PrestaShop
PrestaShop is an e-commerce solution which is free and open source. It supports payment gateways such as Google Checkout, Authorize.net, PayPal and Payments Pro via API. Further payment modules are offered commercially.
PrestaShop is available under the Open Software License and officially launched in August 2007 for small to medium-sized businesses. The software, which is based on the Smarty template engine, is currently used by 100,000 shops worldwide. PrestaShop was named the Best Open Source E-Commerce Application in the Packt 2010 Open Source Awards and the Best Open Source Business Application in the 2011 Open Source Awards.
The PrestaShop group was founded in Paris, with a second office recently opened in Miami. Over 40 languages are available to varying degrees, with only English and French having full support in all release versions. Technical support is provided on the official forum.
The software makes extensive use of AJAX in the admin panel, while module blocks can be easily added to the store to provide extra functionality; these are normally provided free of charge by independent developers. The makers of PrestaShop have an official marketplace for priced modules and themes entitled PrestaShop Addons.
Since PrestaShop is a widely accepted Shopping cart software there are a number of volunteers who support and contribute Addons. Contributors often program additional features for the software, even though it is loaded with 275 features already. Recently Mob eCommerce has released Mobile app for Prestashop. Now PrestaShop users can have a mobile app for their customers which will increase the sales.
- Technical requirements
- Apache web server 1.3 or later, PHP 5 or later, MySQL 5 or later and a Linux, Unix or Windows installed operating system.
- (*) Incompatibility issues with the following PHP 5 versions prevent PrestaShop from working correctly:
- PHP 5.2.1 (authentication is impossible), PHP 5.2.6 (authentication is impossible under 64bit servers), PHP 5.2.9 (image management/upload broken) and PHP < 5.2 (invalid date timezone)
- General feature list
- Front Office:
- Special deals (price reductions, gift vouchers), Featured products on homepage, Top sellers on homepage, New items on homepage, 'Free shipping' offers, Cross-selling (Accessories), Product image zoom, Order out-of-stock items, Customer subscription & user accounts, Unlimited payment methods, Payment by bank wire, Google Checkout module, Cash-On-Delivery (COD), Preconfigured for Paypal, Multiple-recipient contact form, Product tagging & tag cloud, Search, Merchandise return (RMAs) & credit slips, Package tracking, Offer gift-wrapping & recycled packaging, PDF customer invoice, Shopping Cart recall, Sale of services & virtual goods, Custom Favicon, RSS feed, Newsletter opt-in, 'Pick up in-store' option, Customized product (text and images), Wishlist, Loyal customer program, Affiliate program, Sponsor-a-friend benefit program and Customer product reviews.
- Back Office:
- Unlimited categories & subcategories, Full-featured WYSIWYG text editor, Unlimited product attribute combinations, Unlimited product specs, Unlimited images with automatic resizing & file optimization, Unlimited currencies, Unlimited tax settings, Unlimited carriers & destinations, Tax by state, country, both, zones, or no taxes, Digressive pricing (Quantity discounts), Real-time currency exchange rates, Inventory management, SMS/Text-message alerts, Add/delete function modules, Bar codes, Contextual help, Attribute Combo Generator, Delivery status notification e-mails (customizable), Unlimited languages & dialects, Import/export language translations, 13 default language translations, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Friendly URLs / Permalinks, 100% modifiable graphic themes, Back Office users & permissions (ACL ), Maintenance Mode, Minimum order amount, Newsletter contact export, Alias search, Bulk lister/import .CSV files, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption, Visitors online, Content Management System (CMS), Reports and Customer groups
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