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You always wanted to create your own online store but didn’t had the knowledge how to start or what shopping-cart solution to use?
No Problem! In this article I will introduce you the key-features of PrestaShop, one of the most used open-source e-Commerce shopping-cart solutions out there, which is free to use and with a big community.
E-commerce week is sponsored by SSLmatic which sells SSL certificates for much cheaper prices (RapidSSL, Geotrust, Verisign) and offers great support. Check their site to get the cheap SSL certificates.
PrestaShop is a professional e-Commerce shopping cart content management system, which you can download and use for free.
Currently it has more than 50.000 community members and more than 33.000 online stores are using it as their shopping-cart solution.
Most people use it because of its scalability and modular structure and very light-weight and fast installation. If you already have PHP knowledge, you will be able to create your own themes in no-time!
If you can’t wait, you can give it a try right know. They are hosting a front-office access and also a backoffice access on their own servers. Click here to get to the demonstration page.
PrestaShop has a lot of great features. Not only for the front-end but also for the back-office.
I will list you only a few of them to give you a small insight, why so many people are using it as their favorite shopping-cart solution.
This is just a small selection of the features. You can take a look at their complete feature-list here.
I prepared a list with some different looking online shops, which are using PrestaShop. You will see how much possibilities and freedom you have, while creating your own themes.
As you see, every PrestaShop theme can look different and can be designed as you wish. If you want to see more sites and get even more inspiration, just click here to take a look at their showcase here.
If you got inspired and want to try PrestaShop right now – go ahead and download it!
The current stable version is v.1.2.5. They also released a beta version a few days ago (v.1.3 beta 1) but it is recommended only for testing.
But before you start downloading, make sure your server meets following system requirements so you don’t step into troubles during the installation.
* Some PHP 5 versions are bugged and prevent PrestaShop from working correctly. You can take a look at the supported versions at their full list of system requirements here.
** PrestaShop works also from MySQL versions 4.1.14 to 5.0, but some features are not working correctly or have strange behaviors.
Now you know what system requirements you need. You can go ahead and start with the installation of PrestaShop.
After you have managed to upload the installation package to your desired directory on the sever, you can go ahead and start with the installation itself.
The first thing you have to do is to access the directory where you have uploaded the PrestaShop installation package.
In case you uploaded it to the root folder of your server (e.g.: http://yourdomain.com), go ahead and type in this address into your browser.
If you have done everything correctly, you will see the automatic installer of PrestaShop which will guide you through the installation. On the first step you can choose your default language which you want to use in your online shop.
On the next page (picture above), the application will perform a system check. If everything is alright, green check-marks will appear and you can continue the installation.
If you run into a problem and need help, don’t hesitate and go to their wiki or the forum to request help. I’m sure one of the 50.000+ members will be able to resolve you problem! :)
On step 3 of the installation you have to enter your MySQL connection details for the database you have to create.
If you are new to PrestaShop, choose the “Full mode” for your installation. This will install all basic modules, sample products and the default theme so you can take a look how everything works.
The installation is now almost complete. All you have to do now, is to enter your login information for the back-office. Optionally you can also upload a logo image for your shop.
Once you have done that, go ahead and click “Next”.
Your PrestaShop is now installed and ready to get used!
On the last page you will see all your details you entered again. Also you will get the links to your front-office and the back-office (you should bookmark them – just in case..).
Also don’t forget do delete the “install” folder from you server and rename the “admin” folder, so everything is secure!
Congratulations! You should now be able to see the default theme of PrestaShop, once you entered the URL in your browser:
The installation of new modules to your PrestaShop is a very easy process. Those are the steps you have to do:
Once you have finished configuring the module, be sure to test it so you can confirm that it is working as it should.
To install a new PrestaShop theme, you have to do following steps.
Congratulations! You have installed your new theme and to check it out, go to the front-end of your online shop and take a look at it!
I hope you enjoyed this short introduction to PrestaShop.
As you see, it is very easy to use, has a lot of very useful features and can be easily extended with new modules. Also it is a professional shopping cart solution for your online shop, used by a lot of people.
Another big advantage is that it is open source and has a very big community where you can ask for help, once you need it.
Now go ahead and start designing your own themes or browse the web for finished themes. There are also a few free themes you can download and install on your server.
Good luck with your online shop!
E-commerce week is sponsored by SSLmatic which sells SSL certificates for much cheaper prices (RapidSSL, Geotrust, Verisign) and offers great support. Besides standard SSL certificates, wildcard and EV certificates are offered with discounts too. Check their site to get the cheap SSL certificates.Get The Only Freelancer crash course you will ever need to read!
Daniel Kurdoghlian is a freelance web designer, web developer and graphics artist living and working in Vienna (Austria). He is also founder of PushingPixels.at, a new media company specialized in web design, print design and photography. If you want to get in contact with him, you can visit his vCard or just drop him a line through Twitter.
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012 09:02
well crafted post and also very useful specially for the newbees in the industry much appreciated: )
Sunday, December 11th, 2011 16:26
hi mate, i have been reading your site and is very useful, keep up your great work, I am going to sell my herbal products online so downloaded Prestashop and bought domain name (www.keepingyouhealthy.co.uk) at 123.reg and hosting at Godaddy.com, then I read there as the both different sites I need to update my name server, I am stuck could you please tell me how to update that please? it would be great help.
Friday, December 9th, 2011 01:20
Great article, thank you for your labor.
It would be interesting to consider separately the Open Source and SaaS solutions.
We are using for all of our projects Zend Framework.
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 18:15
Hi guys!
Did you tried Store Manager for PrestaShop? It’s really great time-saver. At the website they telling that it saves nearly 2 hours and it’s true. I recommend this software for bulk updates. It worth money.
Monday, November 14th, 2011 08:17
I Used it for my some sites and it works great. I recommend a prestashop for ecommerce site and joomla for CMS sites :)
Friday, August 19th, 2011 07:26
You have done great job!! These themes and tutorial of prestashop will be very useful for prestashop users. Thanks for sharing it here. Keep sharing more knowledge…..
Friday, September 9th, 2011 17:38
Paid themes don’t work. Prestashop support is very, very bad ! The worst I’ve ever seen. Magento is far better than Prestashit !
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 16:28
having spent the last week setting up a prestashop, I’m inclined to agree with you.
The theme we bought wouldn’t work, so we asked for help, got ignored, asked again, got ignored, asked for a refund and somebody fixed it! Now the theme is fixed, other aspects of prestashop have broken and being completely ignored on their forum and support, i’m left hacking the code.
I think I’ll be having a look at magneto sooner rather than later.
Friday, July 29th, 2011 07:52
nice article. where i can find the complete video tutorial???
Friday, July 29th, 2011 07:51
i learned a lot about prestashop. this is very good article. thanks
Monday, July 11th, 2011 20:42
Wow.. very inspiring..
A like prestashop.. complete and elegant..
keep sharing :)
Saturday, June 18th, 2011 15:55
Hi there,
I found your article extremely interesting and useful. However, I still feel a little confused about how to get everything set up. Basically I’m a web designer, but I generally only work within the design field (making it look pretty!), rather than the technical elements. I’ve been keen to set up my own e commerce for a long time and this seems to be the perfect solution. I would obviously like to achieve an aesthetically pleasing site and don’t want to be limited by template restrictions, however will my lack of programming knowledge hinder this? I.e I was even a bit puzzled by the system requirements etc.
Any suggestions would be fantastic.
Thanks
Saturday, June 18th, 2011 17:50
Hi, you might want to check this article: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wordpress/ecommerce-themes-and-plugins/ about e-commerce. It has several plugins you can use, no programming required. Also, be sure to check the links just before the article ends, there are lots of useful things you surely would want to read. :) Good luck!
Sunday, June 19th, 2011 12:21
Thanks for your reply it was really useful.
I have looked into Prestashop in more detail as well and now I’m trying to decide upon an appropriate host which will be compatible with the software, I’ve heard that iPage is good and has ftp and databases and all the other feature required, however I’m not sure if it will work with the latest version 1.4.
Any ideas?
Thanks again
Thursday, August 18th, 2011 03:02
use 000webhost free
does suport it tryed i out just the same as as normal but has a downside to it because doesn’t have a cpanel elite version
go to youtube and type mzytv and I will make a tut about 2morrow.
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 14:24
PrestaShop is a total ecommerce package based on PHP and using MySQL data management. This is free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart system. With this powerful tool, you can build, launch and manage an on-line store without paying any licensing fees.
You can migrate the following entities to PrestaShop with Cart2Cart service – currencies, manufacturers, product categories, products, product attributes, customers, order, order status, product images, category images, etc.
Customers’ credit card information is not migrated. Though, the information about customers’ billing, shipping addresses will be successfully migrated.
When the migration process is completed all registered customers will have to use password recovery form on the target shopping cart to use their profiles, due to the fact that various shopping carts use different password encryption algorithm.
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 14:35
HI! Thanks a lot! Very helpful guide!
I just got my PrestaShop e-store and I’m so excited about it. I like design and admin. I was recomended from PrestaShop Forum to use Store manager for PrestaShop. I just got trial version.
Did someone try it? The describtion sounds great ( to manage categories, products, product attributes, manufacturers and suppliers, import nad export), but I’m not sure I can use it because of my beginner level.
Thanks a lot!
Mark.
Thursday, December 16th, 2010 18:05
I didn’t know much about this until now. Thanks for sharing!
Saturday, May 15th, 2010 08:56
i am consider how install WordPress in prestashop as use the unique articles to generate traffic and bring up the index prestashop.
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 02:23
Does PrestaShop work well with the WordPress Thesis theme? Can I use it with WordPress Multi-User?
How does it compare to quirm’s e-Shop or the WP e-commerce plugin by Instinct?
Thank you.
Sunday, March 28th, 2010 20:56
I need your help guys. How do I integrate my own template to prestashop. I read that everything should be done at the global.css but where do I see the changes to test ???
Sunday, March 28th, 2010 01:06
I agree PrestaShop is one of the best e-commerce CMS that are free. Its easy to setup and it has clean back-end for everything. The best thing is, that Presta has a great support forum, so for all the “noobs” this is a major + ;)
Friday, March 26th, 2010 12:31
Is it easy to setup a shop in languages other then English, and in more than one language?
Sunday, March 28th, 2010 21:34
Yes, it’s one of the key-features of PrestaShop.
You have even the option to directly set it up during the installation.
Also it’s no problem to do it on a finished installation.
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:54
Great you liked it!
You’re welcome – Also make sure to take a look at our other articles of the e-Commerce week!
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 06:28
It was a lucky to find this post, as I’ll be setting up an online shop with a friend soon. I had no real idea where to begin, but now I’ll start by exploring PrestaShop (hopefully, it’s as easy as you suggest). Thanks for the tip, and your great site.
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:52
Great to hear that!
If you stumble upon some difficulties, don’t hesitate to take a look at their support forum!
You’re welcome!
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 14:25
First !
Great Post.
I like and I have worked with Prestashop. It’s a very good and simple CMS.
A other site for your selection using Prestashop too :
http://store.otra-vista.com
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:51
Thanks for your feedback mec!y,
I took a look at your posted Prestashop page – looks quite nice!
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 13:05
Thanks for this, I will give Prestashop a trial. Currently using Magento but have to say the backend of Prestashop looks much more intuitive on initial viewing.
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 14:47
I am also on the train, Man. Will try prestashop. I think its faster that Magento
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:50
Can’t say much about Magento – but the back-end is very easy to use in Prestashop (I would say). So a very good alternative compared to Magento.
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 13:28
Can tell you for sure. We have it online for over a year now, and tried magento first, as we wanted a multistore function. Happy we went for prestashop, as it’s loved by google ;-)
Friday, February 4th, 2011 19:04
Marco, I’m considering using Prestoshop but require a multistore facility i.e. many vendors using the same store to sell their products using one cart. I saw you mentioned multishop. Have you got something similar working in Prestoshop or did you go for someting else. Thanks, Andrew
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 12:33
It’s nice to see that prestahop is gaining the attention it deserves.
Prestashop is areally good alternative to big e-commerce solutions and works well on shared hosting.
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:48
Yes you’re right and also the speed of it is quite good.
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laurent
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 12:33
It’s nice to see that prestahop is gaining the attention it deserves.
Prestashop is areally good alternative to big e-commerce solutions and works well on shared hosting.
Daniel Kurdoghlian
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:48
Yes you’re right and also the speed of it is quite good.
Marko
Sunday, March 28th, 2010 01:06
I agree PrestaShop is one of the best e-commerce CMS that are free. Its easy to setup and it has clean back-end for everything. The best thing is, that Presta has a great support forum, so for all the “noobs” this is a major + ;)
Daniel Kurdoghlian
Sunday, March 28th, 2010 21:35
Nothing to add there – agree to all :) ++
snlr
Friday, March 26th, 2010 12:31
Is it easy to setup a shop in languages other then English, and in more than one language?
Daniel Kurdoghlian
Sunday, March 28th, 2010 21:34
Yes, it’s one of the key-features of PrestaShop.
You have even the option to directly set it up during the installation.
Also it’s no problem to do it on a finished installation.
amina
Sunday, March 28th, 2010 20:56
I need your help guys. How do I integrate my own template to prestashop. I read that everything should be done at the global.css but where do I see the changes to test ???
pix
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 02:23
Does PrestaShop work well with the WordPress Thesis theme? Can I use it with WordPress Multi-User?
How does it compare to quirm’s e-Shop or the WP e-commerce plugin by Instinct?
Thank you.
mec!y
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 14:25
First !
Great Post.
I like and I have worked with Prestashop. It’s a very good and simple CMS.
A other site for your selection using Prestashop too :
http://store.otra-vista.com
Daniel Kurdoghlian
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:51
Thanks for your feedback mec!y,
I took a look at your posted Prestashop page – looks quite nice!
janice
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 13:05
Thanks for this, I will give Prestashop a trial. Currently using Magento but have to say the backend of Prestashop looks much more intuitive on initial viewing.
Saad Bassi
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 14:47
I am also on the train, Man. Will try prestashop. I think its faster that Magento
Daniel Kurdoghlian
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:50
Can’t say much about Magento – but the back-end is very easy to use in Prestashop (I would say). So a very good alternative compared to Magento.
Marco
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 13:28
Can tell you for sure. We have it online for over a year now, and tried magento first, as we wanted a multistore function. Happy we went for prestashop, as it’s loved by google ;-)
Andrew Davis
Friday, February 4th, 2011 19:04
Marco, I’m considering using Prestoshop but require a multistore facility i.e. many vendors using the same store to sell their products using one cart. I saw you mentioned multishop. Have you got something similar working in Prestoshop or did you go for someting else. Thanks, Andrew
Alex Flueras
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 07:24
I’ll give it a try for sure. Great article. Thanks.
Daniel Kurdoghlian
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:53
Thank you too! :)
alaJoAnn
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 06:28
It was a lucky to find this post, as I’ll be setting up an online shop with a friend soon. I had no real idea where to begin, but now I’ll start by exploring PrestaShop (hopefully, it’s as easy as you suggest). Thanks for the tip, and your great site.
Daniel Kurdoghlian
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:52
Great to hear that!
If you stumble upon some difficulties, don’t hesitate to take a look at their support forum!
You’re welcome!
VIVROCKS
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 10:23
Good article dude, Thanks
Daniel Kurdoghlian
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 17:54
Great you liked it!
You’re welcome – Also make sure to take a look at our other articles of the e-Commerce week!
lucas
Saturday, May 15th, 2010 08:56
i am consider how install WordPress in prestashop as use the unique articles to generate traffic and bring up the index prestashop.
Nigel Minchin
Thursday, May 20th, 2010 14:54
Very handy heads-up. Thanks!
Deven
Monday, November 14th, 2011 08:17
I Used it for my some sites and it works great. I recommend a prestashop for ecommerce site and joomla for CMS sites :)
Peter
Friday, August 19th, 2011 07:26
You have done great job!! These themes and tutorial of prestashop will be very useful for prestashop users. Thanks for sharing it here. Keep sharing more knowledge…..
Kherfig
Friday, September 9th, 2011 17:38
Paid themes don’t work. Prestashop support is very, very bad ! The worst I’ve ever seen. Magento is far better than Prestashit !
montyveda
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 16:28
having spent the last week setting up a prestashop, I’m inclined to agree with you.
The theme we bought wouldn’t work, so we asked for help, got ignored, asked again, got ignored, asked for a refund and somebody fixed it! Now the theme is fixed, other aspects of prestashop have broken and being completely ignored on their forum and support, i’m left hacking the code.
I think I’ll be having a look at magneto sooner rather than later.
Stephany
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 18:15
Hi guys!
Did you tried Store Manager for PrestaShop? It’s really great time-saver. At the website they telling that it saves nearly 2 hours and it’s true. I recommend this software for bulk updates. It worth money.
Lary
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012 09:02
well crafted post and also very useful specially for the newbees in the industry much appreciated: )
Rashmy
Sunday, December 11th, 2011 16:26
hi mate, i have been reading your site and is very useful, keep up your great work, I am going to sell my herbal products online so downloaded Prestashop and bought domain name (www.keepingyouhealthy.co.uk) at 123.reg and hosting at Godaddy.com, then I read there as the both different sites I need to update my name server, I am stuck could you please tell me how to update that please? it would be great help.
Dan
Friday, December 9th, 2011 01:20
Great article, thank you for your labor.
It would be interesting to consider separately the Open Source and SaaS solutions.
We are using for all of our projects Zend Framework.
Zeeshan
Friday, July 29th, 2011 07:52
nice article. where i can find the complete video tutorial???
Mark
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 14:35
HI! Thanks a lot! Very helpful guide!
I just got my PrestaShop e-store and I’m so excited about it. I like design and admin. I was recomended from PrestaShop Forum to use Store manager for PrestaShop. I just got trial version.
Did someone try it? The describtion sounds great ( to manage categories, products, product attributes, manufacturers and suppliers, import nad export), but I’m not sure I can use it because of my beginner level.
Thanks a lot!
Mark.
Brett Widmann
Thursday, December 16th, 2010 18:05
I didn’t know much about this until now. Thanks for sharing!
Mariana
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 14:24
PrestaShop is a total ecommerce package based on PHP and using MySQL data management. This is free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart system. With this powerful tool, you can build, launch and manage an on-line store without paying any licensing fees.
You can migrate the following entities to PrestaShop with Cart2Cart service – currencies, manufacturers, product categories, products, product attributes, customers, order, order status, product images, category images, etc.
Customers’ credit card information is not migrated. Though, the information about customers’ billing, shipping addresses will be successfully migrated.
When the migration process is completed all registered customers will have to use password recovery form on the target shopping cart to use their profiles, due to the fact that various shopping carts use different password encryption algorithm.
Jessica
Saturday, June 18th, 2011 15:55
Hi there,
I found your article extremely interesting and useful. However, I still feel a little confused about how to get everything set up. Basically I’m a web designer, but I generally only work within the design field (making it look pretty!), rather than the technical elements. I’ve been keen to set up my own e commerce for a long time and this seems to be the perfect solution. I would obviously like to achieve an aesthetically pleasing site and don’t want to be limited by template restrictions, however will my lack of programming knowledge hinder this? I.e I was even a bit puzzled by the system requirements etc.
Any suggestions would be fantastic.
Thanks
Rean John Uehara
Saturday, June 18th, 2011 17:50
Hi, you might want to check this article: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/wordpress/ecommerce-themes-and-plugins/ about e-commerce. It has several plugins you can use, no programming required. Also, be sure to check the links just before the article ends, there are lots of useful things you surely would want to read. :) Good luck!
Jessica
Sunday, June 19th, 2011 12:21
Thanks for your reply it was really useful.
I have looked into Prestashop in more detail as well and now I’m trying to decide upon an appropriate host which will be compatible with the software, I’ve heard that iPage is good and has ftp and databases and all the other feature required, however I’m not sure if it will work with the latest version 1.4.
Any ideas?
Thanks again
emran 13
Thursday, August 18th, 2011 03:02
use 000webhost free
does suport it tryed i out just the same as as normal but has a downside to it because doesn’t have a cpanel elite version
go to youtube and type mzytv and I will make a tut about 2morrow.
Zeeshan
Friday, July 29th, 2011 07:51
i learned a lot about prestashop. this is very good article. thanks
Olaf
Monday, July 11th, 2011 20:42
Wow.. very inspiring..
A like prestashop.. complete and elegant..
keep sharing :)