Do you have a product to sell? You must find a reliable online store builder to make your own ecommerce website from scratch.
Luckily, we’ve got a guide on Shopify vs Prestashop that can help you decide which ecommerce solution is the best.
Whether you are launching an online store for the first time or you want to scale your online business, we’ll examine the different features of a fully hosted platform built with ecommerce features.
Let’s start and determine the right ecommerce platform to build a successful online store: Shopify vs Prestashop.
Article Overview
Shopify vs Prestashop: An Overview
Prestashop vs Shopify: Main Features
Prestashop vs Shopify: User-Friendliness
Prestashop vs Shopify: Pricing
Prestashop vs Shopify: Support
Prestashop vs Shopify: Security
Why Choose Prestashop vs Shopify
Why Choose Shopify vs Prestashop
Final Thoughts
FAQs
Shopify vs Prestashop: An Overview
Shopify and Prestashop are two names mentioned when someone is looking for the best ecommerce platforms. They have overlapping features and some key differences.
Prestashop is an open source ecommerce platform that has the capabilities to help you build a small online store or a website that offers online shopping cart functionality. No matter where you are in your ecommerce business journey, you will find that this ecommerce solution offers the features you need to start selling online. Prestashop offers built-in ecommerce features and third-party integration capabilities to scale your ecommerce store easily.
On the other hand, Shopify offers a fully hosted platform for an ecommerce business, whether new or existing. This ecommerce platform provides your own web hosting and web domain when setting up your online store. Shopify is the leading online store builder, and it’s clear to see why. Shopify offers the most extensive toolkits that separate it from other ecommerce platforms. The online store builder features a drag-and-drop functionality, providing an intuitive approach to designing your ecommerce site as you envision it.
Now that you have a background in both ecommerce platforms, it’s time to explore Prestashop vs Shopify in features and functionalities.
Comparing Prestashop vs Shopify
As mentioned, Prestashop offers many of the same features that Shopify offers. But what would differentiate one ecommerce platform from the other? And which would be the right choice for your ecommerce store?
Prestashop vs Shopify: Main Features
The best way to compare Shopify vs Prestashop is to compare their online store and ecommerce features side-by-side. They both offer an extensive list of ecommerce features you would expect from an online store’s functionality. For example, they have features that make listing, managing, selling, and promoting your products easy.
Storefront Customization
Since these ecommerce platforms have a website builder functionality, how do Prestashop vs Shopify compare against each other in this department?
The wide selection of professionally-designed Shopify themes gives you plenty to choose from to fit your brand aesthetics and industry. Experienced designers create these Shopify themes and are mobile-responsive. Therefore, creating an aesthetic ecommerce store using the ready-made Shopify themes is easy.
Even so, customizing Shopify themes is relatively easy. You are not limited to the existing design of the Shopify themes, as you can tweak the CSS and HTML codes, allowing you to optimize the look of your ecommerce website. Now is your chance to flex those coding muscles!
Shopify themes are mostly paid, but you can get eight free themes. Expect to shell out $140 to $300 each for the premium Shopify themes.
With Prestashop, you can also customize the storefront’s look and design. The Prestashop has an add-on shop to find paid and free themes. You can filter your theme selection based on your specific industry for your online business.
Verdict: Shopify wins in this department because they have more options with the extensive Shopify themes store. Also, your customization options are more extensive such that you can create professional-looking websites.
Online Store Management
Creating your online store is just the beginning. Managing your store is another crucial aspect of choosing an ecommerce platform. So, how does Prestashop vs Shopify rate in this aspect?
Shopify offers various online store management capabilities to ensure you can run your business smoothly and efficiently. You can access advanced ecommerce features, especially if you are on the higher end of the Shopify pricing plan.
Prestashop offers a solid online store management functionality, just like Shopify. Its main advantage from Shopify is the ability to create unlimited staff accounts (Shopify only allows up to 15 staff accounts, even for the Advanced Shopify pricing plan).
Another advantage of Prestashop vs Shopify is running multiple online stores from the same dashboard. Meanwhile, Shopify only allows you to manage one ecommerce store per dashboard.
Security is important when you are creating an ecommerce business. Therefore, it is a good thing that Shopify offers a free SSL certificate, but Prestashop does not. But when you set up your Prestashop store, you can add your SSL certificate to boost security.
Lastly, Shopify has 100+ payment gateways, which is convenient for your customers, so you can accept payments using their preferred payment options. Prestashop allows you to integrate additional payment gateways for your online stores using premium modules, making accepting payments from various gateways possible.
As an overview, both ecommerce platforms offer the following online store management capabilities:
- No limit on the amount of product listing
- Customer account creation
- Refund policies
- Order fulfillment
- Inventory tracking
Verdict: Shopify is the superior choice for its comprehensive store management solutions, no matter the size of your business.
Product Management
Managing your products from your ecommerce website is relatively easy with Shopify and Prestashop. You can set up categories in your store and list them to make it easier for customers to find their desired products. Configuring prices, updating product descriptions, order requirements, and shipping information is also easy.
It’s even possible to sell customized goods on Prestashop, wherein you allow your customers to upload files to your website so you know what products they want.
Verdict: Both ecommerce platforms provide excellent features to manage products and customer orders.
Marketing & SEO
Marketing and SEO are critical to building a successful online store. Both ecommerce platforms have robust features available to boost your online sales.
Shopify users can enable customer reviews on their online store, which helps to attract more buyers for certain products. You can also access various SEO tools to optimize your product pages and get them to rank higher on search engines.
With Prestashop, they’ve also provided various marketing and SEO tools to optimize your ecommerce sites. For example, you can optimize your URL for SEO or auto-populate the meta tags section using premium modules. You must employ the tools available in the platform’s dedicated SEO section to fit your website needs.
Regarding integration, you can optimize your website performance using a product and market research tool. Store owners can integrate this tool with marketing and SEO features you need to optimize your business. For example, you can use a product research tool to see what your competitors are selling and which products are selling fast.
Adding the top trending products to your online stores ensures you can maximize your store’s sales potential. You can also use the embedded features in these tools to perform keyword research and optimize your product listing titles, expanding their reach to your customers.
Verdict: Shopify offers more marketing and SEO functionalities because it was developed primarily for ecommerce businesses. In addition, Shopify integrates with third-party solutions that help you sell more.
Prestashop vs Shopify: User-Friendliness
While having a comprehensive suite of features built into your chosen ecommerce platform is essential, it won’t be useful if it’s difficult to navigate. That is why we recommend you assess the ease of use for a particular platform to help you decide the best one to use.
Shopify makes it easy to build your ecommerce site from scratch with an intuitive interface. It is accessible even for beginners – from choosing your Shopify themes and listing products to your store.
Meanwhile, Prestashop is designed to help you build a basic online store so that it won’t require advanced coding skills or knowledge. But if you have a more complex vision for your online store, you must hire a web developer or do the coding yourself.
Verdict: Shopify has a simplified website-building approach, whereas Prestashop’s can be more complicated and intimidating for beginners.
Prestashop vs Shopify: Pricing
Aside from being easy to use, the best ecommerce platform should be within your budget. Whether you are starting your ecommerce journey or want to scale your business, there is the right solution based on the existing Prestashop vs Shopify pricing plans.
But how affordable (or expensive) can it be?
Prestashop is an open source platform, so it is free to download. You won’t pay any monthly subscription fees as you would with Shopify. There are no transaction fees when you sell from your online shop either.
But you can pay for premium apps and integrations to boost the online store functionality. You can buy these integrations from the Prestashop marketplace. For example, you can find premium Prestashop themes for $100 or other plugins that can maximize your online store performance. You can add as few or as many integrations as you desire, depending on your budget.
In addition, you must pay for your own hosting provider for our ecommerce shop. It isn’t a hosted platform like Shopify.
Meanwhile, Shopify pricing plans require you to pay a specific amount monthly. You have up to three basic plans and three alternative plans with Shopify.
- Starter – $5 per month
- Basic – $25 per month
- Shopify – $65 per month
- Retail – $89 per month
- Advanced – $399 per month
- Shopify Plus – starts at $2,000 per month
You can get a 25% discount on Shopify if you choose an annual subscription.
Verdict: Shopify might appear to be a more expensive option initially. However, the many added costs of setting up an online store with Prestashop means you could spend more in the long run.
Prestashop vs Shopify: Support
The level of support is a crucial factor when choosing an ecommerce platform. And this is another department wherein both platforms are toe-to-toe.
The customer support Prestashop offers is on par with that of Shopify. You can access customer support via live chat, email, and phone. The Prestashop forum is also active, with many users engaging and sharing tips with each other. It’s a great place to turn to for help if you need additional support when problems arise.
On the other hand, Shopify provides 24/7 customer support via live chat, email, and phone. It is well-noted as having one of the best customer support teams among other ecommerce platforms.
Verdict: Both platforms offer excellent customer support.
Prestashop vs Shopify: Security
Security is one of the top considerations when choosing the best ecommerce platform.
Shopify excels in this department because it is a fully hosted platform that provides hosting, domain, and an SSL certificate to website owners. Merchants can gain the confidence of their customers by shopping on the website with the HTTPS authentication layer and encryption, as it guarantees that your website can be trusted. It also secures all payment gateways and transactions within the website. Shopify is also PCI DSS compliant.
With Prestashop, the set-up file upon download is PCI compliant. But you must install added modules to ensure your website is GDPR compliant. It requires an extra step (and cost) for the website owner.
Verdict: Both platforms offer excellent security parameters to make your ecommerce site compliant. But Shopify is a hosted platform with a security certificate that requires no extra setup or steps.
Why Choose Prestashop vs Shopify
- PCI-DSS compliant
- Support multiple languages
- Open source platform
- Website customization
- Access to app store and third party integration
- Unlimited products
- International payment gateways accepted
Why Choose Shopify vs Prestashop
- No need to pay for a hosting provider
- Free SSL certificate
- Multiple language support
- Website customization
- Third party apps integration
- Mobile access for store owners
- Built-in CMS
- Shopify POS
- 24/7 customer support
Final Thoughts
Big or small businesses can benefit from choosing the most suitable ecommerce platform. Upon comparing Shopify vs Prestashop, you can decide what is best for your business needs.
Shopify is a more complete solution for businesses of all sizes than Prestashop. That’s why it is dominating the ecommerce market because of its extensive apps from the Shopify app store, increasing your online store functionality. It has a built-in CMS and blogging system that you can optimize for search engines.
In addition, there is an active community of online store owners at Shopify forums, making it easy for you to get the support you need when needed.
Overall, Shopify vs Prestashop comparison shows the former as the superior choice as an ecommerce solution.
FAQs
Which is cheaper: Prestashop vs Shopify?
Prestashop is a free and open source ecommerce platform. However, there are many additional costs, such as paying for hosting providers, your web domain, SSL certificates, etc. Shopify pricing plans are slightly more expensive but offer a complete solution that includes hosting and a website builder.
Is Shopify better than Prestashop?
Since Prestashop is an open source platform, it allows more customization possibilities than Shopify. However, Shopify makes up for it by offering store owners a more robust list of ecommerce features and functionalities. The latter is also more user-friendly.
Is selling on Prestashop free?
Yes. It is free to download so you won’t pay any monthly subscriptions. You won’t pay any transaction fees either. You can start selling online for free once you set up your store.
Can I sell digital products on Prestashop?
Yes, selling digital products on Prestashop is possible, but you must first download and integrate a third-party module.
How many websites use Prestashop?
As of this writing, over 251,000 live websites use the Prestashop ecommerce platform. Historically, there are over 447,000 websites that use this platform.
