Nowadys eCommerce has become huge and it’s replacing more and more traditional commerce. Ten, fifteen years ago doing commerce on the World Wide Web was restricted to the big players, Amazon and eBay and the really expensive scripts that were powering their websites. Making an eCommerce platform back then was insanely expensive and required teams of programmers and designers.
Needless to say things are considerably easier now. There are a number of ways you can create an online store.
If it were for me to make a classification there are two big categories of eCommerce platforms : the self-hosted ones and private-hosted ones. The private-hosted ones are platforms allowing you to sign up and run a store from their platform. They manage everything for you for a percent of each sale you make or for a monthly fee.
The second category is the self-hosted scripts, you can install on your server and run and manage with complete freedom. There are no monthly fees nor percentages to split. The catch is that most eCommerce scripts, except a few are not free, nor cheap.
I want to mention in this article a few words about the free ones and focus on one platform that is both free and very professional. As I said there are a number of free eCommerce platforms, some based on WordPress. These are WooCommerce, WP-Ecommerce, Cart66 and Jigoshop. While these are good, and do a great job for most basic stores, they’re not made specifically for eCommerce. They’re basically WordPress adaptations.
A professional and free solution for eCommerce is PrestaShop . The main advantage is that this script is specially made for eCommerce and this is visible in every section and part of the e-shop built with it. Best of all, there’s a new version available, version 1.6. This version comes with a huge number of features and changes that make it even better than before.
We’ll try to go through the main features of this version and explain why PrestaShop 1.6 is one of the best eCommerce solutions you can have at this moment.
Well to start with, it simply looks awesome and modern. Take a look below at the preview and check out the design :
1. It’s Responsive
The ecommerce business is no longer limited to your computer or laptop. A good chunk of all ecommerce traffic comes from mobile phones and tablets. If you want to be successful, you need to have a website that can scale to any screen. This way you won’t be losing any customers.
PrestaShop 1.6 looks as awesome on a mobile phone as it does on a computer or a laptop.
The shopping experience is as simple and efficient on a tablet or phone as it is on any other device and this translates in higher conversions.
2. Awesome top section
It is widely known that the best portion of a website and the one that attracts the most clicks and thus possible conversions is the top section, the so called above the fold section, the part of the website the user sees first when entering the website, without doing any scrolling.
Having a good above the fold section makes your customers stay longer on your website and directs them to whatever you wish them to see.
PrestaShop 1.6 above the fold section makes it easy to display your latest sales and featured content through 2 image sections and 1 JQuery slider section. Besides that there’s a menu displaying the latest arrivals on your store, the most popular products and the best sellers. This way you can direct a new user to the best sections your website has to offer, an essential thing in terms of usability and user experience.
3. Footer section
The footer section is one of the best sections to display information about your store, offer newsletter subscriptions, social media links and include a secondary navigation. This way a user that might of missed something can access a certain section and thus make it stay more on your website. Also this makes it possible for the user to subscribe to your updates or to your social media feed if they liked your store.
4. Mega menu with included images
It is a prove fact that mega menus improve the user experience, not to mention they actually provide more information and content. PrestaShop 1.6 provides a good menu like this. You can include links, text and images easily.
5. Great shopping cart
The shopping cart is no longer a simple cart, just checkout and make the payment. There are a number of ways you can increase your sales, for example with suggestive cross selling. This means the script actually recommend additional products to add to the cart based on the current contents of your shopping cart.
6. Product Quick View
One of the most annoying things on any ecommerce website, or any showcase website for that matter is having to browse through products to see the details. You have to wait for the page to load, then go back, go through another page and so on. PrestaShop 1.6 improves this aspect also through quick view. You can view any product’s details without leaving the current page. This saves time for the user and makes him stay longer on your website.
7. Grid or list view
This is a must have option nowadays as some users prefer grid view and some prefer list view. Not to mention the list view provides quite a few more details than grid view. PrestaShop 1.6 offers this as standard.
8. The search
The search function is one of the most important functions of any website, especially ecommerce websites. Making sure the users finds what he/she is looking for is essential if you want to sell. Offering an advanced search function can mean the difference between selling a lot and not selling at all.
PrestaShop offers an extensive search function. Each search can be refined by price, stock, reference, color and much more. Of course, the search results are available both in grid and list views.
9. Page layout
There are huge studies behind commerce in general. Why shouldn’t this be extended to ecommerce? The new PrestaShop 1.6 did all this for you and it has a very optimized page layout. When I say optimized I mean optimized from all points of view, especially from the sales point of view.
The new page layout is optimized for maximum conversion. This means it’s optimized for maximum sales. And that is great news for you.
10. Product reviews
I don’t know how you shop online, but I pay attention to what other people have to say about a product. Product reviews are very important for any store and thus, providing the best and easiest solution for users to add reviews is important.
The new PrestaShop allows rich snippets in the reviews section. This makes it easier for customers to easily add good-looking and extensive reviews. The better the reviews look, the more efficient they’ll be and increase your conversions.
Conclusion
If you are looking for a solid, free ecommerce platform you can rely on, I would highly recommend taking a look at PrestaShop.
- View PrestaShop demo
- Download PrestaShop