Shopify is primarily a platform with built-in hosting for creating your online store by subscribing to a monthly plan. Shopify is easy to use and takes care of tasks like security, updates, and domain maintenance.
PrestaShop reduces costs, and its download is free. However, you need to install it, contract hosting, and configure the server. Being open-source software, you have access to all functionalities, and it allows for a high degree of customization, at the expense of your time and the limitation of not having some technical knowledge.
When establishing an online store, it’s important to consider the installation process and ease of administration.
The main goal when managing our online business is for the platform to streamline the entire sales process, from designing the product to receiving payment and providing additional support.
PrestaShop requires a somewhat more complex installation in its initial stage, as you need to download its software, create a database, and install it through an FTP. This is a process that requires a developer or some technical knowledge, unlike Shopify.
With Shopify, as soon as you create an account, you can start designing your online store, skipping the entire installation process. Shopify makes it easier to get started. The installation and use of PrestaShop are somewhat more complex, but its platform allows for more detailed customization.
The advantage of Shopify lies in its speed and simplicity, allowing you to focus on developing your store from day one, avoiding headaches with domains and hosting. Once the installation of these platforms is complete, let’s talk about design. Designing your online store is crucial, as it’s equivalent to the shopfront of your physical store.
Both platforms offer themes, both paid and free. Themes allow you to change the design of your entire store in seconds, and most are one-time purchases, so you’ll have them for life if you want to create a second store or change its design.
With PrestaShop, you can purchase a theme in the marketplace. Since it doesn’t have automatic updates, it’s important to pay attention to which versions of your PrestaShop online store are compatible, as it can create conflicts. Once you’ve purchased the theme, you’ll need to install it manually. If you have knowledge of PHP, you can use it to customize the PrestaShop theme as you like, but again, this requires technical knowledge and takes more time.
Shopify is as simple as going to the “Online Store” section and selecting “Themes.” You don’t have to worry about updates, and it’s more intuitive, making everything easier.
Shopify, once you create the online store, its basic plan allows you to upload an unlimited number of products for sale, managed by two people simultaneously and hosted directly by the CMS. You can categorize products into different categories, add features, tags, and seasonal requirements. Sales can automatically stop when the stock runs out.
In PrestaShop, the costs associated with maintaining your online business can be summarized in the cost of hosting. Like Shopify, PrestaShop also allows you to categorize products, create suppliers to link to them, and define different variations.
Now let’s discuss SEO on these two platforms.
Shopify has built-in SEO tools and allows you to generate a sitemap, which is important for search engine crawling. It includes a variety of functionalities. You can also purchase professional tools from its Marketplace to optimize speed, management, and more.
PrestaShop has similar functionalities and allows you to perform SEO on its products with specific keywords.
Since both are cloud-hosted systems, they allow integration with other tools, as long as those tools also operate over the internet. For example, you can always connect them to your customer management software or CRM to centralize all information on a single platform and manage your online store more efficiently.
However, in Shopify’s case, it offers something more. It’s possible to integrate it with your phone system to improve agent productivity, automate certain tasks, and thus increase sales. The main advantage of this is that by connecting Shopify and virtual telephony tools (such as a virtual switchboard that allows integration), you can obtain features like recognizing the customer as soon as interaction occurs to offer personalized service and get real-time order status.
PrestaShop is a very comprehensive solution for developing an online store, and its integrated features for international commerce stand out, as well as the ability to edit its code if you have programming and design knowledge.
Shopify excels in ease of use and robustness. It is a system that, for a reasonably low price, offers security, stability, time savings, and effort by guiding you through every step of creating your online store. Its strength lies in ease of use, which is why we recommend it.
Shopify is the perfect tool for creating your online store, especially when combined with CRM integration to manage customer relationships more efficiently. Talk to us, and we’ll help you with the entire process.
Today, having an online store is essential, as people are becoming more and more comfortable shopping online for everything possible. We can help you connect your business. If your business is not online, you don’t have a business.
If you’re interested in learning more about Shopify, don’t hesitate to visit our news section.
