Is web developing/programming skills required?

[taniiah]

Hi. Very basic question, but do you need programming skills to use Prestashop? I've been playing on my website using the browser and basically learning as I go. Did very basic customisation of the site and added products, but it seems that you need to program to be able to customise your website a lot, install plugins etc. Do most people simply hire a web developer or figure it out themselves? Also, how would I access the code for my website? Do I have to host it locally? I've done a bit just through Googling so I wanted to try and do/learn as much as possible myself before hiring a web developer if they will eventually be needed.

 

Thanks and sorry for the simply question. Got told Prestashop is very easy to use, but I'm not sure if that meant very easy for someone with next to no programming skills, or very easy for someone with some programming background.

 

Cheers.

[NemoPS]

Quite simply: no.

Of course, it depends on what you need, but to create a basic store, no, you don't need any developer skill

I have a beginner series on my site, if you are interested

 

http://nemops.com/prestashop-101-day-1-installing-prestashop/

[vekia]

if you want to manage your store only - i think that you don't need any programming skils.

prestashop backoffice is intuitive and in fact - easy in use. but you have to learn about it first.

follow Nemos 101 tutorials and also check official user guide: http://doc.prestashop.com/display/PS15/User+Guide

[benjamin utterback]

No, you do not need to know coding knowledge to run a store. Download, Upload to your webhost and start adding products. There are so many resources to learn how to. 

 

I suggest buying a high quality template if you want to change the look. 

 

You host it on a hosting server, you can test it locally but if you want it live it needs to be on a live server.

 

Depending on the amount of customization you need, you may need to have a developer (but that's the same for any website and software)

[taniiah]

Thanks for the reply. I'll check out the tutorials. I've done basic stuff but I got given instructions from a different payment gateway provider and a shipping company to install their plugins and I couldn't work out how to do it because they kept mentioning accessing different files and stuff. I'll post questions if I'm still stuck after looking at the tutorials. Cheers!

[benjamin utterback]

Are you familiar with FTP? We can give you the basics of how to do certain things. Just let us know and we'll do our best to help. 

 

A good base would be to learn the barebone skills of phpmyadmin, mysql, and FTP. 

[NemoPS]

I'd like to add that if you don't want to mess with databases and ftp, you can simply use cPanel and the file manager