PrestaShop Concerns and Suggestions

[SteveW1805]

The product holds promise I would say, but I deliver shops to customers.

I cannot continue with Prestashop because the add-ons are too expensive, often don't work, are very poorly supported, and the general support forum leaves much to be desired in terms of input.

I have sent so many messages to add-on developers and hardly any respond. What does that tell you?

I simply cannot depend on the product should it go wrong, even though I code myself.

Sorry guys - you have the makings of something good here, but you must look at your add-on providers and your support.

Good luck all.

[MikeJD]

I think I will be stopping too. Trying to get a simple TinyMCE plugin for image uploading working in v1.3.6 is taking far too much of my time. The response from the forum is not great, just pointing to a Google search which then gives links to other CMSs but nothing for Prestashop specifically. I need to move on to something that works, I can't bill my client for my time and can't waste any more.

[SteveW1805]

I think I will be stopping too. Trying to get a simple TinyMCE plugin for image uploading working in v1.3.6 is taking far too much of my time. The response from the forum is not great, just pointing to a Google search which then gives links to other CMSs but nothing for Prestashop specifically. I need to move on to something that works, I can't bill my client for my time and can't waste any more.

I am downloading Magento as we speak.

Good luck friend.

[evo301]

The end is here for me as well, struggling to get ups worldship to work, buying all sorts of add ons which we ended up having to rewrite anyway - I can basically say I learned a few lessons the hard way, now I have to pay developers to build the same site I already built on prestahop on magento - for things so basic as shipping. Unless someone sends me some hope in the next day to integrate ups worldship smoothly I'm out. Tried Webgilitys ecc which is nice but also had problems, had to buy quick books pro to get that to work - all to just process and order and have it ship properly...SEND HELP FAST

[SteveW1805]

I really hope the powers that be are listening.

[jaimemm]

The end is here for me as well, struggling to get ups worldship to work, buying all sorts of add ons which we ended up having to rewrite anyway - I can basically say I learned a few lessons the hard way, now I have to pay developers to build the same site I already built on prestahop on magento - for things so basic as shipping. Unless someone sends me some hope in the next day to integrate ups worldship smoothly I'm out. Tried Webgilitys ecc which is nice but also had problems, had to buy quick books pro to get that to work - all to just process and order and have it ship properly...SEND HELP FAST

It sounds strange to me that is cheaper & easier for you to build a new site in magento, instead of customize a prestashop distribution to fully support UPS worldship.

[justdogwalking.com]

I have same problem - shipping is prestashop's weakest link and even 1.4 has no meaningful improvement. I am exploring having a module written. However, all but one "developer" has failed the curtesy of any response after their initial interest. I feel PS has a lot of "amateurs" offering the world and delivering nothing.
Nevertheless there are a few "professionals" that so far have kept me loyal to PS, but I am approaching a critical decision time. I just hope the help I need comes out of the woodwork.
I have to say I am just a novice and none coder buiding a shop as a hobby - so I can walk away - though I would prefer to get a worthwhile shop up and running.

[Carolina Custom Designs]

Good luck with Magento! I've tried for the last 3 hours to get it installed and receive nothing but error messages.

I think I will stick with Prestashop!

Marty

[JRGandara]

I started with Prestashop 3 weeks ago. In the beginning was a little complicated, but now I can say I´m happy with the results. From this forum, I can´t complain, I asked several questions in last weeks and just one is still without answers. I think Prestashop eventually will mature and become easier to use.

But I have to agree with you guys about the addons. Hardly they do, at first try, what is promised. There are always some code to be tweaked, even with those which come with Prestashop software. And of course, if someone without software background get involved with this, will be a long road ahead. But like me, with some HTML and C experience, was not that hard. To have a store site like this one I made with Prestashop, here in Brazil, would cost something like U$3500. Until now I spent U$119 from a template plus 3 weeknights. Totally worth for me.

[SteveW1805]

Good luck with Magento! I've tried for the last 3 hours to get it installed and receive nothing but error messages.

I think I will stick with Prestashop!

Marty

The key to Magento is to get hosting that knows the product.

I use Nexcess and they are superb. They install the product for you for free, they know the product backwards, they host the product on virtually dedicated servers - all tuned for Magento, give you all kinds of benefits, and have a starter pack at $25 per month. They are awesome.

Remember, Magento is big and complicated. It uses a lot of resources so, as I say, hosting is crucial.

If you put it on some cheap and cheerful shared host somewhere you will be walking into trouble.

One big thing to look out for from a host is if they support the database engine InnoDB. Magento needs this to manage its database integrity. If your host does not support this - and many don't for reason I cannot fathom - Magento won't work.

Magento plus good hosting makes Prestashop look like a child's toy. And it scales to infinity and back.

Good luck all.

S

[SteveW1805]

I started with Prestashop 3 weeks ago. In the beginning was a little complicated, but now I can say I´m happy with the results. From this forum, I can´t complain, I asked several questions in last weeks and just one is still without answers. I think Prestashop eventually will mature and become easier to use.

But what about support? There is hardly any?

S

[ruudf]

After two days of playing with prestashop I give up as well.

The worst thing is the lack of documentations. No Wiki, no how/to, no nothing. To me that feels like prestashop wants to make money on consultancy.

I feel that the important thing is help each other, either be it in the forum, or by manuals. That is what is totally lacking here.
Take an example at MODx (CMS) and their community, wiki etc.

Ok, next stop is Magento....
Good luck everyone.

[jaimemm]

After two days of playing with prestashop I give up as well.

The worst thing is the lack of documentations. No Wiki, no how/to, no nothing. To me that feels like prestashop wants to make money on consultancy.

I feel that the important thing is help each other, either be it in the forum, or by manuals. That is what is totally lacking here.
Take an example at MODx (CMS) and their community, wiki etc.

Ok, next stop is Magento....
Good luck everyone.

Those kind of comments are pretty unfair.
I think there's documentation enough and it's pretty intuitive for not needing documentation.

Agree that for developing modules, there's not much docs (you can find books online for 6$ come on!), but if you have good development skills, it's super easy to do everything.

The only complain from my side: performance.

There's plenty of people in the forums who just ask & demand, but never gives / cooperate. That's the problem.

Good luck with Magento, it's a super nice tool, much more scalable and with plenty extra functionality (usually not needed for small shops), and of course much less intuitive and difficult to extend.


Cheers

[SteveW1805]

After two days of playing with prestashop I give up as well.

The worst thing is the lack of documentations. No Wiki, no how/to, no nothing. To me that feels like prestashop wants to make money on consultancy.

I feel that the important thing is help each other, either be it in the forum, or by manuals. That is what is totally lacking here.
Take an example at MODx (CMS) and their community, wiki etc.

Ok, next stop is Magento....
Good luck everyone.

There seems to be a breach of the ethos of open-source. There are certainly many people (I was surprised by the number) trying to make cash.

Did you read my previous note on Magento? Hosting is crucial. I have further information here:

http://www.thinkingeazy.com/news-blog/

S

[SteveW1805]

After two days of playing with prestashop I give up as well.

The worst thing is the lack of documentations. No Wiki, no how/to, no nothing. To me that feels like prestashop wants to make money on consultancy.

I feel that the important thing is help each other, either be it in the forum, or by manuals. That is what is totally lacking here.
Take an example at MODx (CMS) and their community, wiki etc.

Ok, next stop is Magento....
Good luck everyone.

Those kind of comments are pretty unfair.
I think there's documentation enough and it's pretty intuitive for not needing documentation.

Agree that for developing modules, there's not much docs (you can find books online for 6$ come on!), but if you have good development skills, it's super easy to do everything.

The only complain from my side: performance.

There's plenty of people in the forums who just ask & demand, but never gives / cooperate. That's the problem.

Good luck with Magento, it's a super nice tool, much more scalable and with plenty extra functionality (usually not needed for small shops), and of course much less intuitive and difficult to extend.


Cheers

Yes, but the add on guys seem to be focused on money and not support. There silence can be deafening.

I think you also miss the point - software packages should be designed so that you need NOT be skilled in development. That is totally counter-intuitive. If you build a software product that needs programming skills to use it - you have built a poor software product. Fact.

S

[jaimemm]

After two days of playing with prestashop I give up as well.

The worst thing is the lack of documentations. No Wiki, no how/to, no nothing. To me that feels like prestashop wants to make money on consultancy.

I feel that the important thing is help each other, either be it in the forum, or by manuals. That is what is totally lacking here.
Take an example at MODx (CMS) and their community, wiki etc.

Ok, next stop is Magento....
Good luck everyone.

Those kind of comments are pretty unfair.
I think there's documentation enough and it's pretty intuitive for not needing documentation.

Agree that for developing modules, there's not much docs (you can find books online for 6$ come on!), but if you have good development skills, it's super easy to do everything.

The only complain from my side: performance.

There's plenty of people in the forums who just ask & demand, but never gives / cooperate. That's the problem.

Good luck with Magento, it's a super nice tool, much more scalable and with plenty extra functionality (usually not needed for small shops), and of course much less intuitive and difficult to extend.


Cheers

Yes, but the add on guys seem to be focused on money and not support. There silence can be deafening.

I think you also miss the point - software packages should be designed so that you need NOT be skilled in development. That is totally counter-intuitive. If you build a software product that needs programming skills to use it - you have built a poor software product. Fact.

S

Please do not forget to leave your feedback here after trying Magento or any other shop framework.

[SteveW1805]

Please do not forget to leave your feedback here after trying Magento or any other shop framework.

Sure. Here and on my blog. Always glad to help.

S

[JRGandara]

SteveW1805,

You right, in the Prestashop menu you don't even find a support link. I totally rely on this forum and with my sparse skills to do the job. And by what I heard here, I was luck to have answered most of my questions.

[SteveW1805]

I was luck to have answered most of my questions

Not a matter of luck. Your questions have been clear, thoughtful, well-written Engilsh. You have asked specific questions which can be readily answered.

In contrast, some posts are too vague (lack of details) to answer. Some pose multiple, unrelated, questions in a single post. Some are "barely" English (English subforums are the dumping ground for users whose native language isn't represented)

I think we've done a fantastic job throughout this past month ~~ very VERY few posts have remained unanswered !

It's not just that Angora - it's the whole cradle of support that is missing: documentation, wiki, FAQs, the "Add On" guys supporting their own products.

As regards your claim that very few posts have been answered - that may true in that there are replies, but it is the quality of those replies that matters and THAT is the bit that is missing. Thus, people do not have their issues resolved. It is impossible to ask: "Can I rely on the support from PS?", and come up with a "Yes" for an answer. That is why I have dumped it.

I will check back from time to time, but my blog will record my experiences so far.

Lastly, you complain about the way people post: "Oh Please" - this is a multi-lingual forum. What did you expect?

S

[SteveW1805]

Yes, in my early posts I had grumbled... until I read (forum index page? forum rules?) that users from non-represented languages are instructed to post, as best they can manage, to the English subforums. "Quality or replies" in response to "it like make for sometime not work plz" can be an impossible task (an observation, not a complaint).

but my blog will record my experiences so far

Ha! Image ("FunnyFarm"?) of the dude holding a clipboard, shouting "This is going in my report!"

You seem angry. Was it because I disagreed with you?

S

[SteveW1805]

I was a little confused by your last post.

But if I confused "anger" with your "passion", then apologise.

S

[ChrisLNZ]

I am amazed at the attitude of a lot of you guys.
I am new to PS - from just after the launch of v 1.4
Yes support is not as good as for a paid product - but what do you expect from something that is free and open source?
Seems to me you want a free option with ALL the work done for you!

One forum member has posted a pretty comprehensive user guide which I have found to be invaluable (PM if you want a copy of the pdf) and also there are many really useful free mods out there.

A search online also gives several guides on how to edit and modify templates.

The comments about module developers not supporting their paid modules is fair - c'mon people if you expect to get paid for something then you should make sure that it works properly!

Good luck to you people who are switching - with all the extra costs and hosting required.
Personally I like the challenge of finding out how things work and getting them tweaked to the way I want

[ChrisLNZ]

Thanks
I didn't keep a link for the pdf but I did download it

[SteveW1805]

This is good. The sort of thing that is needed. Thanks

[aromat22]

Good luck with Magento! I've tried for the last 3 hours to get it installed and receive nothing but error messages.

I think I will stick with Prestashop!

Marty

I agree, I have tried Magento long time ago (2 years and a bit), even went through to a final and live working site - all that for nothing (except to learn never to use it again). I got sucked in (like many others) with nice interface out of the box, lots of features and flexibility. It's a pain to deliver stable and performing site in Magento, and it's very slow. It leaves a footprint of a Yeti and it takes days just to upload it on server. Finding files there is a nightmare too, they are scattered all over the place, in thousands of folders. It would be fair to say that Magento is not a bad option, just it is rather handful to deploy and customise and in my opinion there are better options.

I like the Prestashop and have been following it's development for the past 2 years, however I'm not convinced yet that I can use it (or recommend) for my clients. There are gremlins creeping in from everywhere, and I agree with previous comments that it is deliberately left "incomplete" - not in a true open source spirit. Many key functionalities are paid add-ons only, leaving one to wonder how "free" this product really is. Another thing that bothers me is that code is not valid. XHTML and CSS of prestashop are loaded with errors, and the list is long as Chinese phone book. I keep checking every version and every update, and nothing has changed. Most of these errors are NOT IN THE THEME, but in system files - majority in javascript CSS. If you check with W3C validator, you will find close to 200 errors and over 1000 warning. To me, this is way too many for any production stable cart software, and although I'm not giving up on Presta just yet, it is still work in progress for my liking.

I am a web designer and I have used (and designed stores) in most cart softwares, including commercial ones like Interspire and CS-Cart. From the free open source cart selection, I am using (and would recommend) Zen-Cart. I know it's a bit old fashion and looks a bit ugly out of the box, but that can be rectified in hands of skilful designer. It is the only truly free open source software with a large community behind it, and thousands of freely distributed modules and plugins. You can find just about any add-on you can think of, and you usually have a multiple choice.
You can equip your Zen-cart with off-line credit card processing, delivery date option on checkout (very important for flower shops) and many other things - all free contributions.

From the commercial open source software selection, I would pick CS-Cart professional edition. It comes with most features that are practically needed out of the box, like various shipping modules, off-line credit card processing, fully working newsletter component and much more. (newsletter feature in Prestashop is a joke, I never did understand what can you do with it). CS-Cart professional costs $285, and it's well worth it.

Interspire is probably the best organised and the easiest for clients to manage through top-notch admin area. It is by far the best looking admin back end I have seen, but it comes at a price. Not every client is willing to pay $1000 just for licence, and there are cost for the design to be added. It comes with many templates pre-installed, but they are boring.

So, as far as I am concerned, if the client needs a flower delivery online shop, I will use Zen-Cart. For other types of stores CS-Cart will do for now. I will still keep my hopes for Presta.

[SteveW1805]

The only point I would make is that Magento is somewhat different. It is complex because of the functionality it delivers. It has a big footprint for largely the same reason.

Therefore hosting is VERY important with it. I use Nexcess and everything is working fine.

You can tailor the design quite easily (if you know what you are doing), and the range of functionality is immense.

It is no toy - but with good hosting and a good appreciation of how it works, it is blisteringly good.

Prestashop continues to frustrate me with paid modules not working across releases and the level of support is so very poor. It is a shame because, as I said previously, there is great potential here.

S

[Grégoire Véron]

Hi,
I would just like to answer to a few questions/comments in this post, as a member of PrestaShop team.

@SteveW1805 : that's a pitty if you leave PrestaShop even if you are right about the fact that we definitely need to progress on several level, including addons quality and support. PrestaShop is a real adventure, we have been kind of overpassed by our success at one time but now the team as growed a lot and we will be more able to improve ourselves on the latter subjects.
Can you send me your questions about addons, I will try my best to answer to them?

@MikeJD : Can you also send me your questions about tinyMCE?

@evolve : can you detail your problem?
About shipping : i'm very interested in what we can do better in shipping (a lot of things it seems ;-)). Can you give me some examples and copy-paste them to the feature request tool?

@ruudf & About support/wiki : I'm a bit surprised you didn't check whether a wiki existed before posting. You will find the old wiki here in 3 languages : http://www.prestashop.com/wiki/
The new wiki is here and gives from now on a lot of details about the webservice : http://wiki.prestashop.com/dashboard.action
That's right that documentation could be improved but it's far from nothing.
Support can be freely obtained by phone in english at +33 (0)1 83 64 16 54. I often answer to questions in English, like many of my colleagues ;-) You can also get some "prioritary support" with paid support : http://support.prestashop.com/
Hope that helps...

[SteveW1805]

Hi,
I would just like to answer to a few questions/comments in this post, as a member of PrestaShop team.
@SteveW1805 : that's a pitty if you leave PrestaShop even if you are right about the fact that we definitely need to progress on several level, including addons quality and support. PrestaShop is a real adventure, we have been kind of overpassed by our success at one time but now the team as growed a lot and we will be more able to improve ourselves on the latter subjects.
Can you send me your questions about addons, I will try my best to answer to them?
@MikeJD : Can you also send me your questions about tinyMCE?
@evolve : can you detail your problem?
About shipping : i'm very interested in what we can do better in shipping (a lot of things it seems ;-)). Can you give me some examples and copy-paste them to the feature request tool?
@ruudf & About support/wiki : I'm a bit surprised you didn't check whether a wiki existed before posting. You will find the old wiki here in 3 languages : http://www.prestashop.com/wiki/
The new wiki is here and gives from now on a lot of details about the webservice : http://wiki.prestashop.com/dashboard.action
That's right that documentation could be improved but it's far from nothing.
Support can be freely obtained by phone in english at +33 (0)1 83 64 16 54. I often answer to questions in English, like many of my colleagues ;-) You can also get some "prioritary support" with paid support : http://support.prestashop.com/
Hope that helps...

This does help.

I will send you a PM.

Many thanks,

S

[justdogwalking.com]

Hi

Interesting to note that info is being requested about the shipping weaknesses of PS.

The number of posts on this has surely been frequent enough for the PS team to realise there is a problem.

After 6 months of searching I am about to commission my own shipping module - at significant cost for a hobby shop!

The big issue with PS is that they have not considered the needs of a very large community that use the drop shipping business model - and thats where PS is falls over in my view.

[mecollectibles]

I greatly suggest you always contact shokinro in this forum if you need any module be made as he stand behind his work & his after work service is great.

[ecoshop]

To those leaving behind Prestashop. You will be back. Believe me I´ve tried every single e commerce solution available. In the price range FREE is the only one that delivers what it is promissed.

Magento (free option)
All wordpress solutions
All Joomla Solutions
Os-Commerce
and others I dont remember

None are at the level of Prestashop. It's true it has his bugs and some ties responce in Forums is not as fast as you would like to. But one way or another you can fix it. Besides Modules are in average US$70. Sure you can expect some problems. A super Pro ecommerce solution is thousands of dollars to implement and definetly even more to mantain (usually on a moth basis)

For a starting bussines is definetly the best solution you will find.

Im finishing my own shop and ready for making $$$$

Gonzalo

PD once I left Presta and came back.

[SteveW1805]

To those leaving behind Prestashop. You will be back. Believe me I´ve tried every single e commerce solution available. In the price range FREE is the only one that delivers what it is promissed.

Magento (free option)
All wordpress solutions
All Joomla Solutions
Os-Commerce
and others I dont remember

None are at the level of Prestashop. It's true it has his bugs and some ties responce in Forums is not as fast as you would like to. But one way or another you can fix it. Besides Modules are in average US$70. Sure you can expect some problems. A super Pro ecommerce solution is thousands of dollars to implement and definetly even more to mantain (usually on a moth basis)

For a starting bussines is definetly the best solution you will find.

Im finishing my own shop and ready for making $$$$

Gonzalo

PD once I left Presta and came back.

That does sound like a rather sweeping statement.

Are you saying that Magento is behind PS?

Thanks,

S

[ecoshop]

Magento has 3 versions. The free one is not as customizible as Presta. And there is very little support for it. I tried it and Presta is more flexible. As I said , I tried almost every e-commerce solution and came back to Presta. At least for me I got better results from Presta.

[greypanda]

We tried Ubercart and Magento. They were a disaster. Even after buying the Magento "bible", it was impossible to build a store that could handle more than a few items and still be manageable.

PrestaShop looked promising, but then a new release is tossed out and virtually none of the major problems are solved -- just more cute bells and whistles. Example: just downloaded 1.4.2.5 and discovered the "shop importer" module (Wow! Maybe it will actually import another Prestashop store! ). Tried to configure and it gives a cryptic "no import module" message. Searched to the end of the internet and found nothing but code dumps and svn pages.

With all of the complaints about PrestaShop data access, I can't understand why the export and import issues haven't been addressed. It doesn't help to spend money on add-ons -- they break with every new release. If we could get a decent (and two-way) export and import module working, it would solve half of the complaints. I thought that the webservice code would help, but who has the time to decipher THAT!

And please slow down for a week and give us some kind of documentation about the inner workings of the code. From a cursory exam, it appears to be some kind of translation of a MS .NET MVC, but I sure don't have time to dissect it.

[wolfstores.com]

Hi guys,

I would firstly like to start off by saying I am a huge fan of prestashop. As an ecommerce website developer I have tried most other cms at one time or another and by far prestashop is the best. It is extremely flexible and extendable. I have seen a lot of posts in here about magento but from my experience that is the most complicated system around. Firstly it is the heaviest open source system I have ever seen. The number of options and features is so huge that you cannot find what you want. Even more importantly due to its vast size modifying the code is extremely time consuming. The free version is just a hook really to get you onto one of their bigger paid services. You will become reliant on their support and custom coders. I know, I spent a lot of time and effort on magento.

The prestashop community is one of the best around for an open source project. Everyone is very helpful and friendly. I am not saying all this to start an argument but I just want to save all of you that are thinking of leaving a lot of time and effort.

Best regards,

Tim

[SteveW1805]

Hi guys,

I would firstly like to start off by saying I am a huge fan of prestashop. As an ecommerce website developer I have tried most other cms at one time or another and by far prestashop is the best. It is extremely flexible and extendable. I have seen a lot of posts in here about magento but from my experience that is the most complicated system around. Firstly it is the heaviest open source system I have ever seen. The number of options and features is so huge that you cannot find what you want. Even more importantly due to its vast size modifying the code is extremely time consuming. The free version is just a hook really to get you onto one of their bigger paid services. You will become reliant on their support and custom coders. I know, I spent a lot of time and effort on magento.

The prestashop community is one of the best around for an open source project. Everyone is very helpful and friendly. I am not saying all this to start an argument but I just want to save all of you that are thinking of leaving a lot of time and effort.

Best regards,

Tim

You make some good and fair points Tim.

However, I do feel the support could be beefed up.

I am having quite a bit of difficulty with the Paypal payment module, and yet, even though I have posted about it several times, no-one has been able to help me. As you may imagine this is a crucial module.

I am waiting for 1.4.2 to see if it is fixed. However, if it is not, and I get no lead on how to fix it, how can I use or promote PS?

Best regards,

S

[SteveW1805]

Did someone post something that got removed? I got an email, but when I replied, it said the thread no longer exists??????

S

[wolfstores.com]

Hi Steve,

PM me your paypal module problem and I will see if i can fix it for you

Best regards,

Tim

[SteveW1805]

Hi Steve,

PM me your paypal module problem and I will see if i can fix it for you

Best regards,

Tim

PM Sent.

And many thanks Tim.

S

[wolfstores.com]

Hi,

I just received it and replied.

Hope i can help

Tim

[Carolina Custom Designs]

Hi guys,

I would firstly like to start off by saying I am a huge fan of prestashop. As an ecommerce website developer I have tried most other cms at one time or another and by far prestashop is the best. It is extremely flexible and extendable. I have seen a lot of posts in here about magento but from my experience that is the most complicated system around. Firstly it is the heaviest open source system I have ever seen. The number of options and features is so huge that you cannot find what you want. Even more importantly due to its vast size modifying the code is extremely time consuming. The free version is just a hook really to get you onto one of their bigger paid services. You will become reliant on their support and custom coders. I know, I spent a lot of time and effort on magento.

The prestashop community is one of the best around for an open source project. Everyone is very helpful and friendly. I am not saying all this to start an argument but I just want to save all of you that are thinking of leaving a lot of time and effort.

Best regards,

Tim

Hi Tim!

I completely agree with your remarks. Like yourself I'm a full time web designer and I've tried lots of ecommerce solutions over the years (Magento included) and Prestashop is the BEST that I've used. I find that most that bad mouth Prestashop have very little experience with it and even less experience in actual web development. It puzzles me that some get mad about a product and complain about support when they know very little (perhaps nothing) about CSS, php, html and/or MySQL. It takes some knowledge of these skills to develop in any ecommerce solution (Prestashop included).

I for one am very happy with Prestashop and the incredible progress the team is making. Like someone said above, most that leave Prestashop behind will return once they see just how difficult the others are.

As for support, I try to spend some time each day in this forum helping people with their questions. Frankly, I never received that much support when on the Magento forum.

Stick with Prestashop and you will not be sorry.

Marty Shue

[PrestaSupport]

Hi
Prestashop is in my opinion the best e-cart, I have been working many years with many kinds of e-cart system both open source and paid system. Its not bad to try different system, it gives you experience. I found my favourite and its Prestashop

[Dreamtheme]

I totally agree, PrestaShop is amazing product. I do e-commerce shops from 8 years, and i have tried 99% of all free and paid systems. There is alot to be desired from PrestaTeam, but the path they choose to go is good so i vote two hands about Presta. Prestashop is the best free ecommerse system at the moment. Most of the old days are now abandoned like oscommerce or creloaded and such.

The most important thing after the community for one e-commerce system is the Dev team to actually listen this community and do frequent updates. The rest is a matter of time. And i thing Presta Dev team do a really good job and they develop pretty fast.

[UnknownDady]

Its turned into a gimmick, 100 bucks for an add on - same add on for a different e-commerce shop 10 bucks, whaaat?

[ImpulsoTecnologico]

I've also tried Magento and it became a nightmare. It has a very steep learning curve. I wasted two months of work developing a store and abandoned it. I posted a few of my problems and tried solving them through the forums that they have and to no avail. It also took me some time getting it up and running. My store crashed for no apparent reason because of a bad index and there was no way to get it back up.

I switched to Prestahop and was amazed how fast I got a hold of it. I've resolved most of my problems with the help of the forum and some paid modules, which I gladly paid for. I agreed that there is still lots to do to fix some things, but I can't complaint I got a "free" product.

[MrBaseball34]

Having come from a Prestashop background for a little over a year. I have now come to realize that PS is not as bad as I have always thought or touted. I now work in a Magento shop and it is absolutely the worst experience I have ever come across. Yes, the complexity is there but complexity doesn't mean better, especially when you take into consideration that there are end users out there that just don't get it and developers that don't have to time or inclination to get so deeply involved in the crappy code.

We currently have an ExpressionEngine CMS on the front-end, don't even get me started on this one, either, and the Magento store off the side. The original developer violated coding standards by modifying core Magento code and it is a nightmare. we can't even upgrade from 1.4.1 to 1.5.1 to take advantage of the over 500 bug fixes between those two versions because it would mean major rewrites. We just looked at the release notes for the 1.6 beta and there are over 200 bug fixes just between 1.5.1 and 1.6 in a little less than a month since the 1.5.1 release. This product seems way too buggy to me, no doubt due to it's complexity.

We sell books but we also sell registrations to classes, dues for certifications, etc. The dues and classes are kept in our Oracle back-end, not in the Magento store. The application was customized to query the Oracle backend at run-time to obtain the class list and add to a Magento cart at run-time and the cart contents are sent to the Oracle backend via a web service when order is completed. We've run into many problems and the site hasn't been stable since it was implemented almost a year ago.

Since eBay's finalized purchase of Magento last week, we've been feverishly debating which route to take. We are most likely looking at going to Sitecore, which is an ASP.Net solution for the enterprise. There are a number of things that we require that are not a part of PS and since we host our own sites on Windows servers, have decided to look more into the ASP.Net world. While I could possibly code the parts that we need, it is just not worth it to us to have to do that and Sitecore seems to do everything we need and more, especially on the marketing end.

Oh, for all you looking to switch to Magento, take a look here:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=151989
Take special not about the fact that converting from CE to EE.

[ImpulsoTecnologico]

Thanks MrBaseball34 for your reply. Yes, I forgot to mention what you comment about the bugs, Magento is way too buggy. Of course you can also take a look at the amount of bugs/fixes that are taken care in Prestashop with each release, but it doesn't come close to Magento. Anyway, I'm not going back to Magento.

[cforell]

Did someone complain about shipping? I have asked for help for the past 3 months with nothing. I have emailed tech support and although I know this is a free script. I did pay a good about of money for addons which did nothing. I would think that after 3 months someone would respond to my plea for help either through the forums or prestashop returning one of my 6 emails I have sent. Unfortunately I had to decide to leave and am just trying to find someone who can help export my site to another eCommerce platform like Volusion or Bigcommerce.com

[Mike Kranzler]

Thanks to all of you who have posted here to support PrestaShop. As for people concerned about a lack of response in the forums, well that's why I'm here now! Hopefully I'll be able to either answer your questions or direct you to the right person who can answer them.

 

We're also hard at work on PrestaShop 1.5, so I hope you'll be pleased with the changes in our next release.

 

We're more committed than ever to helping you through these forums, so please keep posting your questions, concerns, suggestions AND successes (we'd love to start featuring the best stories on our Facebook page), support your fellow developers and help PrestaShop continue to grow. Because when we grow, your options grow!

[damian5000]

Thanks to all of you who have posted here to support PrestaShop. As for people concerned about a lack of response in the forums, well that's why I'm here now! Hopefully I'll be able to either answer your questions or direct you to the right person who can answer them.

 

We're also hard at work on PrestaShop 1.5, so I hope you'll be pleased with the changes in our next release.

 

We're more committed than ever to helping you through these forums, so please keep posting your questions, concerns, suggestions AND successes (we'd love to start featuring the best stories on our Facebook page), support your fellow developers and help PrestaShop continue to grow. Because when we grow, your options grow!

 

No offense to you, but we need more than just one person answering questions.

 

 

I installed Prestashop and made a couple of simple adjustments to currency and site language. Nothing fancy, just some clicks within back office and my sitemap no longer works and the link to it has magically changed location. I posted a question about this 8+ hours ago and no reply.

 

Looks like I'll have to reinstall at this point and waste another few more hours of my time.

 

Prestashop has been around for FIVE years and from what I've seen, the support is nothing less than a joke. Especially for one that is making cash off selling modules. Maybe if the software was a month old, I could see this level of care.

 

My situation isn't so bad because I haven't actually populated the shop or opened yet, but can't imagine if something like this had happened after many many hours and money invested in new modules etc...

[MrBaseball34]

<SNIP>

Prestashop has been around for FIVE years and from what I've seen, the support is nothing less than a joke. Especially for one that is making cash off selling modules. Maybe if the software was a month old, I could see this level of care.

<SNIP>

 

I have mentioned in the past that if I were in charge of support for this product, I'd require the developers take time to answer questions on the forum. When is the last time you actually saw one of PS developers even comment on something in the English forum, maybe in the French forum, I don't know. But if they are commenting in the French forum, then PS needs to make adjustments and require some of them to also post in the English forums.

 

Commitment to support a product is paramount to its success and the commitment that Prestashop is making to this product doesn't make for a very successful product, regardless what the numbers may say.

[aivars]

I have started with prestashop 6 months ago after 1 months search for free or cheap e- commerce solutions with chance of creativity in design and functional options.

I am very happy with it. I had issues and still having some, but most of them been resolved by exploring this forum and following prestashop gurus suggestions. My site now is pretty cool in functionality and reliability(I hope)and very different from default design. I wish I could leave "powered by prestashop" in my website and email footers , but it would scare some of customers to see its for free. thanks prestashop team for this free e-commerce.

 

Note - I have had no web designer experience in any of web developers cods.

If you not happy with prestashop is time for you to pay designers to make and maintain your personalised e - shop. And be sure it will not be cheap.

 

About add-ons price - i do not think average price ~ 50 euro is expensive. If it is for you - sorry your business is likely to be not serious. Turn to e-bay then.

 

French forum is easily readable - ask your internet browser(google crome) - translate to english - or set auto translate to english.

[Lindsayanng]

aivars - most of the people here complained ARE DEVELOPERS.. they aren't store users complaining that they can't get their carts to work.. they are web designers and developers who have deal with a ton of issues on this cart. It seems that the novice user selling simple products is relatively happy with the cart, and that's fine.. if thats what the cart is going to be.

 

and in regards to the modules.. you dont seem to grasp the concept of open source. It pretty goes against the open source ethos to offer a lot of the stuff thats up there as a paid module. Also, if you pay for a module it should work .. out of the box.. with no hacks. A LOT of the ones are available do NOT work out of the box and require a good number of hacks.. not to mention their support SUCKS which means you paid for a pile of garbage to start you off to making your own functioning module

[aivars]

Lindsayanng - if most of people who complain are developers - developer should be able to code their own modules or adds without any problem in reasonable time. Most of these developers could be possibly who sell for money prestashop open source + their modifications to customer who ordered solution of e commerce and pay money.

I understand concept of open free source - there is no any 100%. Wordpress also charges money for addons and so on.

Yahoo Flick ask for money for same futures. Church asks money for wedding or funeral!!!

I purchased 2 modules, Advanced Top Menu and SotEW's AddBlocks total for 80 euro up to day and they are working very well, indeed. Worked out of box - but before purchase you have to make sure developer of module is serious and good.

Is there refund possibility for pretashop modules - check it.

 

However, I agree with your opinion as well.

Do you noticed any prestashop compatibility issues with Internet Explore 9, and I am not speaking about designe or CSS. Its my new worry starting from today. I hope prestashop community will help me!!!

Here is issue in French forum - read it, its concerning

And my topic - link to my topic

 

and something more - if your sell difficult products to difficult customers and there are 1000 and 1000 orders. Its time to move on and get services from high street developers for your specific needs.

[damian5000]

 

About add-ons price - i do not think average price ~ 50 euro is expensive. If it is for you - sorry your business is likely to be not serious. Turn to e-bay then.

 

Do you noticed any prestashop compatibility issues with Internet Explore 9, and I am not speaking about designe or CSS. Its my new worry starting from today. I hope prestashop community will help me!!!

 

 

 

You've got too much money to throw around if you don't think an add-on of 50-80+ euro is too expensive. Most people aren't just going to need/want a 1 add-on and don't have many hundreds of $$$ to invest in software that often has issues (*see your issues with IE9) and has virtually no support.

 

Re issues IE9, consider hiring a high street developer or perhaps turn to eBay.

[aivars]

IE9 issue is 5 hours old - for me. I am sure I will resolve it with 0$ cost and soon. I did not asked for pretashop support, yet (i am shy). I will probably try and will report how it is.

E-bay is actually too expensive for small sellers - like me. Commissions and listing of products cost money - and most of my target customers would not buy or visit ebay. And SEO of prestashop is so great - I beat even manufacturers shop. .... as long as you are not selling IPhones of course.

 

What you think average addon number you need even for difficult project. Give me a list if more then 5

80 dollars is not expensive. I spend that money in local grosser easily in one go. That money is reword for developers work if you not happy with default 285 functions of prestashop which you was free to explore before having anything to do with prestashop. .