WooCommerce Vs PrestaShop – Who wins
The trend of online shopping is increasing every year. Recent surveys have found that over 25% of people buy something online at least once a week. This increase in popularity automatically translates into an opportunity for any business. Your presence online and placing your products and services in an online store will give you the opportunity to reach many new customers and maximize your business potential.
To start a successful e-commerce business, you must first select the right software. There is a wide range of solutions available and it is very difficult for most business owners to make the right decision. Two very popular options are WooCommerce and PrestaShop. Both can be used to successfully operate an online store, but they work differently and both have benefits and some drawbacks.
WooCommerce Vs PrestaShop – In short
WooCommerce
WooCommerce was released by WooThemes in 2011. Later in 2015, it was acquired by Automattic, the company that owns WordPress. WooCommerce is by far the most popular e-commerce platform in the world operating in millions of online stores. WooCommerce makes it extremely easy to add an online store to your WordPress website by installing the plugin.
WordPress is the largest CMS in the world which is the perfect platform for building any type of website and with a few clicks you can turn it into a beautiful and functional online store. That’s one reason why WooCommerce is considered the best e-commerce solution for WordPress (and in general). Once installed, you will have all the tools you will need to run your online store, such as: various shipping and payment options, products, order management system, marketing tools, business reports, etc.
As it is based on top of WordPress, it also has the best blogging features so you can work properly on your content marketing and SEO. The theme editor is user friendly and we should note that, unlike most other e-commerce plug-ins for WordPress, WooCommerce is almost error-free and bug-free. It is also constantly updated and maintained.
WooCommerce has been on the market for many years, so it is considered a very stable and mature solution that can be used by small and large stores and can be scaled up anywhere.
PrestaShop
PrestaShop is an open source e-commerce software that is completely free to download and use. Created in 2005 in France. There are over 250,000 live stores currently using it and initially gained popularity due to an intuitive dashboard and rich default functionality. It’s very user friendly and easy to understand as well as simple to navigate and you shouldn’t have too many problems with it. Because of this, everyday use will be easy and your customers will have a pleasant shopping experience. The main difference between PrestaShop and WooCommerce is that PrestaShop is a standalone e-commerce software, while WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin.
It can be scaled up and you can create any number of products. This is a good thing to keep in mind when you need to expand your store. Convenient inventory management tools will give you good control over your inventory. There is also an option to run multiple stores through one dashboard, which can be useful if you have more than one store.
If you need a feature that does not come by default (such as Facebook integration, payment page, etc.), then you can easily add it with an extension you can get from a formal purchase. PrestaShop is an open source platform, so store design capabilities are unlimited. PrestaShop also offers some SEO tools to help you rank in Google search results.
WooCommerce Vs PrestaShop
Design & Themes
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is definitely the best way to turn your existing WordPress website into an e-commerce store. Since WooCommerce is a simple (but powerful) plugin for WordPress, it should be installed like any other plugin. Since it is free and open source software, you do not need licenses and there are no recurring monthly charges. When you set up your WooCommerce store, you will be able to sell anything – physical products, digital products, services, subscriptions, bookings, etc.
PrestaShop
With PrestaShop, you can create your own free online store or use one of the free templates. Otherwise, you should buy a theme and there are many themes and templates available – 1,300+ on their official website and thousands more on third-party websites. High quality templates are professional and high quality, but most templates you can get from third-party sites do not really compare the look and quality of premium templates.
The price for templates developed by the community ranges from free up to $ 300. PrestaShop offers certified partner themes and prices start at around $ 84 and the price of premium templates can start from $ 150 which is quite steep . Installing a theme will have all the challenges. If you do not have enough technical experience, you will definitely need to hire a professional. Overall, PrestaShop is suitable for people with coding skills.
When you are buying a theme, be sure to look for mobile response options because not all topics are responsive. This will make your life easier later on and you will not have to pay anyone to make your store respond later.
Winner: WooCommerce
WooCommerce has a significant advantage over PrestaShop when it comes to themes and design. PrestaShop has some good themes, but compared to WordPress and WooCommerce themes, they cost a lot. The selection of themes is also on the side of WooCommerce because you can easily find some incredible themes for all kinds of purposes and industries.
WooCommerce Vs PrestaShop
Pricing
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress that lets you convert your current website into a fully functional online store. Since the plugin is free, you just have to cover other key things that come with running any website. First, you need to cover a monthly hosting account that can be as low as 4 euros per month, but will vary with the size of your site and the monthly traffic. Second, you need to buy a domain that is on average 10 euros per year.
After the initial basics, you need to consider the additional extensions you will need to buy for things like payment gateways, SEO and so on. The price for extensions varies. Since you’re basically WordPress, you have tens of thousands of plugins available for free to save you money.
PrestaShop
PrestaShop is an open source software and is free to download and use. You can also check out their demo so you can explore the dashboard and showcase.
Each store will have a constant expense that will depend on many factors. PrestaShop is not so easy to set up and use and its modules will affect each other, leading to a glitchy store. If you do not have the necessary coding knowledge, then you should hire developers and web designers to fix each issue.
Add-ons and modules usually come at a great price, which is why PrestaShop makes its money. For example, you will pay a few pennies if you want to integrate your online store with Facebook, QuickBooks, Amazon, etc.
So, the main costs you need to cover include:
- Web hosting: $ 10-100 per month, depending on your store size and required bandwidth
- Template: $ 150-300 for a good template
- Add-ons and modules – it depends on what you will need, but it is very expensive
- Web Designer / Developer – you are likely to hire one for various tasks if you don’t have experience with coding
Winner: WooCommerce
PrestaShop may be free, but additional and recurring costs will increase rapidly. Any additional features and upgrades of your website will be very expensive. Plus, if you are inexperienced, you will definitely need to hire a developer to help you set up and run your store, as it is not so easy to do these things compared to WooCommerce.
WooCommerce has the same basic running costs of the site, but it has much more to offer in terms of free add-ons and much cheaper themes and extensions. You also don’t need to hire a developer for everything you need to do, so overall going with WooCommerce will save you a lot of money in the long run.
WooCommerce Vs PrestaShop
Customer Support
WooCommerce
The most important thing about WooCommerce is that it is almost error-free and bug-free. Developers do a great job of keeping and updating WooCommerce, and new releases are constantly rolling out. Because of this, you will not need to search to fix problems.
WooCommerce provides a comprehensive support form that is easy to navigate and you are likely to get an answer to your question there. Since WooCommerce is a free plugin for WordPress, the main way to get help is through the official WordPress forums. You can also access the WooCommerce website, create a free user account, and submit a support message. The support is very helpful and will solve most of your issues.
PrestaShop
Since PrestaShop is open source, anyone can contribute to it and create add-ons. This means that customer support can be complicated, as it is almost impossible to have a support team that can answer all the questions about the constantly changing software. Your best bet will be the community forum and there you will find users ready to help you. Many users are actually developers and want to solve problems, but there are many users who will not help much.
WooCommerce Vs PrestaShop
Add-ons and Extensions
WooCommerce
From analysis to order fulfillment, payment processing, accounting and more, WooCommerce allows you to integrate various extensions into your store. There is a huge library of free and paid extensions and add-ons that will allow you to add any functionality to your online store.
WooCommerce allows you to install add-ons and third-party extensions and does not limit your options like other shopping cart plugins. Some of the most popular extensions include payment processing services (PayPal, 2Checkout and Amazon), accounting (Xero and FreshBooks) and shipping (FedEx and UPS).
What is even better is that WooCommerce works perfectly with plugins and extensions offered by WordPress and even third-party developers. This means you won’t have problems with multiple extensions.
PrestaShop
You will surely find what you need for your online store in the PrestaShop add-ons market. Usually one hour purchase. Modules range from payment security add-ons to advertising tools.
The price for add-ons can range from $ 20 to $ 50, but many others cost much more. For example, to sell on Amazon and manage your PrestaShop inventory, you will have to pay $ 215 and the eBay connection will cost you the same. So the cost for add-ons really increases over time.
Winner: WooCommerce
Both WooCommerce and PrestaShop offer a variety of apps and extensions that you can use to apply extra features to your online store. WooCommerce has an advantage here for a few reasons. WooCommerce has many more free add-ons built on WordPress. They also work perfectly together and are stable, which is not the case with PrestaShop, as many add-ons collide and malfunction. There is also a problem with PrestaShop pricing that will cost you far more than WooCommerce extensions.
WooCommerce Vs PrestaShop
Features
WooCommerce
WordPress’s flexibility is hard to beat as not only does WooCommerce compare to PrestaShop alone, but WordPress along with what it has to offer. Because of this, WordPress has many other features available to you that other platforms like PrestaShop do not have. This means that if you need a great SEO plugin, you can just go and install it for free. With the freedom of the WordPress platform, you can create a professional and efficient online store very easily.
WooCommerce will allow you to sell natural and digital products as well as use it for affiliate marketing. There are many payment methods available, including PayPal. You can adjust shipping rates per carrier and also applicable taxes. WooCommerce allows you to upload an unlimited number of products and categories and you can easily complete your orders.
PrestaShop
PrestaShop provides real-time analytics, but you can always integrate your store into Google Analytics. You can also put bids and apply them to specific products and areas.
The PrestaShop dashboard presents all the important statistics and various tools for managing your products and catalog. The dashboard is full of resolutions and the focus is on charts to make everything look very modern. You will have all the necessary statistics on sales, conversion rate and visits. Everything is clearly displayed and things like customer, order and shipment management are just a few clicks away.
Winner: It’s a tie !
Both WooCommerce and PrestaShop can be used to sell natural and digital products. They also offer simple tools for product management, analysis and order fulfillment.
As time goes on, you’ll want to explore other ways and expand your store’s functionality. WordPress comes with thousands of plugins and extensions so you can’t really hit it off and it’s definitely our preference. Whether you want to add live chat, promotional codes, customer reviews, or social media shares, you can do it on both platforms, but much easier and in most cases free with WooCommerce and WordPress. Because PrestaShop has a higher price tag, we would prefer WordPress.
In Conclusion
Getting the right choice when choosing the best e-commerce platform is crucial. Changing the platform later is a nightmare, so you have to consider the account at every point of the comparison.
When we look at every aspect such as design, pricing, add-ons and customer support, we can see that WooCommerce is far superior to PrestaShop. WooCommerce offers better design and themes are priced lower. PrestaShop themes are a high value, and you’ll need to hire someone to install them properly. Basic pricing is similar for both, but when you look at other aspects and long-term costs, WooCommerce will be a much cheaper solution.
WooCommerce also offers many add-ons that are free and all work perfectly together, which is not the case with PrestaShop, as the modules cost a lot of money and will often not be compatible and give you problems.
