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PrestaShop 1.3 Beginner's Guide
johhnyb writes "PrestaShop 1.3, Beginner's Guide by John Horton does exactly what is suggested by the title in that it provides a comprehensive and detailed guide to novices looking to set up their own online shops. While it is aimed at total beginners it never talks down to the reader and neither does it merely scratch the surface of the topic requiring you to go off and search for the real valuable information somewhere else. This book takes you from clueless beginner (which I undoubtedly was) to someone equipped with the knowledge, resources and additional support to be quite confident in setting up an effective online retail presence (which I believe I now am)." Keep reading for the rest of johhnyb's review.
PrestaShop 1.3 Beginner's Guide
author
John Horton
pages
308
publisher
Packt Publishing
rating
9/10
reviewer
johhnyb
ISBN
1849511144
summary
covers all you need to know about starting your own e-commerce business.
From the beginning, I was caught by the evident enthusiasm of the author and the fact he is clearly such an expert on the subject. I also liked the fact that he laid down his 'seven day challenge' and included some excerpts from his own 'story' throughout the book. Anyone who has even a faint idea about selling products online would undoubtedly benefit from this book as it gives you not just the technical information but the business input too. Likewise, if you already have an idea of what you want to sell and why it is a good product then you have a complete technical guide as to how to make that happen.
It actually helps if you have at least a certain comfort level with some simple computing basics, but even if you don't the processes described are in sufficiently layman's terms to make it easy for almost anyone. I can be quite confident in saying that this book contains pretty much everything you will need to set up a sophisticated and successful online shop. It doesn't go crazy though and go off on any disingenuous tangents by, for example, trying to explain Content Management Systems or some other equally esoteric topic. Overall, I think an excellent balance is achieved.
PrestaShop 1.3, Beginner's Guide is written in a very chatty and engaging style and the author's personality comes through loud and clear — you really do feel like he wants to make it as easy as possible for you to succeed. It is always down-to-earth and although the author clearly knows his topic well, he does go to great lengths to take everything step by step and make it as absolutely logical as possible. The level of detail is sufficient if you have never covered the particular task before.The addition of screen shots is also very convenient and makes the process easier. The 'What just happened' section is particularly good and there are plenty of reassuring summaries throughout so you can feel the book is not just running away with itself and the reader can keep recycling and reprocessing the information. Most importantly, he has done it himself and made a success of it. He has set up over 10 online shops, has been through all the different options, experienced the pitfalls, the highs and lows, and is passing on the very best information and advice possible to a new lucky group of shop owners.
I found the book full of very solid advice which could applied in many settings. It is also a great introduction to some of the most modern forms of online marketing including the use of Twitter, Facebook, and Google Adwords. One thing I liked was John's regular reference to the need for a strong, viable business case. Prestashop is a magnificent product but will totally fall flat if your basic offering does not create a customer which Peter Drucker famously said was the purpose of business. It is too easy to fly into the detail of a business before taking time to fully understand your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and why people buy from you. Likewise, the author also covers key and hard-to-grasp issues like Search Engine Optimization which I think he correctly identifies as something readers will need to understand.
I can honestly say that PrestaShop 1.3, Beginner's Guide covers everything you will need. Not only that, John refers to several free resources he himself has written and provides an extensive list of resources at the end of the book.This book is almost encyclopedic in its treatment of how to set up and use Prestashop and it is certainly something that can used in that way. You don't only get Prestashop related material you also get a lot of valuable business advice, of course in a Prestashop context.Another benefit readers will receive is regular pointers to where they can find other free resources also written by the author.
I have to state clearly that John is a long-term friend of mine — to give you an idea we go back to those halcyon days of the Spectrum ZX-81 and the Commodore 64 — yes, we are getting on. Bearing this in mind, I have done my best to write something honest and useful to potential buyers of this book. Although he plays it down, John has always been marvelous with computers and able to effortlessly explain complex technical issues to me, a relative technophobe. Therefore, it does not surprise me he has written something so useful, practical and frankly inspiring.
You can purchase PrestaShop 1.3 Beginner's Guide from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
It actually helps if you have at least a certain comfort level with some simple computing basics, but even if you don't the processes described are in sufficiently layman's terms to make it easy for almost anyone. I can be quite confident in saying that this book contains pretty much everything you will need to set up a sophisticated and successful online shop. It doesn't go crazy though and go off on any disingenuous tangents by, for example, trying to explain Content Management Systems or some other equally esoteric topic. Overall, I think an excellent balance is achieved.
PrestaShop 1.3, Beginner's Guide is written in a very chatty and engaging style and the author's personality comes through loud and clear — you really do feel like he wants to make it as easy as possible for you to succeed. It is always down-to-earth and although the author clearly knows his topic well, he does go to great lengths to take everything step by step and make it as absolutely logical as possible. The level of detail is sufficient if you have never covered the particular task before.The addition of screen shots is also very convenient and makes the process easier. The 'What just happened' section is particularly good and there are plenty of reassuring summaries throughout so you can feel the book is not just running away with itself and the reader can keep recycling and reprocessing the information. Most importantly, he has done it himself and made a success of it. He has set up over 10 online shops, has been through all the different options, experienced the pitfalls, the highs and lows, and is passing on the very best information and advice possible to a new lucky group of shop owners.
I found the book full of very solid advice which could applied in many settings. It is also a great introduction to some of the most modern forms of online marketing including the use of Twitter, Facebook, and Google Adwords. One thing I liked was John's regular reference to the need for a strong, viable business case. Prestashop is a magnificent product but will totally fall flat if your basic offering does not create a customer which Peter Drucker famously said was the purpose of business. It is too easy to fly into the detail of a business before taking time to fully understand your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and why people buy from you. Likewise, the author also covers key and hard-to-grasp issues like Search Engine Optimization which I think he correctly identifies as something readers will need to understand.
I can honestly say that PrestaShop 1.3, Beginner's Guide covers everything you will need. Not only that, John refers to several free resources he himself has written and provides an extensive list of resources at the end of the book.This book is almost encyclopedic in its treatment of how to set up and use Prestashop and it is certainly something that can used in that way. You don't only get Prestashop related material you also get a lot of valuable business advice, of course in a Prestashop context.Another benefit readers will receive is regular pointers to where they can find other free resources also written by the author.
I have to state clearly that John is a long-term friend of mine — to give you an idea we go back to those halcyon days of the Spectrum ZX-81 and the Commodore 64 — yes, we are getting on. Bearing this in mind, I have done my best to write something honest and useful to potential buyers of this book. Although he plays it down, John has always been marvelous with computers and able to effortlessly explain complex technical issues to me, a relative technophobe. Therefore, it does not surprise me he has written something so useful, practical and frankly inspiring.
You can purchase PrestaShop 1.3 Beginner's Guide from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Packt Publishing again? Is Taco getting desperate for more money in his penis enlargement fund so he's doing more slashvertisements for them?
Like What programming language Prestashop is written in? How it compares to alternative products in the same space?
would it really be that hard for the editors to add a blurb saying what prestashop is to the submission?
For a minute there I was hoping PrestaShop was the new name for the single-window version of Gimp. Ah well.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
webshop for beginners in PHP? Isn't this that language everybody forgot luckily, since we got Ruby on Rails?
I used it once:
- from their site "Delivery fees billing by price or weight" http://www.prestashop.com/en/allfeatures#catalog. The most important word is or, which means that you can't accurately enter Royal Mail fees (you pay by weight but also by price, actually by the total value of the package; if it gets lost you will get some money back according to the declared value).
- GoDaddy it's just a poor choice to host a PrestaShop site. The shop will try to send emails in a specific way, it fills the From: field of the email with whatever the user entered in a contact form. GoDaddy will block the email. Also you can't get access to a folder outside webservers root folder so you can't save payment info there.
It's a nice shop, a little bloated and not quite polished.
Does it really matter what it is? You have money, this costs money, therefore, you should spend your money on this. QED.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
After reading your review, it sounds as though this is mainly useful for selling products that you create yourself (dolls, widgets, whatever). Do you think this would be useful if you had a large inventory of items that you wanted to sell in an online store environment? I have a huge (thousands and thousands of pieces) collection of video game memoriabilia from the late 70s until the late 90s, including consoles, computers, software, games, arcade machines, posters, and the like, that I would love to sell in an online store environment, as opposed to paying eBay's fees or dealing with locals. Would this book be helpful to someone like me as well? Thanks!
I mis-read it as, "Photoshop 1.3 Beginner's Guide"
And I thought, "Wow! Now THERE'S something really interesting! I wonder what the author's logic was to have gone and written a modern book on such an out-of-date piece of software? Cool!"
Then it got boring very fast. -Not that the real subject isn't interesting and relevant, but it sure isn't as intriguing as the false idea!
-FL
definitely not 'guide to setting your ecommerce business'. it is a guide to setting up a presta shop, pimping it. lovely that the summary somehow, moronically, tries to set up a connection in between 'ecommerce' and presta, as if 'ecommerce means presta'. great pimping there.
of course, thats leaving out the fact that 6 months into your presta online eshop ( or any other ecommerce software for that matter ) you will have to migrate to oscommerce because of the paranormally high module base and universal provider support.
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Allow me to quote your BS back at you, you know, the one you got modded down for? "webshop for beginners in PHP? Isn't this that language everybody forgot luckily, since we got Ruby on Rails?"
Given that WebShop is obviously for non programmers, who gives a rats ass what it is written in? I'm tired of language evangelists trying to claim their novelty language of the day is the One True. Nobody cares what your opinion of PHP or Ruby on Rails is, m'kay?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
can anyone recommend a good free/opensource java based e-commerce application?
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Simple...
Ok, admitted, my first post wasn't a perfectly clear joke and maybe not the best I ever made. So let me apologize too, for letting this run a bit too far :)
I just thought, that my additional comments would have made it clear enough, that I decide about languages based on project demands.
I hated those fan discussions already back in the 80s (Commodore Atari; Pascal Basic C) whatsoever.
Actually one reason why I don't miss that Ruby on Rails Job that much (though I liked the framework plus the language for the kind of work we did) is just, that they where "fanbois" to the extreme in that company. Not only about RoR, but about everything they where using.
Anyway, no bad feelings, we just misunderstood each others writing style...
it is apparent that you are not actually working in ecommerce web development, or not for enough time. had you been, you wouldnt be uttering such naive bullshit as 'codebase' etc, like a weekend coder or an enthusiast.
in the ecommerce trenches your 'codebase', new trends, new coding concepts matter zit. in production environment what matters are budget, time, function.
oh so it took you no time to write so and so many modules and install them for prestashop then ? grreat. now do it for random obscure shipping provider with no api in southeastern asia region, or do it with random obscure payment provider in midwest america, who provide no documentation for their api. and do it dirt cheap, do it in no time.
you cant. you would be stuck dumb without knowing anything to do. had you called those payment and shipping providers, they wouldnt give a flying fuck about your brand new ecommerce software with its neat codebase and hip trendy programming.
whereas on the other hand, someone facing the same problem in oscommerce would need to do a single google search to get to a free, ready made, ready to install and working module. again, for free. moreover, the random obscure payment provider and shipping providers from different zones of the world, would BOTH not only be recognizing oscommerce, but also supporting it. because, it is known and used that widely.
market, client, budget needs and time considerations define what you can do. not your neat, tidy, hip, trendy codebase. this is the hard fact of life. if you can fit all the clients' needs within budget and write X modules every time someone comes with an uncommon request (and it always is, since there wouldnt be any need for a developer to set up a freely available standard ecommerce shop - web hosts provide single click installs), then more power to you !
eventually you will come to oscommerce anyway.
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if you are thinking as such about magento, stop talking about ecommerce. for, you dont know shit about it. dont take any projects either, for, you soon would find yourself waist deep in shit.
magento has 54,000+ files. it does 2 to 3000 inserts to db per order. yeah, you heard it right. you would need an entry level dedicated server to run a small shop with it. it is also coded intentionally roundabout, so that 3rd party development will be harder, and users will have to go to original developers. the new trend 'obfuscated open source' for you.
Read radical news here
Prestashop is a fine shopping cart software if your needs and demands are extremely simple.
I started my webshop with prestashop and over the last couple years I've seriously customized it to fit my needs. Several million dollars of sales have since passed through the shop, so believe me when I tell you it has serious shortcomings:
* Can not handle multi-currencies well at all (not all modules of the software convert the values correctly). Just to give an example, if a customer wants a voucher refund in a currency which is not the shop default currency, the refund will not be the value of his order in his currency (say USD), but in the default currency (say EUR). So he gets 100 EUR refund when he should have gotten a 100 USD refund !! If the operator is not on top of these quirks they could lose a lot of money.
* Can not handle multi-language well either, many parts of the shop can not be translated via resource files, they must be hardcoded in the PHP or smarty templates.
* Even this latest version still thinks everyone in the world uses names and addresses formatted in France style (Last name first, CAPITALIZED, etc...). It has no provision for USA style names and addresses, let alone any other part of the world.
* The Paypal module has been perpetually broken, never seems to be working correctly, always under development.
* Has no ability to shipping print address labels, or export such information to a 3rd party software
* Orders can not be edited in the back office apart from changing the shipping address. Basic stuff like changing shipping method or adding/subtracting items from the order are just not doable.
I will be moving the shop over to OSCommerce or Magneto early next year. Prestashop has a long way to grow, and should not be taken seriously yet as a contender.
I read this whole conversation... and I want my half hour back, please.
This review makes no mention if you have to purchase anything to build a storefront using PrestaShop, or if the standard OSS version will suffice........ http://globetv.co.uk/
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