PrestaShop vs Shopify. What to Choose & How to Migrate In 2022

When it comes to PrestaShop vs Shopify — both eCommerce software are brilliantly developed and capable of fulfilling any ambitious expectations. Though after a short Google search it becomes obvious that Shopify outperforms PrestaShop ruling approximately 19% of the share market. Let’s try to clarify those reasons that make e-merchants worldwide migrate from PrestaShop to Shopify and how to do it without hiring an expert.

PrestaShop and Shopify are two market’s leading eCommerce platforms with both of them having good and bad elements. Undoubtedly, you have great possibilities with both systems if you use them in the right situations. A general rule of thumb is that PrestaShop should be high on the consideration list for those who are familiar with programming languages or are ready to spend a fortune on a professional developer, while Shopify is an easy-to-use, predictable platform that doesn’t require deep technical expertise to start selling online.

PrestaShop vs Shopify. The Basics

PrestaShop is the freemium, open-source, and one of the most highly customizable eCommerce platforms on the web market. It’s written in PHP, translated in various languages, localized for numerous countries, and supports 50+ world-class payment solutions and gateways. Officially launched in August 2007, today PrestaShop downloads have reached 5 million and 100, 000, 000 community members. Currently, it is being used by more than 300,000 shops worldwide. Sounds impressive, right?

Shopify is a dream to set up and manage, with the most thought-out feature set you’ve ever encountered. It powers a ton of world-known online retailers including Tesla Motors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, CrossFit, General Electric, and etc. The panel’s reliability and robustness are embodied in customers’ loyalty and displayed in the billionth order on the platform recorded. Its excellent reputation is justified thanks to the ease of use, modern templates, and flexibility.

Watch our video tutorial to see how easy it is to automatically migrate from PrestaShop to Shopify with the help of the Cart2Cart migration tool:

How to Migrate From PrestaShop to Shopify In ⌛ 5 Minutes (2021⚡ | Non-Techie Friendly)

Having said all this, we came closer to the issue: how to decide on PrestaShop or Shopify? Bear in mind your individual requirements and circumstances.

Why Stick With PrestaShop?

Pros

1. Perfect for startups and pilot projects as a result of its low budget requirements;
2. The highly active developer community, so you’re able to find assistance from active users in the forums with any problem that you might have;
3. Open source, cloud-based platform with more than 5000 modules and themes.

Cons

1. It’s tough to put Prestashop in the middle of a multi-channel business due to security risks;
2. Limited integrations with a hosted version;
3. No customer service and the expensive support packages require additional payments, which may be out of your budget;
4. You can find all-inclusive solutions with a more consumer-friendly interface, hosting, domain names, and security included;
5. Bugs and glitches: modules don’t always work smoothly with each other, upgrades don’t always perform in the right way.

Why Stick With Shopify?

Pros

1. Shopify can boast a great community of enthusiasts willing to help you and excellent customer support, available 24/7;
2. Swift and straightforward for setting up and using;
3. 100% mobile responsiveness, iPhone and Android apps allowing you to manage your store on the go, whatever you do;
4. Included software and hosting, eliminating all tech worries;
5. The sensitive clients’ information is reliably saved under seven locks — one more advantage of the hosted solution;
6. 1200+ fully customizable themes and templates to fit with your brand identity and originality;
7. App Store (4,500+) is a mother lode for enhancing your eStore functionality. But note: over half of them are charged for;
8. SEO and marketing tools enable you to rank higher in search results and not to pull down the virtual shutters in no time;
9. Abandoned checkout cart recovery service which automatically tracks and emails potential customers to remind them to complete their purchase to increase your sales.

Cons

1. Not every platform is perfect. Shopify requests a 0,5–2% transaction fee in addition to your payment gateway fee;
2. The platform doesn’t allow various types of content, as blog layouts are quite limited, so you’ll have to integrate with Tumblr, Squarespace, or different blogging resources.

If the Price is Of Concern

Before comparing prices, we should say that while PrestaShop does not offer a free trial (what’s the point if their software is already free), they provide you with a demo. Shopify, for its part, offers a 14-day free trial, which unlocks all features for you to test before committing to any of the premium plans. You’re able to cancel this trial account at any time you decide on it.

Shopify has four different pricing plans (from $29 to $299 per month), each of them allows for an unlimited number of products, unlimited file storage, shipping label discounts, and a retail package if needed. There’s one more special Shopify Lite Plan ($9 monthly), but remember, running a full eCommerce site is not really possible with it. This offer allows only options for selling on Facebook, accepting credit card payments, and using Buy buttons.

Design and Customization

As for PrestaShop, if you’re not endowed with tech talent, we’re so sorry. Being open-source, this platform has infinite possibilities for customization to facilitate overall business growth. Thousands of its modules and themes can be moderated and changed from A to Z for the creation of a truly unique presentation. But exclusively for those, who are aware of how to deal with all that tech stuff, in particular, for developers. In case you’re okay with investing (quite a bit!) in a web expert to help you through the rough spots, PrestaShop is a good candidate to consider.

Moreover, the only free option is a default theme that comes with every software download, everything else (3000+ mobile-friendly templates) is priced between $50 and $530. Their quality and look are heavily dependent on the price. The free PrestaShop store doesn’t seem so cheap anymore, yeah? One more reason for Shopify’s customization interface provides a range of options (e.g., creating a logo, changing the website colors in accordance to your brand ones, building a unique homepage) neatly displayed one after another, so you can just go through them from top to bottom and fine-tune every little detail regarding the design. Besides, you won’t be given just a blank canvas, having no idea what to do with it. With this super-intuitive cart, you’ll get a ready-made design and options panel to select and add elements.

Shopify offers some of the most professional-looking themes of any eCommerce platform. First of all, this cart produces a broader range of no-payment templates. What’s more important, having seen them, no one will think that free equals not too good.

If your imagination requires something even more sophisticated, all things are thought over. 1200+ premium themes at your service wait to dress up your e-store, help you build trust, and sell products (prices between $140 and $180).

Note: you don’t have to use paid templates, once you start to get more sales, you can always upgrade to a premium theme later on.

More details can be found here: 2021 PrestaShop vs Shopify Comparison: How to Wix Buyers & Influence Sales

How to Migrate from PrestaShop to Shopify?

If you’ve made the decision to perform PrestaShop migration to the new Shopify home, there’s one more challenge ahead of you — database migration. As you probably know, there are several ways (e.g. manual, assisted, automated, etc.) of store import from one platform to another. But an automated data export is considered to be the safest and fastest option. Cart2Cart migration service provides you with the following benefits:

• It’s secure for the eCommerce data provided for the transfer.
• It is easy to export data even for non-tech-savvy customers.
• No downtime of your current e-store during the whole migration process.
• Migration preview available.

A Quickstart Guide to Migrate Your Store to Shopify

Note: Cart2Cart migration tool doesn’t delete any PrestaShop data during the migration process. But you can do a store backup using any of the external devices, just like a precaution.

Set up the Source & Target Carts

Choose PrestaShop as your Source Cart and fill in its URL. To continue, download Connection Bridge, unzip it, upload files and check the result. When finished, choose Shopify as your Target Cart and provide its URL. Repeat the same procedure with the Connection Bridge.

Select Entities for Data Transfer

Choose from the listed below PrestaShop data that you’d like to import, for example, products, customers, orders, categories, reviews, etc. Scroll down and decide which additional options you want to use to extend the migration possibilities.

Start Free Demo and Launch Automated Shopify Migration

Perform Free Demo to check the imported data and the service quality in action beforehand. In approximately 30min, the limited number of eCommerce entities will be transferred to the store on Shopify.

You can easily automate the process of PrestaShop to Shopify migration by making use of the Cart2Cart Store Migration App.

Check out our infographic to get a better understanding of the migration process via Cart2Cart:

Watch the video below to learn how to check the demo migration results on your Shopify store:

PrestaShop to Shopify: Final Verdict

Don’t be deceived by the email notification about the end of the migration — though the database transfer is over, there are still some things that should be done before you go live. So, take time to check your new Shopify store front end for inconsistencies, make a few test purchases, register new customers, etc. Besides, this is the right time to make your store look and feel as required by installing the necessary theme and apps.

Note: if new Shopify data (orders, customers, etc.) has appeared on the platform in the process of replatforming, you can quickly transfer it to Shopify using our Recent Data Migration service.

So, now you see that automated migration can save you huge time and money, and allow focusing on business matters instead of taking care of migration-related hassles. Don’t wait any longer and perform the Demo migration to begin a new chapter in your business strategy!