PrestaShop was founded in 2007 with the aim of making eCommerce more accessible to small and medium size businesses. It’s an open source eCommerce platform which is free, fully hosted and supported. PrestaShop is available for download or Cloud hosting and allows businesses to customise their store and scale their business.
PrestaShop eCommerce Plans, Pricing and Features
PrestaShop has two plans. The first, PrestaShop Cloud is ideal for startups, businesses on a limited budget and those with no programming knowledge. PrestaShop Hosting is their second option, which is designed for stores that carry a large range of products that change on a regular basis. PrestaShop Hosting will incur a monthly hosting charge from your chosen provider.
PrestaShop Cloud
- Free hosting on PrestaShop servers
- Free subdomain
- No installation required
- Limited customisation
- Addons can be purchased
- PrestaShop manages your store
- No access to database
- No access to source code
- Limited FTP access
- No SSL security
Hosted PrestaShop (download)
- Choose your own provider and plan
- You host the PrestaShop CMS in your own domain name
- Download and install
- Complete customisation
- Full control over management of your store
- Full access to database
- Full control over source code
- Full FTP access
- SSL upon purchase and installation of an SSL certificate
To see how they compare, have a look at: UK Merchant Account and Debit Card Processing Fee Comparison.
PrestaShop Features
- Over 600 built-in features
- No limit on listings
- Sell digital or physical products
- Bulk import and export
- SEO features
- Sell internationally
- Run multiple stores on the same back office
Your Store
- Offer various payment methods
- Configure shipping methods
- Shipping pricing
- One-page checkout
- Comply to laws
- Create special offers – coupons, discounts and free shipping
- Increase customer engagement through emails
- Advertise within your store
- Run and track orders
Insights
- Overview of main data
- Marketing performance
- Stock control and popularity of products
- Data on customers – location and purchases
Company Background
PrestaShop was founded in 2007 by Igor Schlumberger and Bruno Lévȇque. It began in 2005 in the EPITECH IT School in Paris as a student project and was originally called phpOpenStore. PrestaShop’s big growth period was between 2010 and 2012 when it grew from a company of 17, to one with more than 100 employees.
PrestaShop has more than 270,00 eCommerce stores around the globe running on its technology. It’s head office is in Paris, and the company is proud of international makeup and diversity. They employ people who are smart and passionate about what they do. PrestaShop looks for people who support their mission which is to be open to new cultures, new ideas and always be open to change.
PrestaShop Pros & Cons
The following pros and cons are based on information available on reviews from Trustpilot.
Pros:
- More than 50 languages
- Multiple currencies
- Large following on forums and discussion boards
- Clear, clean code
- Interface is smooth and intuitive
Cons:
- No templates or optimisation for search engines
- Various flaws which need to be ironed out
- Not enough templates
- CMS capabilities are quite reduced
- Themes and plugins are expensive
PrestaShop Reviews
- Trustpilot: 1.7 out of 5 based on 67 reviews
Based on reviews on PrestaShop’s website and the above reviews, our Merchant Machine score is 1.7 out of 5.
Website: www.prestashop.com
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