In 2024, have you finally decided to open an online store but you still don’t know which platform to use?
What does it mean
Which is the right time to think about creating your e-commerce site and starting your online business.
But to do it best and grasp all the pros of an e-commerce it is necessary to choose the CMS with the most suitable features to manage your store independently. If you are not very familiar with programming languages, the best choice is a platform that is easy to manage and allows you to work intuitively.
A platform like PrestaShop.
This CMS, as we will see in detail throughout the article, has interesting features ranging from ease of use to great customization possibilities, making it perfect for small and medium-sized businesses.
Would you like to know more?
Let’s get started right away!
What is PrestaShop?
Among the most popular platforms in the world, PrestaShop is an open source Content Management System (CMS) used for creating e-commerce sites.
It was developed in 2007 in France, where it still has a very active community that constantly participates in the implementation of the software. Thanks to the work of the community, there are PrestaShop add-ons that continuously improve its performance.
Unlike other CMS, PrestaShop is focused entirely on e-commerce and was designed specifically to improve usability for the customer.
Many professionals, in fact, choose it precisely for its ease of use, despite it being a truly complete CMS. Its very simple structure increases loading speed, favoring users’ user experience.
It lends itself well to creating unique online sales sites, as it offers a huge number of customization possibilities.
Its peculiarity is the separation between content, graphics and programming. In this way each professional figure can deal with a different section (the web designer can customize the graphics of the site, the developer can manage the programming, the copywriter can write and optimize the contents).
In addition to building the site, PrestaShop is also very functional for the promotion of your online shop. In fact, the system has integrated marketing tools that allow you to advertise products in a simple and intuitive way. These include offer personalization, email marketing, discounts and shipping.
Furthermore, with this CMS you can also manage customer relationships and shipments.
PrestaShop, moreover, allows you to reach a greater number of potential customers since it is designed in an SEO friendly way. In fact, within the site you can optimize every single detail descriptions, URLs, images, product sheets and titles.
The functionality and features of PrestaShop
PrestaShop is software designed to provide a highly customizable platform for building medium-sized e-commerce stores. With over 300,000 online retail sites worldwide using this CMS, it is chosen for its advanced features that are well suited to a variety of businesses.
The platform offers numerous tools to optimize e-commerce for search engine positioning, allowing you to increase traffic to the site.
A crucial element in the success of PrestaShop is the high-quality user experience. Customers can easily navigate between pages, monitor order status and enjoy a seamless online shopping experience, especially on mobile devices, considering the growing importance of sales from smartphones and tablets.
For businesses with an international perspective, PrestaShop allows you to easily set up e-commerce for international sales , offering the possibility to display the site in the language of the target countries and promote the brand on a global scale.
Furthermore, the platform allows you to integrate the e-commerce site with social networks , further increasing traffic and online engagement.
The advantages of PrestaShop
Intuitive interface and ease of use have made this CMS the second most used platform in Italy for the creation of e-commerce sites.
PrestaShop is an open source software ideal for creating e-commerce sites. It was created in France in 2007 and over the years it has managed to attract the interest of many developers, bringing together an active and available community around it.
With over 1500 templates and many themes available, it gives you the opportunity to customize your e-commerce until you have a unique and recognizable shop.
Let’s see in detail what all its strengths are.
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It’s simple to use
If you don’t know programming languages, PrestaShop is for you! In fact, once the store has been created, you can add, modify and import your products independently.
Its configuration, however, is a rather complex step for those without technical knowledge. To overcome this problem and make work easier for those who are not software experts, the platform has created a demo in which it explains all the steps to install PrestaShop.
Product creation, integrations, modules and order management, on the other hand, are very simple and intuitive to manage. After creation and installation, you will see that using PrestaShop will be a breeze.
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Customizable
Born as open source software, PrestaShop allows you to customize your online store down to the smallest details. This gives you the opportunity to create a unique and memorable e-commerce site.
The world of e-commerce is now characterized by very high competition which will continue to increase over time. This means that, to stand out, you need to work on creating a unique experience and a highly recognizable brand.
Thanks to PrestaShop, you can customize your store as you see fit, using two modules one for quick changes and one for working on the code and making more important changes to the structure. In the second module you have the possibility to access CSS, HTML and JavaScript files.
Besides this, you can also customize:
- payment methods;
- shipping methods;
- offers;
- warehouse management.
Furthermore, in the official PrestaShop marketplace, there are many templates and themes to customize, some of which are free.
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It has an active community
PrestaShop boasts a large and very active user community. This is a huge advantage because you know you can count on people who are always available to help you resolve any problems and doubts.
In an extended community it is very likely that someone has had similar problems to yours and can explain how to deal with them.
Furthermore, asking the community for help is free and saves you the cost of customer support.
Furthermore, being an open source software, you know that it is constantly evolving. What represents an obstacle today will be solved the following day thanks to everyone’s collaboration.
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Economy
Users can create and manage their online store without having to incur costs for acquiring the software or using the platform itself. This business model contrasts with proprietary solutions that require the payment of usage or acquisition licenses, often at high fees.
This feature makes PrestaShop particularly attractive to small and medium-sized businesses that may not have a large budget to invest in software and e-commerce platforms.
Additionally, a wide range of modules, themes and other extensions are available for free or at low cost , giving users the ability to tailor their online store to their specific needs without having to invest in expensive custom solutions right away.
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Marketing tools already integrated
In addition to the great possibility of customization, on PrestaShop you can find many integrated marketing tools.
Marketing tools are very useful for managing discounts, shipping and customer relationships.
Built-in features let you control:
- the personalization of offers;
- management of discounts;
- i coupon;
- tools to manage shipments for free;
- l’e-mail marketing;
- gift wrapping;
- affiliate programs.
These tools allow you to make your store much more attractive and improve the overall consumer experience.
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It is SEO friendly
In the Internet universe, an SEO friendly site can make the difference.
PrestaShop is designed specifically to allow you to optimize your e-commerce at an SEO level :
- the pages,
- the product sheets,
- titles and descriptions,
- the alternative text of the images,
- URLs.
This helps you rank better in search engines and reach your potential customers more easily.
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Fast and flexible
Do you know how long it takes to intrigue a visitor and convince him to stay on your page ?
Less than two seconds!
This means that the speed of a site is essential to retain the user. And speed is precisely one of the strong points of this CMS.
The simple structure of PrestaShop, in fact, makes it light and fast, guaranteeing users a good User Experience.
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It has many add-ons
There are many add-ons for PrestaShop on the market. The modules are created by different developers and some are available for free while others are paid. If you wish, you can also decide to purchase individual modules.
Adding many modules can be expensive, but it ensures excellent performance for your e-commerce site.
Generally the expense is amortized later with the increase in sales volumes, justifying the initial costs.
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It is constantly evolving
PrestaShop is a constantly evolving solution. In fact, this CMS is implemented and improved every day by its developers and the user community.
What does it mean?
That what is today a problem or a bug is improved and solved quickly with the help of the entire community.
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Supports multi-language and multi-currency
With PrestaShop, sales are not limited only to the national market, but there is the possibility of creating extremely functional multilingual and multicurrency stores.
It is currently possible to offer the store in seventy-five languages, and therefore easily address almost the whole world.
Furthermore, the platform can be connected to the most well-known and secure payment systems , such as PayPal, Apple Pay or Stripe.
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Multistore mode
PrestaShop is defined as multistore because it allows users to manage multiple online stores from the same administration panel.
This means that a single instance of PrestaShop can host and manage multiple e-commerce sites, each with its own domain, product catalog, design configurations and specific settings.
Then, administrators can manage all their stores from a single administrative interface, making it easier to manage and monitor operations across multiple sites.
And each store within the multistore system has its own separate space with a unique product catalog, allowing users to create distinct stores for different brands, markets or customer segments.
The multistore system is especially useful for companies that operate internationally, allowing them to operate stores with languages, currencies and payment options specific to each target market.
Why choose Edana Digital for the creation of a PrestaShop e-commerce
Edana is a web agency specialized in creating PrestaShop sites. For years we have been creating high-performance e-commerce sites for our customers. Our goal is to make the companies that turn to us successful by deploying all our skills in online sales.
