I have been playing with prestashop for few weeks for a small personal store (about 20 products). My ISP offered 1 click solutions for e-commerce. Other competitors like OS commerce and others was potentially a choice too.
After few minutes, the shop was on and running. I'm was quiet amazed by the quality and the options available in the back office. I was just disappointed by the default theme provided, instead of having something minimalist and generic I end up with a women cloths default template!
Next step was searching themes, like on CMS some are free some are not. I totally understand than developers need to make a living.
After 1 hour of fake blogs, and google search I end up by finding 2 free themes:
leohite version 1.0: which looked nice and simple on preview. One small detail, it doesn't support 1.6.* I contacted the developper who quickly respond and was nice and explained why the add to cart didn't work: incompatible. I said I don't mind paying for an updated version of it. But no plans. Everything was working except add to cart, very awkward. prestashop_51230: The free template just doesn't install: either uploading in the backoffice or by FTP.
2 free templates both doesn't work, I just paid about 100$ for 1 year hosting and the next step was to find a template even a free one to see how the shop would look like out of women shop!
My major concern is the rip off behind the templates business and the security issues:
-Security: and one who develop a theme can put a backdoor in the shop. Since no signature are required when uploaded to the site. I'm also curious how the source codes are review when sold from the prestashop site.
-Theme pricing: since there a no basic basic/minimalist themes you are forced to buy a theme from 60 to 130$!
On top of that themes prices change from a site to another! Some are almost the double price! https://www.templatemonster.com being the most ripoff.
Prestashop is a great shopping cart solution with great options but the theme business approach a nightmare with way too hight prices, I'm not going to spend 130 for a theme, a to be honest some are not worth the value.
I don't see any other options than uninstall prestashop and choose another solution. Any other suggestions?
It's just a shame having such a great system but such a bad policy for the themes.
My 2 cents