Today, building an online store is an almost mandatory task for businesses, professionals and freelancers alike. Reaching users and selling products and services over the internet is the best way to make the most of the surge in online shopping and the mass use of mobile devices.

PrestaShop is one of the most flexible and powerful tools for creating an e-commerce site available on the market today. This free platform simplifies the process of creating and managing an online store and can be customised to build any kind of digital business.

Choosing a good hosting service for PrestaShop should be one of your priorities when getting started with an online-store project on this platform, in order to get the most out of your online business.

The features of PrestaShop

PrestaShop is a specialist CMS for the creation and management of e-commerce sites. The main advantages of PrestaShop are:

• It’s a free tool.
• It’s highly customisable, both in terms of appearance and the use of templates, and in features – with the option to include various modules or add-ons.
• It’s easy to install and use, with a gentle learning curve.
• It’s designed to facilitate SEO positioning.
• It’s a secure platform.
• It has quick loading times and multi-device compatibility.

How to choose the best hosting service for a PrestaShop e-commerce site

Bearing in mind the features of PrestaShop, you’ll need to install your site on a hosting service that will help you get the most out of all its possibilities – like improving web positioning, increasing security levels or promoting good user experience with fast hosting-service loading times, among others.

To choose a good hosting service for a PrestaShop store, you’ll need to consider the following factors:

Trial period

The hosting service should offer a trial period to be able to see first-hand how it performs with PrestaShop. The best way to be sure that a web-hosting service is right for your e-commerce site is to try it for yourself.

As a PrestaShop store allows you to manage thousands of products, it’s essential that your purchased server has sufficient capacity to be able to manage requests to a database with such a large number of entries. Testing whether or not the database functions optimally with the hosting service offers the guarantee that your online store will function correctly.

Many hosting sites offer a 30-day trial period, through which you can request a refund if you’re not satisfied with the service. This type of service should be considered when it comes to purchasing web hosting for PrestaShop.

Customer service

An online store is a business that should always be available for customers, at any time of day. If any problem arises, it’s important to take immediate measures to reduce periods of instability or other errors that will negatively affect your e-commerce site (particularly for any inability to place orders).

24/7 support should be a priority when it comes to purchasing web hosting for PrestaShop, guaranteeing that there will always be an online technician who can be contacted if the store suffers any issues related to hosting.

If the hosting provider’s technical customer service has staff specialising in PrestaShop, you’ll get better quality support and be able to resolve incidents much more efficiently and in less time.

Type of hosting service

The type of hosting chosen is important for your online PrestaShop store. Depending on the traffic expected for your e-commerce site, you can either opt for a cheaper shared hosting service, or choose other solutions offering greater capacities and performance – but at a higher financial cost.

A specific PrestaShop hosting service should offer features that accelerate the page loading for the store and allow for rapid responses to user searches. Servers should be able to count on solid-state drives (SSD), as well as high processing power and RAM capacity. You’ll also need a large storage capacity, as PrestaShop uses many images for each product, and it is also possible to add videos of items featured for sale (which take up a large amount of space).

The service offered must include sufficient monthly transfer for uploading data to the hosting service, and the capacity to support web-traffic peaks without affecting performance.

It’s important to remember that PrestaShop is a comprehensive system for the creation and management of online stores, and as such it includes a wide variety of features such as invoice management, advanced customer administration, stock updates and more. For this reason, you’ll need to choose a powerful hosting service, as the requirements of this system are higher than those of a traditional website.

Secure hosting

Security is one of the most important aspects of an e-commerce site, as users will enter their banking details during the sales process in order to pay for their purchase.

It’s essential that you opt for a service that provides SSL certificates and includes other measures to protect the hosted websites (such as anti-DDoS-attack measures and protection against spam and malware) when it comes to choosing the hosting service for your PrestaShop.

Backup system

Backups are the best way to guarantee the continuity of your online business. If you have a recent, stored backup, you can restore the site and get it up and running again as soon as possible when faced with any serious problems or incidents.

Web-hosting providers that include automated systems to make periodic backups of hosted sites are the best for creating and managing PrestaShop stores with the best guarantees.

Automated installation

The process of manually installing PrestaShop is not very complicated. However, it takes time and the use of tools like an FTP application to upload files to the hosting service.

With an automated system to install PrestaShop, this process will be vastly accelerated and simplified, allowing you to get started configuring your site and adding products for sale in just a few minutes.

Control panel

To manage the services purchased from the hosting service, providers offer a control panel with various features. In a PrestaShop store, you’ll need to be able to access domain management, automated platform-installation systems, PrestaShop files, backups, and other features.

The hosting service should offer a functional and intuitive control panel, such as the popular Plesk or cPanel, making the management of your web-hosting service much easier.

Cost of the service

Although the price of a hosting service should not be valued above other more important characteristics that directly affect PrestaShop’s performance, it is important to compare different options available on the market in order to choose the best hosting service that suits your e-commerce site, at the best price.

Choosing the best hosting service for your online PrestaShop business depends on various factors. When it comes to purchasing web-hosting services for your e-commerce, remember to consider all the points indicated above. This way, you’ll be able to choose the ideal hosting service for your online-store project and get the best performance from PrestaShop.