brand is essential to long-term success.
To make your online store more customizable, you’ll need two modules. One module that is easy to make simple edits and a more advanced one that allows you to modify the code so that you can customize your store to suit your needs. It is why you’ll require accessibility to CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files.
The tools for customization available in PrestaShop can help you organize your products in a complete way and build an in-store search to assist customers in navigating your shop or even create different payment options.
There are also over 1500 templates and a large variety of custom-made themes on PrestaShop’s marketplace. PrestaShop market. Third parties create most of these templates. That’s why you’ll be paying around $60 for a premium template made by PrestaShop-approved partners.
Product Creation
PrestaShop offers an uncomplicated product creation section that allows you to create as many products that you’d like to market. It is also possible to set up features to show the expiry dates of time-sensitive items. You can also offer downloadable products with PrestaShop.
Additionally, it also lets you manage your inventory and create restocking alerts when a product is out of inventory. There is also an SEO section, where you can input a Meta title and a Meta description.
Google Rich Snippets
The huge number of users seeking out products via Google indicates that the SERPs rank is vital. Rich snippets of code allow search engines to categorize data.
It allows customers to view products they are looking for and look up prices. That’s why it is essential to include Google Rich Snippets in your product’s links. It will give an instant increase in the effectiveness of your SEO efforts.
Google Rich snippets Google Rich snippets are in the PrestaShop add-ons market. Utilize it to enhance your reach and enhance the customer experience.
- Marketing
Although you must take the extra step to discover custom features, PrestaShop offers a wide array of marketing tools built-in. These include:
- Special deals
- Affiliate programs
- Discount mode
- Gift wrapping
- Coupon codes
- Email marketing
- Free shipping
- Payment Processing
In order to make your website fully capable of accepting payments, you must set up an online payment gateway.
PrestaShop offers a variety of payment gateways, including PayPal, Bambora, Discover Global Network, Amazon Pay, Worldpay, First Data, and Authorize.Net. Additionally, it supports more than 250 payment service providers as extensions.
Contrary to that, PrestaShop Ready has only four payment choices. They are Stripe, PayPal, bank transfer, and check payment.
- Manage Customer Relations
To stay in contact with your clients, PrestaShop permits you to email out automated emails following an order to give them an impression of security.
You can also create promotions that target specific products and orders or specific customer groups.
To lower the rate of abandoned carts, PrestaShop lets you email customers to remind them of the items they’ve placed on their shopping carts.
- Legal Assistance
Being able to adhere to the laws is an essential aspect of operating an online shop. PrestaShop has tools for shopping carts that ensure that your store is compliant with the laws of one specific country. For example, Germany has placed some particular rules regarding shopping carts that apply to online retailers.
It is a significant benefit because you’re not likely to find legal support in eCommerce. PrestaShop comes with tools for designing pages that provide legal details to your customers.
PrestaShop Review: Customer Support
PrestaShop has an online community of users who collaborate to solve various issues via forums. Additionally, PrestaShop provides support for paid customers to connect with the representative.
Different PrestaShop plans offer various levels of customer support. The most affordable plan is $225 per month, which includes 3 hours of assistance. PrestaShop provides a year-long subscription for $399 annually for 6 hours of customer support each year.
PrestaShop Review: Pricing
PrestaShop is free to download. But the shopping cart software does have in-platform expenses. You’ll have to pay hosting fees from 1&1 Hosting (hosting partner), ranging between $8 and $15. Additionally, you’ll purchase various paid modules to create an attractive and efficient store.
PrestaShop may not provide an option to trial the program for free similar to other major players in the field of eCommerce However, it doesn’t have to.
If you’re creating your eCommerce site, you can look into the no-cost version of PrestaShop that can help you understand how it functions and the features you’ll need to spend a little extra on.
PrestaShop Review: Integrations
There’s more than just the wide variety of dynamic themes you’ll have to think about in order to make your PrestaShop design stand out. Also, there is a myriad of PrestaShop extensions to consider as well. If you’re searching for an option to integrate things such as PrestaShop or WooCommerce customer interaction tools to the website, you’ll have more expenses to think about.
The integrations available generally are available as part of a single purchase. The majority of add-ons are less than $100, but some of them are priced higher as well. The addition of multiple integrations on your website could result in a high cost.
In addition to the cost factor, there could be another drawback to creating your site block-by-block with the plugins and modules that PrestaShop offers.
Since the integrations that are available on the marketplace are created by a variety of developers from across the globe, there’s no guarantee that everything will run exactly as you expect it to. If you don’t have the skills necessary to solve code issues when they occur, you might run into trouble.
In fact, adding several modules covering everything from inventory management to checkouts can quickly result in the website becoming slow and glitchy.
While it’s great to be able to use a platform that offers you the flexibility to add functions however you like, you’ll have to be cautious about what you put on your website.
PrestaShop Review: Payment Options
The shop that looks stunning and has a variety of additional features is excellent. But, it’s not very effective if you are unable to come up with a method to manage your customers’ transactions too successfully. There is a lot of e-commerce software on offer from PrestaShop; however, it should be placed to the add-ons section on the website in which you will discover some free software and many premium alternatives.
To make payments, you’ll need an external processor or merchant account using prestashop.com’s PrestaShop Checkout option. The payment processors that are currently available to American retailers include:
- Amazon Pay
- Discover Global
- WorldPay
- Authorize.Net
- First Data
- FattMerchant
- Simplify Commerce (Mastercard)
- Bambora
- CCBill
- PayPal for US and Canada
- BS Payone
- BlueSnap
PrestaShop Review: Security
There are many things to think about when creating your online shop, from what items you’ll be selling and what your checkout procedure is going to appear like. The most important thing is to be sure you don’t miss your security measures.
The open-source Software that is available for download in PrestaShop is PCI certified. It means it’s prepared to be secure. However, you’ll need to be able to ensure that everything is secure as it can be. Your PrestaShop store will not be able to meet the requirements by itself, and you’ll still require to purchase an SSL certificate and also check on any security patches that are available.
There are many factors, such as the need to control your own security practices that make PrestaShop’s open-source Software extremely difficult for newbies. If you’re just beginning to learn about e-commerce and are just starting out, the last thing you’d want to do is reduce your efforts on issues like privacy and security as you’re trying to start your online store in the shortest time possible.
It doesn’t matter how fantastic the remainder of your store or how appealing your merchandise might be your products are. They won’t buy from you if your store is not offering them a safe shopping experience.
Our Verdict
If you’re just beginning your journey and don’t have enough money, you should think about PrestaShop. Because it’s an open-source software product, it is easy to download. The numerous features make PrestaShop an ideal choice to think about. It’s simple to follow the setup procedure and can be learned from their demonstration. It doesn’t require a tech surveyor to set up. Just follow the guide.
When creating products, you can offer both physical and digital products. There are more than 1500 themes to select from. The shop’s appearance will be stunning. You can also add a Meta description of your product to improve the SEO rank of your website.
It is also important to remember that you can include marketing options such as discount mode coupons, coupon codes, free shipping, affiliate marketing, email marketing, and gift wrapping. All of these are designed to increase your sales.
It’s not too bad to give it a shot if you’ve tried PrestaShop or another open-source e-commerce platform.
