Book Image

PrestaShop 1.3 Beginner's Guide

Book Image

PrestaShop 1.3 Beginner's Guide

Overview of this book

PrestaShop is a hidden gem. There are many much more widely known online shopping cart solutions that have nothing like the features, potential, and ease of use that this open source, completely free-to-use, system has. But until now there has been no information available on how to make the most of it. This book takes a step-by-step approach to help you set up your own e-commerce store and maximize its potential. Even if you are totally new to e-commerce and PrestaShop, you can have your own functioning e-commerce store quickly and with tiny expenditure. Imagine the feeling when you get that glorious e-mail saying that you have your first paying customer.This practical guide follows the order of developing an active business. Packed with easy-to-follow steps with loads of screenshots and clear explanations, it follows a step-by-step approach to set up a PrestaShop e-commerce store from the very beginning through finding a web host, setting up your PrestaShop store, accepting money from customers, and planning for the future of your business.The first few chapters are a lightening, but thorough, illustration of how to get your shop online, stocked up, and looking smart and unique, including some really cool and really simple product features to show off your wares in style – very quickly. The later chapters are quite diverse and cover some exciting stuff such as newsletters, loyalty schemes, alternative revenue streams, statistics and analytics. You will also learn about security, disaster recovery, payment handling, currencies, taxes, shipping, and more. Towards the end, the chapters cover final preparations before going live, handling orders in PrestaShop, and how to promote your store and get more customers. Once the money starts to flow, the book looks at the future of e-commerce and your PrestaShop business. Then it discusses how to get to the top of your niche and stay there. And then the big secret: to use the knowledge you have gained to turn a single PrestaShop into a thriving e-commerce empire.The Appendix covers a number of worthwhile topics such as a handy PrestaShop control panel reference and various web resources for PrestaShop.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
PrestaShop 1.3 Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
Preface

Time for action - transferring files to your web host


To make this as quick and easy as it can be, I will use a few Windows shortcuts in this short click-by-click guide. Just before you dive in, you will need your FTP username and password. If you don't know it already, you can usually find this quite easily by looking in your account details in your web host's control panel. Any doubts, give them a ring. That's what you pay them for.

  1. 1. Hold down the Windows key and tap the E key twice. You will have two Explorer windows pop up. Arrange them neatly one above the other. Alternatively, you can grab a copy of a dedicated FTP program such as FileZilla from www.sourceforge.net. There is a small learning curve doing this, but once you're used to it, you will have more options when using FTP. This guide assumes you do not have FileZilla, but if you do, it won't be a problem to interpret the guide.

  2. 2. Browse to the unzipped prestashop folder at the bottom of the window. Actually click into it. We do not need the folder itself, just the contents.

  3. 3. At the top window, you need to log into your website via FTP. In the address bar at the top of the screen, type ftp://yourdomain.xxx and press Enter. When a pop-up window appears, enter your FTP username and password that you obtained earlier.

  4. 4. Now at the bottom of the window, left-click on the very first file. Hold down the Shift key and then using the down arrow key, while still holding down Shift, scroll to the very bottom of the screen so that all the files and folders are highlighted. Every single one.

  5. 5. Now let go of all the keys on the keyboard. Left-click and hold the left mouse button. You can now drag all the files from the prestashop folder on your PC up to your website in the top window.

  6. 6. Wait for the files to upload. The time will vary according to the speed of your Internet connection.

What just happened?

What you have done is put all of the files and folders containing the entire computer code, data, images, and other resources into your web host's server ready for the next phase of installation.

So let's move on.