A Preview of PrestaShop 1.7

During my tour of Prestashop’s Paris headquarters, I got to lay my eyes on Prestashop 1.7, the eCommerce platform’s latest release.

The PrestaShop team are aiming to officially release 1.7 before the turn of 2017. Release candidate two already out there in the wild, ready to be downloaded.

But before it lands – and subsequently changes the way 250,000 merchants sell online – let’s take a look at what’s new.

What’s New With PrestaShop 1.7?

Let’s start with a video:

Built (in part) on the famous and robust Symfony framework, PrestaShop 1.7 is set to make a splash in the eCommerce industry. Let’s take a look at exactly how it plans to do that.

Easier Product Creation

PrestaShop 1.7 brings about a brand new way to add products to your catalogue – and I have to say – it’s far better than the product creation process found on PrestaShop 1.6.

It has a refreshed interface, quick actions, shortcuts, automatic management for combinations and much more. The entire process has been revamped for the better.

A New Modules Page

An overhauled modules page will also make it easier to add and manage your modules on a daily basis.

This new page boasts tabs to let you easily navigate between three new sections, making it easy to view your installed modules, manage the ones that require an action, and discover more that can be helpful for your business.

A New Default Theme and a Streamlined Checkout Process

The latest PrestaShop default theme is called “Classic” – and it looks classy.

This new template will bring a fresh and minimalist look to your store. But more notably, this new theme brings about a vastly improved checkout process. Just as PrestaShop impressed me with their new product creation page during my visit, they also wowed me with this redesigned checkout process.

The entire checkout process is split into sections, but is housed on a single page. If a customer leaves the page and comes back, their progress will be remembered. Plus, a landing page style template has been adopted to help keep customers focused on completing their checkout.

A Starter Theme For Developers and More

Free from any markups or custom style, PrestaShop has introduced a new starter theme for front-end developers. It acts as a skeleton for their projects, making it easier to build custom templates.

And of course, there’s a whole bunch of updates to be seen both under the hood and around the back-end of the platform.

“Code Better, Create Easier, Sell Faster”

The PrestaShop team are really running with this slogan that accompanies version 1.7. I heard it being used at least once during my PrestaShop office tour.

It’s not rocket science; PrestaShop is trying to make it easier for developers to code, easier for marketers and merchants to create product pages, and easier for shoppers to buy. And from what I can see, they’ve done exactly that with PrestaShop 1.7.

I was a big fan of PrestaShop’s efforts with PrestaShop 1.6, and I have very high hopes for 1.7, too.

To find out more about PrestaShop 1.7, check out the PrestaShop website.

Also, be sure to stick around for more coverage of PrestaShop during this PrestaShop Featured Week.