When it comes to online shop management, PrestaShop has long been one of the most popular products. As an open source platform, it has been developed by a large team of developers from all over the world, who are constantly working to optimize its performance and add new functionality that can help make it even more beneficial to its users.
PrestaShop is a complete solution for running an online store, with a back office area that lets the site owner manage their online catalog, and deal with all the administrative tasks that come with taking online payments and sending out goods to clients. In the latest upgrade, PrestaShop v1.6.1.0, some additional features have been added to allow users to manage more aspects of online retail through the platform, and to improve the efficiency of the software. Additionally, there have been some aesthetic changes designed to overhaul the back end of the system and really improve the user experience.
So what are the improvements you’ll see if you upgrade to the latest version of PrestaShop?
Design Overhaul
While a design overhaul doesn’t on its own add any new functionality, the changes that have been made inside the back office of PrestaShop do make navigation and admin a lot more intuitive. That is not to say that PrestaShop wasn’t already fairly user friendly, but most people who spend a lot of time in the back office area of the system will welcome the new design. Just for fun (well, and branding of course), PrestaShop have also added a new mascot to the project – a cute little puffin character they have called Preston!
EU Management Module
Offering your goods for sale in different countries can be a great way to make more sales, but there are a lot of things to consider when working within the EU, as all of the member countries have different taxes and laws, and then there is the EU policy to consider. PrestaShop have added a new EU compliance module that will make it much easier to get a handle on whether you are ready to legitimately retail in different EU countries, as well as helping with things like currencies and taxes.
Optimization
Ahead of the launch of PrestaShop 1.6.1.0, the team involved implemented much stricter coding standards, allowing for better unit testing and therefore better quality and more streamlined programming. They also heavily optimized the SQL queries to the databases, which, in layman’s terms, means PrestaShop will work faster and with more efficiency for both people using your online shop, and for you when you are managing your site.
There are a few other changes which you can read about on the PrestaShop blog or experience for yourself by upgrading, but all in all this seems like a significant upgrade that is going to make managing and operating an online shop with PrestaShop even easier than it already was with the previous version! We advise you to check out the latest features right away!