If you are also wondering “What is PrestaShop and why you should use it for your E-Commerce”, you have come to the right place!
When deciding to embark on a path related to online sales, the main question is: which platform do I use?
In this article we will go to the discovery of Prestashop, seeing in detail what it is and why it is chosen by many to sell online.
The creation of an online store can in fact be scary at first, especially when you are not very familiar with the available platforms and their level of functionality.
But what you need to understand is that all eCommerce platforms have their own set of features, ease of use, and level of flexibility. You just need to choose the one that comes closest to your needs. The choice, however, must be aware, since it is not possible to switch so easily to switch from one E-Commerce platform to another.
This is the reason for these guides of ours. We will try to help you in the conscious choice of the right platform. In the specific case today we will talk about PrestaShop, so that you can understand if it is good for your needs or not.
What is PrestaShop?
PrestaShop is a freely accessible open source E-Commerce platform . It boasts many ready-to-use features, which still make it really appealing to all E-merchants. It works on PHP and from a merchant’s point of view it’s pretty straightforward and you can build complete E-Commerce websites along with great features.
There are many stores created with this platform and just as many are the realities that work there. In fact, thanks to its incredibly intuitive interface, it has certainly conquered a good slice of the market. Not to mention that the offer linked to modules and extensions, to expand functionality, is certainly very wide.
Some amazing features of PrestaShop such as advanced backup schemes, high reliability and easy accessibility allow users to have an optimal capacity site.
PrestaShop features
As I told you, PrestaShop has over three hundred built-in features that allow you to manage payment methods, shipping, product listing, suppliers and buyers.
You can also customize your site, thanks to the numerous templates available.
1. Ease of use
The only slightly more technical part of PrestaShop is the installation, which we will see in one of our next guides anyway. Otherwise, the use of this platform is rather easy . It is indeed very intuitive.
For the moment you can see a demo of the platform, to be able to understand the back-end and the front-end and understand a bit how it is structured. PrestaShop is able to provide you with a perfectly responsive online shop, which therefore adapts perfectly to display on all devices, both fixed and mobile.
2. Free and open source
PrestaShop is a totally free and open source platform . You will be able to create a personalized and customizable E-Commerce, quickly and easily. Basically, PrestaShop makes eCommerce website development much easier and more accessible. This CMS is present in over 65 countries and boasts a beautiful community with over one million active members. Thanks to the Community, many improvements to the platform have been possible.
3. Payment gateway
Clearly, if you have an E-Commerce site, one of the fundamental aspects is certainly that linked to payments . With PrestaShop, you can take advantage of different payment gateways such as PayPal, Amazon Pay, Worldpay, Discover Global Network, First Data and Authorize.Net. Furthermore, there are more than 250 payment service providers as add-ons.
4. Marketing Tools
But since an E-Commerce is nothing if it doesn’t have a good marketing strategy, PrestaShop offers you the possibility to add customized features. Among these we find many marketing tools, such as: discount mode, free shipping, special offers, email marketing, affiliate programming, gift wrapping, coupon codes and many others.
In fact, this aspect is fundamental for customer loyalty. A cuddle, which can be a reserved offer, a discount, a gift box, are all strategies that can make the customer come back to buy on our E-Commerce.
5. Easy customization
As I told you, marketing activities are essential for the success of a site. With PrestaShop, you will be able to take advantage of a large variety of modules, which allow you to implement its features. Among these, we find modules such as:
- cross-selling
- Subscribe to the newsletter
- offers and discounts
which can be activated with a single click. These modules can help you customize the site according to your needs.
You will find all modules in the PrestaShop marketplace
6. SEO-friendly
SEO is the most important thing for any E-Commerce business, because a site can be beautiful and functional, but if no one finds it, it surely won’t sell.
PrestaShop makes it easy to develop SEO-friendly URLs. If you have a basic understanding of search engine optimization, PrestaShop allows you to easily edit your title tags, meta title, meta description and other SEO related attributes.
7. Internationality
If you want to extend your market internationally , you must work to ensure that the customer can read the content on your site in their own language.
PrestaShop supports more than 75 languages ​​worldwide and allows you to edit the site translation. It also allows you to download language packs for different countries to meet the needs of your target audience.
8. Analysis and statistics
Analysis and statistics play a fundamental role in understanding the progress of your sales activity. Thanks to these, in fact, we can understand where to act and change our strategy.
Prestashop helps to keep track of our website visitors and their conversion point. Thanks to these activities, we can actually modulate our strategy, perhaps offering discounts or personalized offers.
In PrestaShop troverai una dashboard molto utile che include piĂą di 20 formati di report di stato che possono aiutare a decidere una strategia di crescita aziendale. Nel marketplace sono disponibili gratuitamente anche altri addon per analisi e statistiche.
9. Piattaforma PrestaShop in costante miglioramento
PrestaShop è una piattaforma volta al miglioramento continuo. In questi anni infatti, è cambiato molto, adattandosi a quelle che erano le richieste dei clienti e del mercato.
Se infatti osserviamo il suo percorso, vediamo che la piattaforma si è evoluta molto e continua a rilasciare nuovi aggiornamenti.
PrestaShop ha prestato particolare attenzione al suo marketplace dove troverai molti moduli ed estensioni per migliorare il tuo E-Commerce.
Conclusion
We have seen the general characteristics of PrestaShop and why it is one of the most used platforms.
Its maintenance and prices are much cheaper than other platforms , not to mention that it allows even a non-technical person to work with it and customize it. Then, in case you are looking for custom solutions, you can always hire PrestaShop developers to help you.
PrestaShop is multilingual and multi-currency software that allows you to launch your site internationally. Not to mention that the platform is constantly improving and what’s better than a large community that extends its support in all types of PrestaShop development services.
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