PrestaShop ecommerce – some random thoughts
I’ve been using Prestashop for MacMusicGuy.com for several months, and though I’d jot down some views. I was looking for an ecommerce solution that easily allowed downloadable products – this particular shop doesn’t sell physical products – at least for the forseeable future!.
I looked at several different possibilities – Magento, etc – even looked at using WordPress, which could be theoretically doable – but settled on Prestashop because the base store is free, and it comes with a plethora of features. It is easily extensible with add-in modules (similar to the WordPress Widgets and Plugins) – many are free, and there is an active paid developer community as well.
Other attractive features are the options for multiple languages, multiple currencies, multiple shipping partners (which I don’t need for this particular store), and the template design setup.
The shop has been up and running for some time – I am still loading product into the store at odd times, so it will be some time before there are more than a few products available.
Overall, I am pleased with the software. The only two “gotchas” I had to wrestle with were the PHP upload settings on the server – fortunately my host provider (MidGaHosting.com) allows me to change the settings to allow larger file uploads), and needing to unblock some ports on the hosting firewall, which took a bit of trial and error.
Prestashop is available at Prestashop.com. Tell them the MaconMacGuy sent you!
