PrestaShop 1.5 Beginners Guide
By Jose A. Tizon and John Horton
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PrestaShop 1.5 Beginners Guide - Jose A. Tizon
Table of Contents
PrestaShop 1.5 Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
Why Subscribe?
Free Access for Packt account holders
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Time for action – heading
What just happened?
Pop quiz – heading
Have a go hero – heading
Reader feedback
Customer support
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Getting Started
Know your business
Downloading PrestaShop
Technical requirements
Time for action – transferring files to your web host
What just happened?
Making a database
Time for action – creating a database
What just happened?
How to install PrestaShop
Time for action – the PrestaShop auto-installer
What just happened?
Post-install security
Deleting the install folder
Time for action – how to delete the install folder
What just happened?
Renaming the admin folder
Time for action – renaming the admin folder
What just happened?
Your shop front explained
Your shop-back explained
Time for action – logging in to your PrestaShop control panel
What just happened?
Control panel guided tour
Have a go hero – hunt the PrestaShop thimble
Before we continue
Pop quiz – a few questions about Chapter 1
Summary
2. Back Office
Dashboard
Catalog
Orders
Customers
Price rules
Shipping and localization
Modules
Arranging key modules
Cart block
Time for action – installing the shopping cart module
What just happened?
What goes on your home page?
Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Time for action – how to add your content to your home page
What just happened?
Secure payment
Time for action – using the content management system
What just happened?
Moving modules around
Time for action – moving modules
What just happened?
Preferences
Time for action – changing the default image size
What just happened?
PrestaShop themes
Finding themes
Choosing a great theme
Installing the themes
Time for action – installing a PrestaShop theme
What just happened?
Pop quiz – themes and things
Customizing your template
Important preliminary point
Time for action – creating a new template
What just happened?
Editing your CSS file
Background color
Font size
Themes summary
Time for action – uploading your company/store logo
What just happened?
Advanced parameters and administration
Time for action – making a customer account
What just happened?
Permanent links block
Stats
Creating the must have
pages
Delivery
Legal notice
Terms and conditions
About us
Contacting your store
Contacts
Time for action – creating departments to contact
What just happened?
Multistore feature
Downloadable products
Are you an existing user of osCommerce? Let’s import it to PrestaShop
Summary
3. Merchandising for Success
Shop categories
Planning your category structure
Creating your categories
Time for action – how to create product categories
What just happened?
Creating content for your categories and subcategories
Time for action – adding category descriptions
What just happened?
Adding products
Product descriptions that sell
Actually selling the product
Ask for the sale
Create some images with GIMP
Time for action – how to add a product to PrestaShop
What just happened?
Highlighting products
New products
Time for action – how to highlight your newest products
What just happened?
Specials
Time for action – creating a special offer
What just happened?
Recently viewed
Best sellers
Accessories
Time for action – creating an accessory
What just happened?
Features
Time for action – using PrestaShop's features
What just happened?
Attributes
Time for action – an attributes example
What just happened?
Have a go hero – the combinations generator
Customizing
Time for action – allowing your customers to customize
What just happened?
Product mania!
Pop quiz – a few product marketing questions
Summary
4. Getting More Customers
SEO: Search Engine Optimization
Which keywords should we use?
Discovering the value of keywords
Meta tags
Types of meta tags
Time for action – PrestaShop meta tags
What just happened?
Tag clouds
Time for action – creating a tag cloud
What just happened?
Friendly URLs
Time for action – how to get search-friendly URLs
What just happened?
Canonical URLs
Time for action – choosing your canonical URL
What just happened?
Writing and displaying articles
Good ideas when writing articles
Make your articles easy to read
Think about your audience
Sell, but sell subtly
Page formatting and keyword density
How many times should the keywords/phrases be used?
Quick tips
Writing the summary
Using the CMS
Time for action – creating the article
What just happened?
robots.txt
Time for action – creating robots.txt
What just happened?
Helping Google with sitemaps
Time for action – Google sitemaps tutorial
What just happened?
PrestaShop search weightings
Switching languages
Time for action – enabling a second language
What just happened?
Creating translations
Time for action – translating product descriptions
What just happened?
Time for action – translating your whole website
What just happened?
Languages conclusion
Pop quiz – PrestaShop search
Summary
5. Tools, Newsletters, Extra Income, and Statistics
Exploring the Preferences tab
Useful preferences
General
Orders
Cart redisplay at login
Store contacts
Image
Localization
Maintenance
Administration
Menus
Time for action – customizing your tabs
What just happened?
Quick access
Time for action – creating a Quick access
What just happened?
Pop quiz – tools and preferences challenge
E-mail marketing with newsletters
Most people don't buy!
Why?
The stages of e-mail marketing
Setting up the newsletter module
Time for action – the newsletter module
What just happened?
Switching on product notifications
Time for action – product notifications
What just happened?
Powerful newsletter modules
Building a big list of subscribers
Understanding what a newsletter is
Incentives
What to give away
Offering more via e-mail
Creating newsletters
Product information
Genuine news
Designing your newsletters
Sending newsletters
A quick word about spam
Using a PrestaShop module to send newsletters
Using your web host to send newsletters
A dedicated e-mail service provider to send newsletters
A free e-mail system to send newsletters
Getting your subscriber list
Time for action – accessing your e-mail list
What just happened?
Setting up Google AdSense in PrestaShop
Time for action – installing Google AdSense
What just happened?
Setting up PrestaShop statistics
Graph and grid engines
Statistics modules
Time for action – setting up statistics engines and modules
What just happened?
Exploring the statistics options
Installing Google Analytics
Getting a Google Analytics account
Have a go hero – doing more with the thing
Time for action – installing Google Analytics
What just happened?
Using Google Analytics
Summary
6. Security and Disaster Recovery
Types of attacks
Common sense issues
Brute force
SQL injection attack
Cross-site scripting
User error
Employees and user security
Time for action – creating users
What just happened?
Profiles
Time for action – creating profiles
What just happened?
Permissions
Permissions and their levels
Time for action – configuring permissions to profiles
What just happened?
Pop quiz – security
SSL – Secure Sockets Layer
Shared SSL, dedicated SSL, or no SSL
Setting up SSL in PrestaShop
Time for action – setting up SSL in PrestaShop
What just happened?
Making a copy of your store
Introducing the backup process
Frequency
Backing up your database
Time for action – backing up your database
What just happened?
Backing up your files
Time for action – backing up your files
What just happened?
Using your copy
Restoring the database
Time for action – how to restore the database
What just happened?
Restoring the files
Time for action – restoring your files
What just happened?
Assessing what went wrong
Have a go hero – securing your newly restored shop
Upgrading PrestaShop
Time for action – how to upgrade PrestaShop
What just happened?
Have a go hero – keeping your store live while upgrading
This chapter in a nutshell
Summary
7. Checkouts and Shipping
Handling payments
Which payment provider should I use?
Merchant accounts
PayPal, Google Checkout, bank wire, or cash on delivery?
SSL requirements
Cost
Getting your money
Flexibility
Chargebacks
Friendliness
Conclusion
Have a go hero – turning a negative into a positive
Using PayPal
PayPal account
Setting up your PayPal checkout
Time for action – installing the PayPal module
What just happened?
Using Google Checkout
Installing the checkout
Time for action – how to set up Google Checkout payments
What just happened?
Cheque
Cash on delivery
Bank wire
Sales taxes
Time for action – setting up PrestaShop to handle sales tax
What just happened?
One page checkout
Guest checkout
Currencies
Adding a currency
Time for action – adding a currency
What just happened?
Setting currency rates
Time for action – setting a currency rate
What just happened?
Auto exchange rate updates
Vouchers
Creating a voucher
Time for action – creating a voucher
What just happened?
Giving the vouchers to your customer
Shipping options
Super-simple shipping configuration options
Common shipping scenarios
Shipping calculated by sale value
Time for action – configuring shipping by sale value
What just happened?
Configuring shipping by weight
Time for action – how to configure shipping by weight
What just happened?
Shipping configuration in depth
Gift wrapping and recycled packaging
Time for action – setting up gift wrapping and recycled packaging options
What just happened?
Pop quiz – a refresher
Your PrestaShop so far
Summary
8. Ready to Sell
Creating an account and placing an order
Time for action – creating an account and placing an order
What just happened?
Repeat business with a customer loyalty scheme
Time for action – setting up your loyalty scheme
What just happened?
Getting some product comments
All about comments
How to get some product comments
Time for action – getting some feedback for your products
What just happened?
Putting up a discount voucher on the front page
Creating the voucher (reminder)
Showcasing the voucher
Time for action – putting your voucher on the home page
What just happened?
Registering with the search engines
Registering
Time for action – registering with the search engines
What just happened?
Marketing your site
How to write good posts
Write at your skill level
Social share buttons
Criticism
Don't shamelessly promote yourself
Promoting your store using social media
Branding your profile
Following others
A lightning guide to tweeting
Regular tweets
What's your frequency Kenneth?
Broadcasting
Humor
Questions
Achievements and events
Replying and retweeting
Sales tweets
Twitter summary
Avoid spamming
Start a group
Start an event
Start a page
Social media conclusion
Handling orders and checking payments
Creating order messages
Time for action – creating messages
What just happened?
Statuses
Time for action – statuses
What just happened?
Checking payments
Processing an order
Time for action – how to process an order
What just happened?
More about the Customers and Orders tabs
Groups
Time for action – creating and using groups
What just happened?
Customers
Carts
Invoices
Time for action – Invoices
What just happened?
Merchandise returns
Pop quiz – Sell your products
Summary
9. Go… to the Future
Why are we here?
The power of e-commerce and a passive income
The busy billionaire
Learning from competitors
Perpetual analysis, improvement, and marketing
Analyzing statistics
PrestaShop statistics
Pages not found
Best products, best categories, and catalog statistics
Shop search
PrestaShop statistics summary
Google Analytics
Audience
Traffic sources
Content
Google Analytics summary
Improvement
Optimizing your articles, product descriptions, and category descriptions
Adding new articles
Marketing
Devising a routine and sticking to it
Time for action – making a plan
What just happened?
The big secret
High street retail
Duplication
Look at it like this
An analogy to explain
What about all these corner shops?
Technical duplication tips
Varying your payment provider
Varying your web host
Varying your content
Varying your cart software
Try something totally new
The future of e-commerce and PrestaShop
Pop quiz – become an e-commerce expert
Picture this
Summary
A. Control Panel Quick Reference
Catalog
Products
Categories
Monitoring
Attributes and Values
Features
Suppliers
Image Mapping
Tags
Attachments
Orders
Customers
Price Rules
Cart Rules
Catalog Price Rules
Shipping
Localization
Modules
Modules & Themes Catalog
Positions
Payment
Preferences
Advanced Parameters
Administration
Stats
B. Web Resources
PrestaShop related resources
Sales and marketing
Technical
Resources
Other shopping carts and content management systems
Other
Pop Quiz Answers
Chapter 1, Getting Started
Pop quiz – starting your e-commerce
Chapter 2, Back Office
Pop quiz – themes and things
Chapter 3, Merchandising for Success
Pop quiz – a few product marketing questions
Chapter 4, Getting More Customers
Pop quiz – PrestaShop search
Chapter 5, Tools, Newsletters, Extra Income, and Statistics
Pop quiz – tools and preferences challenge
Chapter 6, Security and Disaster Recovery
Pop quiz – security
Chapter 7, Checkouts and Shipping
Pop quiz – a refresher
Chapter 8, Ready to Sell
Pop quiz – sell your products
Chapter 9, Go… to the Future
Pop quiz – become an e-commerce expert
Index
PrestaShop 1.5 Beginner's Guide
PrestaShop 1.5 Beginner's Guide
Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: June 2010
Second Edition: April 2013
Production Reference: 1120413
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78216-106-6
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Asher Wishkerman (<wishkerman@hotmail.com>)
Credits
Authors
Jose A. Tizon
John Horton
Reviewers
Bart Sallé
Bryan Shaw
Acquisition Editor
Andrew Duckworth
Lead Technical Editor
Susmita Panda
Technical Editors
Saumya Kunder
Ishita Malhi
Project Coordinator
Anugya Khurana
Proofreader
Samantha Lyon
Indexer
Tejal R. Soni
Production Coordinator
Pooja Chiplunkar
Cover Work
Pooja Chiplunkar
About the Authors
Jose A. Tizon studied computer engineering at the University of Huelva and Czech Technical University in Prague.
He started developing websites as a hobby in the year 2000. It then became a profession, as he is now a Software Development Engineer at Amazon.
In this way, he has developed e-commerce websites for small and big companies in Spain, Czech Republic, and the UK, finding a new experience in every single one.
Jose spends his spare time with his love, Yolanda, and in developing new ideas.
Yolanda, for standing me every day and not getting angry when I spend so much time developing some of my ideas. I love you! Mua.
My parents Antonio and Paqui; brother, Francisco; and my dog, Simba who give me all the support in the world and inspire me.
Ivan (Kaly), for being himself, and friends from Huelva and Prague, who were with me in every significant moment of my life.
Cesar Mariel, for pushing me in the startup world.
The open source community, because without them, this world would be completely different.
And of course, you, for reading this!
John Horton is a fan of most things digital and particularly enjoys the growing mobile industry. He has published books, apps, and websites.
He spends his working hours helping people make a success out of their web/ e-commerce enterprises through his design business, www.HadronWebDesign.com.
He is encouraging the pursuit of mathematics through the free Android app, MathLegends. www.MathLegends.com.
In his spare time, he likes shooting Zombies with his two sons.
To the other author, who must take the credit for this book!
About the Reviewers
Bart Sallé is a web developer from the Netherlands specializing in HTML5, CSS3, PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, and jQuery.
He loves open source software and works with TYPO3, WordPress, Joomla!, PrestaShop, WooCommerce, osCommerce, and VirtueMart.
Bart Sallé was one of the first people in the Netherlands who started building his webshops using PrestaShop as a base.
He is still as excited about PrestaShop now as he was back when the first stable version of PrestaShop was released.
His company website can be found at www.os-evolution.com.
His personal website can be found at www.bartsalle.nl.
I would like to acknowledge Jolanda, my wife, and my beautiful kids, Noa and Fenne.
I would also like to acknowledge my mother Lies, and my father Theo, who passed away in January this year.
www.PacktPub.com
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Preface
If you want to start your e-commerce business but are not so much of a technical person, then PrestaShop could be your solution because it is an easy, open source, and free-for-use software that helps sell your products over the Internet.
PrestaShop is a live software, due for an open source license; there is a big community developing new features and fixing bugs very fast.
This book is called a beginner's guide
only because that is where it starts! Using both realistic and unusual case studies throughout, PrestaShop 1.5 Beginner's Guide will take you on a click-by-click, yet whirlwind journey to the realization of a fully featured, highly professional e-commerce business.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Getting Started, covers how to download and prepare the PrestaShop files, make a database, install PrestaShop, and implement post-installation security.
Chapter 2, Back Office, helps you with setting the shape of your store, including the logo. We will set up your home page, make some more key pages such as Contact us
and Conditions of use
, and change and customize themes.
Chapter 3, Merchandising for Success, discusses and implements an efficient category structure. We will add high quality product descriptions that sell and take a look at all the different ways in which you can use PrestaShop to highlight products. We will also take a look at product features, attributes, accessories, and customization.
Chapter 4, Getting More Customers, provides information on how to choose the best keywords and provide food for the search engines. We will refine PrestaShop search. We will also cover tag clouds, how to use the PrestaShop CMS, URLs in PrestaShop, robots and site maps, and how to use PrestaShop language features.
Chapter 5, Tools, Newsletters, Extra Income, and Statistics, looks at all of the most useful things on the Preferences tab. We will set up a newsletter and notifications system, talk about running an e-mail marketing campaign, set up PrestaShop statistics, and also set up Google Analytics.
Chapter 6, Security and Disaster Recovery, looks at the ways in which your shop can be damaged. We will add users, profiles, and permissions to increase security. We will talk about and optionally implement SSL to protect your customers' private information. We will learn how to back up and restore your shop in case everything else fails. We will also talk about upgrading PrestaShop and how this helps keep your business secure.
Chapter 7, Checkouts and Shipping, helps us choose and set up a payment provider. We will take a look at alternative payment methods, sales taxes, discuss and implement gift vouchers, and learn how to accept foreign currencies. We will look at the multitude of ways in which to set up shipping options for your customers to choose from, and make sure that they get charged correctly.
Chapter 8, Ready to Sell, shows us how to create a customer account and place an order. We will look at the PrestaShop customer loyalty scheme and at how to get some feedback on your products using the PrestaShop Product Comments module. We will tell the search engines about your cool new shop. We will also look at a multi-pronged marketing campaign that includes vouchers and social media. The last thing we will do is cover some functionality of the Customers and Orders tabs that we haven't covered already.
Chapter 9, Go... to the Future, we will cover analyzing, optimizing, and adding to your PrestaShop site. We will see the big secret
and also the future of e-commerce and PrestaShop.
Appendix A, Control Panel Quick Reference, briefs you about the tabs and subtabs available in PrestaShop.
Appendix B, Web Resources, lists down the web