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For running a small business now, you need an online presence. There are many, and I mean many, Ecommerce solutions out there which you can use to setup your online store. However, the one shopping cart that is leading from the front now is PrestaShop.

So What is PrestaShop?

In layman terms, PrestaShop is a free, open-source ecommerce shopping cart platform with tons of features that can be used to build an online store. It’s that simple!

Prestashop is an open source ecommerce solution, which means the software can be used, modified, and distributed the way you need. Since 2007, it has powered over 125,000 stores online and has over 300 dynamic features to fit the needs of business owners and developers. It is headquartered in Paris and has over 100 developers & designers constantly working to improve and maintain it. All of this work has helped them maintain the status of the #1 E-Commerce solution for businesses.

A Sneak Peek at PrestaShop:

- Winner of 2011 Open Source Business Application Award
- Over 125,000 stores, 300 features and 400,000 active community members
- Available in 56 languages and global presence in over 150 countries

PrestaShop Features:

Prestashop is a feature rich solution and comes with over 300 dynamic features. The set of features is the best compared to any other shopping cart in the industry. In case you do not find the feature that you are looking for, PrestaShop comes with over 1000 modules. So there is absolutely nothing that you want and PrestaShop will fail to deliver. Some of the features of PrestaShop are:

- Catalog Management
- Product Display
- Site Management
- SEO
- Analytics and Reporting
- Marketing
- And much more!

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PrestaShop as a store:

Speed: You may be wondering how PrestaShop can run with so many features and functionalities. Well, PrestaShop is built as a lightweight software program which makes it smooth and fast. If you install PrestaShop on cloud package, the store will not run, it will fly! That’s how lightweight PrestaShop is. If you ever experience problems with your PrestaShop running slowly, you can look at these helpful tips to make your PrestaShop Fast.

Security: For any online store, one of the biggest concerns is security. PrestaShop understands the importance of security and gives it utmost priority. PrestaShop supports SSL, cookie encryption, PCI Compliance and more. For more on how to secure PrestaShop, check out these great security tips

Theming: PrestaShop has many themes available, both free and paid. It is based on the famous Smart-template engine platform which lets PrestaShop handle multiple templates at one time. The themes are easy to build and maintain, and are good starting point for building the store. PrestaShop themes are pre-made and can be used to create a fully functional online store.

Hosting: PrestaShop can be hosted on shared, cloud vps, and dedicated servers. You can choose a PrestaShop hosting solution depending upon your need of server resources, store size and traffic. Shared PrestaShop hosting is good for a start, but as you store starts to grow it is highly recommended that you move your PrestaShop store to a VPS solution. With a PrestaShop Vps on the cloud, you have the flexibility to control the amount of resources you need for your store. Being lightweight software, PrestaShop literally flies when installed on cloud server.

PrestaShop Popularity:

Launched in 2007, PrestaShop has seen tremendous growth in popularity. Within 6 years, it has been used on over 125,000 stores and has a huge community of over 400,000 active members. Although it was started from Paris, it has become popular all over the world. Today, its stores are now present in over 150 countries. If you have an online store selling products, PrestaShop gives you the opportunity to go global by providing you with the option to develop stores in over 56 languages. Before 2007, the most popular shopping carts were Oscommerce and Magento. However, PrestaShop has caught on very quickly and even beat out OSCommerce.

If we look at Google Trends, we can immediately see how PrestaShop has increased in Popularity. The Red line in the image above is PrestaShop which is catching up to the Blue line of Magento. The dotted lines at the end show forecast which indicate that PrestaShop will continue to increase in popularity.