Newbie Qs before moving from Conato/Isotope to Prestashop

[Paradroid]

Hi,

 

I'm on a hunt for a new/better online shop system and came across PrestaShop. I was a bit surprised to be thrown a 70MB installation file after just a few clicks and without even verifying my eMail address, but that's OK - probably a strategy to increase the "new shop every 4 minutes"-statistics?

Anyway, after watching a few videos and reading the brochure, I have a couple of detail questions that I'd like to hear some opinions on from actual users and/or developers. Our current shop is a heavily customized version of Contao+Isotope, but it's slow as hell, and it's getting slower with every product added. Since the age of this installation is approaching 9 years and updates are "hard to impossible" due to our custom code, I'd like to change to something new.

The business is small - under 500k EUR revenue per year, and there's hardly a year where we crack the 4000-orders-per-year mark, with very little outlook on growth (maybe tiny organic growth, but nothing outrageous). We currently live with wire transfer and PayPal as payment options, but adding Stripe would also be nice. Here's a first key requirement: The PayPal fees must be shown to the customer, and added to the final amount before sending the customer to the PP page. I'm aware that PP does not like surcharging, but I don't care - I have been doing this for years, and it's my way of being honest to the customer: He shall have an advantage when I have one, and if I pay nothing for an incoming wire transfer, the customer shall pay less. Is it possible to configure adding a percentage to the final amount if the customer uses PayPal?

Next is taxes: We're in Germany, but sell a lot to non-German customers. EU VAT is different for all EU countries, and the shop needs to adjust the VAT rate based on where the customer is located, and of course completely deduct the VAT if a shipment is going outside the EU. Is this native to Prestashop, or do I have to enter all tax rates manually?

Shipping methods: Our current shop system only looks at the weight of a parcel. However, we have very light-weight products that take huge volume, and these are particularly expensive to ship to the US, as we have to pay "volume weight" with UPS. Is it possible to calculate shipping cost based on volume *and* weight in Prestashop? We currently work around this limitation in our shop by entering the volume weight of that big-light product as a high kg-weight and I could do the same in Prestashop, but it would be nice to have a more sophisticated method.

Next one is tricky: Restricted sales. We deal with low-volume and limited-availability goods. Our shop implements a number of restrictions, such as "maximum qty per product and customer" and "only sell product A if product B is also in the shopping cart". The latter is especially tricky if product A shall be bought after product B has already been shipped - our current customization allows logged-in-users to do that, as the cart verification will look at all past orders of the customer and allow the "restricted product A" if "product B" has been found in past orders. Is such a module available for Prestashop?

Download-product and updates: We also have download products, and these are updated frequently. However, there is a limited free update period, in our case of one year, then the customer needs to buy a new copy of the download product. How are updates handled for download-products within Prestashop?

Variable pricing: Some of our products have a variable pricing option, called "pay what you want". I configure a minimum and a recommended price, and the customer can choose anywhere between the minimum price and an astronomically-high price. Is such a module available for Prestashop?

Practical implementation: Our invoicing and shipping systems are separate from the online shop. I don't want to change this, as the invoicing system will auto-generate all numbers for our taxes, and it also talks to our self-developed shipping system, which comes with lots of photo documentation. The documentation includes all data of the order, such as address, item list, packing photos and weight changes down to 0.1g while packing the parcel. This shipping documentation has been helpful in finding small items that customers claimed to not have in their parcel, and I'd like to make that automatically available to customers if they view their order history. So the practical question would be: Is there an "order history" panel for customers where I can upload a PDF for every order, ideally with a script?

Last not least, I need to have the order data in some easily-parsable form. I have seen that I can export invoices as PDF, but is it also possible to have the invoice data as CSV? That's the current way that my invoicing system will generate invoices and shipping instructions from shop data.

 

I'm sure I'll have more questions, but this posting is already long enough. If you're answering, please indicate if you're a user or a developer (or both?), which will make it easier for me to understand your points.

 

Greetings from Germany,

Jens

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Paradroid (see edit history)

[razaro]

Hi Jens

Welcome to the forum. And first you may missed forum rules 

where it is stated one topic = one subject, one question. It is a long post and lot of questions, that require some time to read and then to respond. I know all things concerned you and easier for you to track. But if you have split all maybe you would get answers faster and also could benefit other users in future. But It is done so let me try to answer them.

 First, I am a developer and most of the modules that I will link I did not use. So you will need to check them, most have demos both front and back office. So you could check if those match your requirements. And also do contact developer, where available, before purchase and ask them it their module covers things you need.

For Contao+Isotope I am not aware of some migration module that directly move your data. There is Cart2Cart maybe with custom service, but for sure you can import product, categories and rest with CSV import. And to mention here also, in PrestaShop you can add easily custom code but if not with module or overrides, proper way, you can get stuck in same situation. 

There are lot of payment modules, custom checkouts too. For Stripe you can choose free one from partner agency https://addons.prestashop.com/en/payment-card-wallet/24922-stripe-official-sca-ready.html or some paid ones with similar features. For PayPal if I understood these two could be a good match 

https://addons.prestashop.com/en/payment-card-wallet/53135-paypal-plus-with-fees-surcharge-card-payment-bnpl.html

https://addons.prestashop.com/en/payment-card-wallet/89315-paypal-with-fee-or-with-discount.html

Both are from good developers with good support. There are few others you can check but think there are fine.

 

For taxes, yes, you should get that already set up if you select Germany at install. If not it is easy to add, just bit of time to setup taxes and tax rules

https://docs.prestashop-project.org/1.7-documentation/user-guide/improving-shop/going-international/managing-taxes/taxes

You may also check https://docs.prestashop-project.org/1.7-documentation/user-guide/gdpr as well as German sub-forum here, lot of good topics and advices.

 

For UPS volume weight, think that is not generally included in modules but do check this one 

https://www.presto-changeo.com/prestashop/prestashop-shipping-modules/134-prestashop-ups-shipping-and-label-printing-module.html

you could enter custom package dimension  but not sure if that is what you need. Note that developer moved away from PrestaShop so modules comes "as is" so not much free support. There is paid though if needed. Other module,  do ask support first

https://addons.prestashop.com/en/preparation-shipping/32702-ups-shipping-rates-shipping-label-printing.html

 

For restricted sales, you are right, can be tricky. Do check native cart rules https://docs.prestashop-project.org/1.7-documentation/user-guide/selling/managing-catalog/managing-discounts/cart-rules but also check these modules

https://mypresta.eu/modules/ordering-process/cart-conditions-pro.html

https://mypresta.eu/modules/ordering-process/maximum-product-quantity.html

https://addons.prestashop.com/en/registration-ordering-process/27632-minimum-maximum-multiple-units-and-total-cart-limits.html 

Note that modules from mypresta site you can also  counts that comes "as is" so no support, low chance you get replay. 

 

For downloads (Virtual products) you can set Expiration date and number of downloads 

https://docs.prestashop-project.org/1.7-documentation/user-guide/selling/managing-catalog/managing-products#managingproducts-creatingavirtualproduct

Bu you may take a look at these modules, maybe offer more 

https://addons.prestashop.com/en/virtual-products/8452-virtual-downloads-management.html

https://addons.prestashop.com/en/virtual-products/18561-virtual-products-management-pro-combinations-support.html#specifications

 

For invoicing and order system you already use, not sure if possible to connect with PrestaShop. Maybe through some API but most likely custom code is needed there if you want to sync between. You can export Orders and Invoices in different way, you can also, if needed make custom SQL queries for orders, that export to CSV, but there several modules, you can check Addons more, I linked just one.

https://docs.prestashop-project.org/1.7-documentation/user-guide/selling/managing-orders/invoices

https://docs.prestashop-project.org/1.7-documentation/user-guide/selling/managing-orders/order-list-management

https://addons.prestashop.com/en/data-import-export/6927-advanced-export-products-orders-cron-csv-excel.html

And there is user order history page but  to add PDF you may need some module, maybe this, it is bit specific. Ask developers more.

https://addons.prestashop.com/en/customer-service/20515-customer-file-manager.html

And SQL manager is bit advanced but there are some ready queries on forum and internet you can test

https://docs.prestashop-project.org/1.7-documentation/user-guide/configuring-shop/advanced-parameters/database/sql-manager

 

And see if question is long answer can not be short    So if you have new questions or maybe want more on specific question do open separate topics.

PrestaShop in general in not bad solution, you can customize it a lot, extend to feature you may need or develop a new ones. Not sure if any alternatives could do more. Shopify is good but not sure if would be good for your case. Once more, do check module demos and contact developers on Addons, pre purchase. Also check https://www.prestashop.com/forums/forum/35-deutsches-forum/ again some useful posts and more responsive community maybe.

 

Good luck.

 

[Paradroid]

Thanks a lot - yes, I did miss the specific forum rule about separating topics. However, you've encouraged me to actually set up a VM and install the latest version 8 of Prestashop and start playing around in the next few weeks. As you wrote, quite some custom code will be required, possibly on both sides (my local shipping/customer tracking software and Prestashop), but just reading that there's CSV import for migrating data is really encouraging. Writing some exporters of our Contao/Isotope contraption is already on the "most likely need to do"-list. Toying around and experiencing the learning curve is the most valuable thing, impossible to replace with a forum post.

Since I intend to go with the latest version, many modules you've linked to will likely not be compatible, but the mere fact that they exist is an indicator that there is a) a solution already (through for an older version) and/or b) someone who can provide a custom one. That's already a nice "plus" over other shop systems. And you know what? The mere fact that I'm getting an answer from a human that actually refers to my questions is a huge win over Showare6: We've been playing around with a Shopware6 installation for a few months, mainly because the CEO of Shopware AG is a customer of mine (private) and I wanted to check them out. However, postings of my employees in their forum were not answered, and other pre-sales-support communications channels were also ignored. That, combined with the extreme complexity of Shopware6 and the resulting extremely-flat learning curve has scared me away.

I did read about Shopify, but that's surely not for my case - different topic.

Further, I did see the German forum, but with a system that doesn't come from Germany in the first place, addressing an international market, I believe I'm reaching a much wider audience by using English. I'm the generation that had the choice of French or Latin as 3rd language, and if I had made the right choice over three decades ago, I probably would have written in the French forum 🙂 English/German is not a problem, but it's of course good to know to add a few German Prestashop experts to the equation who fall into the category "don't like to or just cannot write in English".

Again, thanks - I'll continue to monitor this thread, and I appreciate anyone who's just answering a single question!

 

Jens

 

[razaro]

You are doing good. Testing latest version, PrestaShop 8, you will get some insight how things work and what you need to add/change in flow that suits you and your customers. I did no hear for Contao/Isotope before but most likely there is some way to export data, if not there is always phpMypadmin or similar way to get data directly from MySQL database. 

For modules, yes there is clear note what version it max supports on Addons. But there and outside of Addons marketplace even if modules says it support 1.7 it is most likely they will work on version 8. But with version 8 comes support for PHP 8 and that could be issue sometimes for older modules.

And do not get me wrong, I do not mind you ask in English forum, but just for specific rules for German market maybe sub-forum could give better answer. French one is also good   But for example if I am not mistaken, in Germany there is a rule that you can not keep IP of user but it must anonyms? Maybe I am wrong, but think one client from Germany asked that.

Again, good luck and hope you get more answers.

[Paradroid]

16 hours ago, razaro said:

But for example if I am not mistaken, in Germany there is a rule that you can not keep IP of user but it must anonyms?

That's one of the hard-to-follow rules of EU data protection laws, so I'd expect it to not being exclusive to Germany. Our current shop system does not log the IP, but Apache does, which is why we're running a chronjob to anonymize IP addresses (null the last byte) in the Apache logs after a given amount of days.

 

I won't be back with feedback too soon, as the new VM first needs to be set up, and I also want some VPN or SSH tunnel for remote database access. This way, I *should* have a direct channel for some to-be-developed scripts to migrate data, because...

16 hours ago, razaro said:

most likely there is some way to export data, if not there is always phpMypadmin or similar way to get data directly from MySQL database. 

The Isotope portion of Contao (the "shop" part) has really convoluted data structures - tables referring tables, referring tables, without the need for this level of complexity. This means that there is no single table to pull information about a product, a member or an order. You always have to make multiple lookups before you have gathered all the information. If there's anything to learn from it, then it's "how to not organize data".

 

However, migration is the step after next. For now, it's "wait for my admin to set up the VM" 🙂