Suggestions for improvement...

[AFemaleProdigy]

I have been a web developer and merchant for over 13 years and have been using Prestashop for a very long time now. I have also used all of the other popular open source and paid cart solutions as well. Here are some thing that have been on my mind.

 

I choose Prestashop over the other carts because for several reasons, but I am finding that it could be greatly improved.

 

I find that it is a bit easier to create custom themes/templates than other cart solutions. In particular, I find Magento's template system to be overly complicated. I also like how many modules are available to modify the functionality of the default installation.

 

Additionally, I like the drag and drop function to organize product and category order. Some shops are not so easy.

 

There are some things that I think were poorly constructed though. Prestashop offers the option to create Pack Products (groups of other individual products). This feature would be perfect if the store actually automatically calculate how many pack products are available, based on how many of the individual items are available. It does not do this. Instead, admin has to manually update the number of available pack products in inventory. This is troublesome and a waste of time. Inefficient. It would be ideal for admin to have the option to choose auto calculation or manual stock management for pack products. I had to buy a module to calculate this, only to find that the module was not entirely what I needed and only shows front office the correct calculation, not the back office. it is very annoying.

 

I also think it would be great if in back office->product lists, there was a box to key in changes to inventory/stock numbers for multiple products simultaneously. Right now, we have to click on the individual products, view that product page, and then adjust stock there. It would be more efficient if there was an option to mass manage product inventory on the product lists (not just the product page). My stock changes constantly and I waste a lot of time having to view each product page individually.

 

I think the module function is on the right track, but could be immensely improved if it functioned more like WordPress uses plugins and widgets. The way that WordPress installs, manages, and presents widgets to admin and front office is a lot more user friendly than PrestaShop. I prefer their ease of moving a widget from location to location. They make it a lot easier to have multiple instances of widgets with different content in the widget.

 

I have also worked with the vBulletin software and community for many years. One thing that has worked very well for them is their huge forum community that offers an immense amount of help and free modules. Most of the items I have needed to advance Prestashop has required a payment. While I understand that everyone wants to get paid for their services, I think the fact that they offer so much for free is why people are willing to pay for the actual vBulletin core software. I would pay for Prestashop if it were the top of the line and had such a huge library of free modules like vBulletin.

 

I am curious about the Force Compile feature. If I make changes to my template, the only way I can see the changes it to enable Force Compile. It also says not to leave Force Compile on in an active store. This leaves me wondering how many of my customers will not see the updates for a long time unless I leave Force Compile on? Is the Force Compile the most efficient way of managing this?

 

I have had to ban a lot of customers because we sell items that are at a high risk for charge back. It would be great if we had better banning tools on the customer list and customer pages. In particular, to ban an ip address, I have to add it to the htaccess generator page. It would be great if there was a "ban ip" with the customer page and customer list.

 

I also know that it would be helpful if Prestashop allowed admin to require email verification for new users and changes of email address. We are getting a lot of people signing up with fake email addresses and we only figure it out when we get DAEMON error emails bounced back.

 

There are modules for a lot of these things, but these are tools that come standard with most website software these days. I know that if Prestashop improved these things, it would be perfect for me. Just my two cents.