PestaShop For Stand Alone Websites - It's FREE!

PrestaShop is an interesting, relatively new open-source software for you to create your own stand alone website. They just released 1.3.0 Beta but if you are going to use this software, use the previous version, 1.2.5. They are still working out the bugs in the 1.3.0.

We haven't officially started tinkering with this software yet but we have read many reviews on it. Most people state how easy it is to implement. If you have issues, you can always go to PrestaShop forums for help. It is a lively community with plenty of helpful people around. There are even some members who are willing to set up your shop for you at a reasonable cost.

We are going to use PrestaShop for our newest store.

PrestaShop also offers stores on their website for a fee. We haven't considered that option but the information on that topic is as follows:

Prestabox is a turnkey e-shop that you can set up in 10 minutes. Don't pay attention to the technical side, just sell. Hosting on high performance servers.

Just fill your shop name in the field and follow instructions. Customize your e-store with all PrestaShop included features.

Change graphical appearance, fill your products in your catalog, create promotions, optimize SEO and etc... When your catalog is ready, open your shop and make your first sales! Follow and track your customers with complete statistics built-in tools to optimize your e-shop to sell more and more!

Start at 1% of your sales and a minimum of 15€ from the 10th month.

PrestaShop™ is a professional e-Commerce shopping cart software that you can download and use for free.
The big advantage of open-source software: you're never 'locked' to expensive commercial software.

Our dedicated team and growing user community join forces to fix bugs and add new functionality at a rate proprietary software companies can rarely claim. Join the Open Source revolution!

Shop owners appreciate PrestaShop's easy-to-use Back Office tool for adding and fine-tuning their storefronts (Front Office). With new & sophisticated Back-Office functionality added regularly, shop owners don't need to rely on others to make their Front Office look and act the way they want it to.

Developers appreciate the clean structure of PrestaShop code that they can easily adapt to their client's needs for quick turn-around. Thanks to its use of CSS and transplantable module blocks, the PrestaShop e-Commerce Solution can be customized for small or medium-sized businesses working within tight deadlines.

Despite its technical sophistication and advanced functionality, the PrestaShop e-Commerce Solution is very light (around 6 MB not including translation files), so it's easy to download, install, and update.

PrestaShop is so lightweight and speedy, even customers with slow connection speeds will enjoy buying from you!

On the Web, appearances matter. In many cases, you really can judge a Website by its cover!

The PrestaShop e-Commerce Solution was built to take advantage of essential Web 2.0 innovations such as dynamic AJAX-powered features and next-generation ergonomy. PrestaShop guides users through your product catalog intelligently and effortlessly, turning intrigued visitors into paying customers.

FEATURES:

Front Office - Your website that the pulic sees

Special deals (price reductions, gift vouchers)
Featured products on homepage
Top sellers on homepage
New items on homepage
'Free shipping' offers
Cross-selling (Accessories)
Product image zoom
Order out-of-stock items
Customer subscription & user accounts
Unlimited payment methods
Payment by bank wire
Google™ Checkout module
Cash-On-Delivery (COD)
Preconfigured for Paypal™
Multiple-recipient contact form
Product tagging & tag cloud
Search
Merchandise return (RMAs) & credit slips
Package tracking
Offer gift-wrapping & recycled packaging
PDF customer invoice
Shopping Cart recall
Sale of services & virtual goods
Custom Favicon
RSS feed
Newsletter opt-in
'Pick up in-store' option
Customized product (text and images)
Wishlist
Loyal customer program
Affiliate program
Sponsor-a-friend benefit program
Customer product reviews

Back Office - The administrative area of your site

Unlimited categories & subcategories
Full-featured WYSIWYG text editor
Unlimited product attribute combinations
Unlimited product specs
Unlimited images with automatic resizing & file optimization
Unlimited currencies
Unlimited tax settings
Unlimited carriers & destinations
Tax by state, country, both, zones, or no taxes
Digressive pricing (Quantity discounts)
Real-time currency exchange rates
Inventory management
SMS/Text-message alerts
Add/delete function modules
Bar codes
Contextual help
Attribute Combo Generator
Delivery status notification e-mails (customizable)
Unlimited languages & dialects
Import/export language translations
13 default language translations
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Friendly URLs / Permalinks
100% modifiable graphic themes
Back Office users & permissions (ACL )
Maintenance Mode
Minimum order amount
Newsletter contact export
Alias search
Bulk lister/import .CSV files
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption
Visitors online
Content Management System (CMS)
Reports
Customer groups

COMING SOON:

Product comparison
Advanced search
FAQ module
Multiple Shops
Printable shipping label
1-click purchase
Per-item shipping cost
Download catalog as PDF
Export products as .CSV file

Click here to go to the PrestaShop website.