As more & more businesses are coming online, the competition among eCommerce companies is ever-increasing. To stand out among them while providing the most efficient online shopping experience to the online shoppers, having a professional functioning eCommerce website is a must. The PrestaShop eCommerce platform fits perfectly with that requirement.
Building an eCommerce website isn’t a piece of cake for everyone. A proper functioning store with appealing design doubles the audience and conversions for the business. PrestaShop is an open-source eCommerce solution with all the possible features that an eCommerce business (Start-up or Enterprise) would need. No need to indulge in coding or hiring a developer. Stick to the end of the write-up and you’ll be aware of the best possible way to achieve that.
The first thing that comes in the mind of someone willing to build/ design a PrestaShop website is the hosting space or localhost platform where the PrestaShop website can be installed. The rest is just designing & configuring the site. The options with PrestaShop are endless.
Where Can A PrestaShop Site Be Installed & Hosted?
You can either buy a domain & choose a hosting plan of your choice (shared/ VPS/ dedicated/ cloud hosting etc.). In the alternative, you can install your PrestaShop website on a web server solution stack package (like XAMPP, WAMP, MAMP) to design your PrestaShop website offline on your local computer. It can later be transferred & hosted to your choice of domain & server.
Websites Types To Build Using PrestaShop Platform:
You can opt to build an eCommerce PrestaShop website (with all the payments & shipment configurations set in place) or you can also make a catalog website to simply display your brick & mortar shop (with no payment & shipment options). Being a brick & mortar shop owner, if you also sell on sites like Amazon, you can also equip your catalog site with your products’ affiliate links.
This article will give you a deep insight into efficiently making an eCommerce PrestaShop website. Follow along until the end of this article for step-by-step guidance.
Main Steps For Building A PrestaShop eCommerce Website:
Step 1: Download PrestaShop from the official PrestaShop website.
Step 2: Name your store & choose from a pre-existing theme template or create your own.
Step 3: Upload your website logo or a sample image for your logo.
Step 4: Add products to your catalog & add a relevant product description.
Step 5: For your PrestaShop eCommerce site, set up the payment methods of your choice.
Step 6: Set up the shipment configuration.
Step 7: Activate your PrestaShop website & it will be live on your domain.
Step 8: Start to sell online. You can manage the orders, customers’ data & even edit your site later on whenever needed.
How To Design A PrestaShop eCommerce Website?
1. Choose A Customizable Theme:
You can choose a PrestaShop theme that fits your needs but make sure that it is customizable to a good extent as well. Design an elegant & professional looking PrestaShop website aligning with business model & customers’ needs. You can customize your theme colors, change fonts, layouts & typography. If you plan to design your theme, ensure that it is responsive on mobile devices too.
2. Set Up Your Product Catalog:
On the website backend, in the catalog section, add & list the products on your website. If you are a bit experienced with the eCommerce industry, you must be aware that products can be easily bulk uploaded using mediums like ‘.csv’ files. PrestaShop allows that & makes cataloging convenient. Make sure to use a unique product ID for each product because when the same ids are encountered, the older products get overwritten.
3. Set Up Payment Methods:
The easiest payment option to configure on PrestaShop is PayPal. You can add more such as debit/ credit cards, e-Wallets, Net Banking/ Mobile Banking, Pay-On-Delivery, etc. to make it easier for website visitors to use their preferred method of payment. You can also configure multiple currencies if you are serving in multiple countries. Make sure to have secure payment gateways. Keep your whole PrestaShop website secure by installing an SSL certificate.
4. Shipment & Order Delivery:
Based on the location of your business & the location of the potential customers you are serving, choose the right shipment company. Some of the worldwide popular ones are FedEx, DHL, etc.
These are the basic things to get your PrestaShop site up and running. Later on, you can add more customization, add admins & editors with selective privileges, add support for multiple languages, add CMS pages for information like the ‘about us’ page, ‘contact-us’ page, etc. Install 3rd party modules to add more functionalities to your website, transform your site into a Mobile App, & a lot more.
If you need any expert assistance while PrestaShop development and designing, reach out to us at support@knowband.com. Our experts at KnowBand, a leading eCommerce Solutions Company, would be more than happy to assist you.
We, at KnowBand, offers everything for PrestaShop Stores along with development services. Check our best-in-class extensions and add more functionalities on your website:
- Launch Native Apps with PrestaShop Mobile App Builder
- Build Progressive Web Application with PrestaShop PWA Mobile App
- Create an online marketplace on the website with PrestaShop Marketplace
- Connect your PrestaShop website to third party marketplace like eBay, Etsy, Walmart, etc. with Marketplace Integrators.
That’s not all. Here are 500+ such amazing plugins. Check all of them from here.
