Highly discouraged

[CB]

I am running more and more at a loss with prestashop. While I like it I am also starting to wonder if it is growing at such a rate that the developers are not able to keep up with customer needs. It is interesting to me though that if this is the case that there are so many updates. I have only been working with prestashop for about 9 months. I have a shop up and running and in many common ways running well. However, there are some fundamental struggles with it in terms of basic ecommerce needs that primarily include shipping and payment options. I wonder why so many updates are being so rapidly developed but yet these basic needs continue to be largely unaddressed and in some cases get worse. I would think better to resolve fundamental and basic issues/bugs then proceed forward adding extra features and conveniences.

I have tried repeatedly to post here, as I have also seen many others, who experience 100's of views and few if any replies and equally few resolves. I wonder if most that are viewing are having the same struggles, searching for the same answers and unable to reply. As a business consultant in part, I would caution prestashop in moving forward too quickly. Prestashop is a good product, but if they are not careful it will gain a reputation of a great basic idea of a product but one in which there is in reality little customer support and customers will move on to a product with fewer fundamental problems.

I know that the developers are offering the basic package as a free open source option; however, they also come out with fairly costly modules to patch the basic struggles, and customers who struggle they often end up leaving or resort to buying the patch. Sometimes even then the patches have basic problems left unaddressed. I have seen simple recommendations offered to remedy the continued basic struggles in the program but either none are heeded or the remedy that is developed is so complicated and without instructions for the non programmer that the remedy is in effect useless to the majority of those using the software. Many users continue to use dated versions of prestashop such as 1.3.X because the additional features involving shipping, payment or both coming after these versions either are too complicated or work less than previous versions. I hope that the contributing developers either provide lay user instructions, particularly in the areas of shipping and payment or please simplify the programming. Comparatively I thought that the user instructions provided for earlier versions was a GREAT DEAL more helpful than for 1.4X versions. I also have tried and tested 1.4X versions a number of times with a number of struggles and have never upgraded because of the challenges in shipping and payment alone. Prestashop - Please help your customers.........