What Is PrestaShop? Ecommerce Features & Reasons To Use

PrestaShop is a free, secure, and open-source e-commerce platform. But what is PrestaShop exactly? We look at PrestaShop's many features.

In short, PrestaShop is a feature-rich, free, secure, and open-source e-commerce platform. We're going to dive into the finer details of exactly 'what is PrestaShop?'.

Back in May 2007 the first public version of PrestaShop was released, its come a long way since then having recently celebrated over 100,000 active stores.

PrestaShop interest is growing with a new website launched ahead of the soon to be released PrestaShop 1.5 things are looking good. But exactly what is PrestaShop?

PrestaShop is open source

PrestaShop is an Open-source e-commerce solution. This is great news for several reasons.

It means that the software is free to be used, modified, and distributed as you see fit. You can see the finer details in the Open Software License 3.0.

This affects many things, from the ability for you to ** use PrestaShop freely on your next client project, to support given by the PrestaShop community as it is **open, scalable, and constantly being improved.

What is PrestaShop's biggest strength? Probably being open-source, as it is key to the many areas of PrestaShop we are about to look at.

PrestaShop is packed with features

PrestaShop comes packed with over 275 features out-the-box, and features are improving and increasing with every new version.

Key features include

Product Management

• Unlimited categories, products and attributes
• Product comparison
• Quantity / Stock management
• Multiple images with lightbox
• Product image zoom
• Cross-selling / Related products
• Customer product reviews

Store Management

• Custom store design with PrestaShop Themes
• Multiple 'employees' with customised permissions
• Custom invoices
• Affiliate programme

SEO

• 'Friendly' URL structure
• Google Sitemaps
• Performance settings for maximum speed
• Meta tag support on everything

Checkout

• One page or multi-page checkout
• Guest checkout
• Gift messages / wrapping
• Saved shopping carts

Shipping

• Shipping fees by weight or price
• Billing / Shipping addresses
• Unlimited carriers and destinations to fine-tune your shipping options

Payments

• Integrates with any payment provider through modules (many included).
• Tax by country, states and counties
• Payment gateway filtered by currency

Marketing

• Automated follow-up emails
• Coupons and Vouchers
• Newsletter subscription
• Loyalty programme
• Refer-a-friend

Customers

• Customer groups with custom pricing, shipping settings etc
• Order tracking
• Returns management
• Guest account to full account conversion

Translations / Localisation

• Available in 41 languages
• Allow customer to choose language
• Unlimited currencies with exchange rate sync
• Geolocation - settings based on your customer's location
• Address format for customer's country

Security

• PCI Compliant
• SSL Support
• Secure admin
• Encryption

Analytics / Reporting

• Track visitors
• Track orders and sales
• See best sellers, most viewed products etc

You can see a full list of every feature on the features page of the PrestaShop website ordownload the feature PDF.

PrestaShop Modules

If there's a feature that PrestaShop doesn't come with, the PrestaShop Addons website holdsover 1000 more modules that you can 'plug' into your store to enhance it.

PrestaShop modules could range from supporting a new payment provider, to displaying a fancy slideshow of product images on your home page.

If you're a developer with knowledge of PHP it's straightforward to dive right in and start creating PrestaShop modules of your own for your clients needs.

Lightweight

With so many features you might think things get complicated and slow. This is not the case, asPrestaShop is built to be lightweight and intuitive.

As PrestaShop uses modules for a lot of its features, if there is a certain feature you no longer require it can be disabled, keeping your PrestaShop store simple and agile.

User Documentation

If you're new to PrestaShop and don't know where to start, the PrestaShop website offers User documentation to step you through the process of setting up your store.

PrestaShop is secure

Security is of course a big concern when it comes to running an online store, and PrestaShop is serious about making their software as secure as possible.

PrestaShop supports SSL web hosting, password and cookie encryption and PCI compliance.

If you're wondering what is PrestaShop's stance on security, you can see the finer details on theirSecurity feature page.

PrestaShop is used worldwide

As mentioned, PrestaShop is now used and trusted in over 100,000 active stores worldwide in over 150 countries.

http://youtu.be/jzsrPHGCefQ

Being available in 41 languages, and supporting unlimited currencies, tax and shipping rules, you can truly use your PrestaShop store to service the world.

You can read about other merchant's success stories or see the great work designers have done using PrestaShop in the showcase.

The PrestaShop website also has testimonials from Google, Web Agencies, as well as fellow developers and merchants.

Multilingual

The 41+ languages are driven by a community effort to translate PrestaShop for use around the globe.

You can download language packs from the PrestaShop website, or if you're a native speaker of a language not listed you can contribute too!

PrestaShop is community driven

A lot of what is PrestaShop's strengths comes down to the fact that it is open-source and community driven.

Features such as the language packs mentioned previously would not be possible if it wasn't for the community contributing to the software.

PrestaShop Forums

As PrestaShop is community driven, the PrestaShop forums are a great resource of information from other users or developers willing to lend a hand.

If you get stuck, you can be sure that there is someone that has previously had the same issue and willing to lend support.

You're not stuck relying on call centres or patchy customer service from companies you actual pay to use.

Bug tracking

You can report bugs and issues you find with the software to PrestaShop Forge, the open bug tracker.

This helps PrestaShop iron out problems as quickly as possible, and also ensures that any problems you may come across on your store are fixed in the next update.

PrestaShop Events

PrestaShop regularly gets together with its community members and partners to talk about developments, whats around the corner, and to answer QA sessions.

http://vimeo.com/22682806

You can find out when the next event will be taking place by visiting the PrestaShop events.