In this tutorial we will learn about some basic but important PrestaShop Store configurations. If you do not have PrestaShop installed check out our PrestaShop installation guide to install PrestaShop on your shared or dedicated hosting.

Before you can follow this guide, you must login to your PrestaShop dashboard.

Disabling Demo Mode

Once you are logged into your PrestaShop for the first time you will see a dashboard similar to the one shown below.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/853646740.png” alt=”” />

You will see a lot of dummy data on dashboard which is provided so that you can try your dashboard without real data. You can turn off the demo mode using the switch provided on the top right corner of the dashboard.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/557344745.png” alt=”” />

Once you turn off the switch, you will see the real statistics of your website.

Using Live Configurator

Live configurator is a new feature which is introduced in the latest version of PrestaShop. To access live configurator, click on the My shop link from the top menu bar.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1614865506.png” alt=”” />

It will open your store in a new tab with live configuration options on sidebar.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1180424940.png” alt=”” />

You can change your theme color of your store using the live configurator, just select the color from side bar and it will reload the store using that color. You can also change the font of your store’s titles using the font setting. Once done, click Save button to save your configuration.

System Preferences

Most of the configuration related to technical settings and customer shopping experience, can be found in Preferences options. You can find the Preferences option on the left sidebar. When you hover on Preferences link from the sidebar, you will see many configurable options which are available.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/159005230.jpg” alt=”” />

General Preferences

In general preferences, you will find few options to configure your site. You can access general preferences by going to Preferences >> General in left sidebar.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1490038820.png” alt=”” />

One of the most important configurations is to enable SSL on your shop, either on limited to customer identification and checkout or SSL support on all the pages. To enable SSL you must have already an SSL certificate setup. If you are on shared hosting, you can use the SSL manager to install a certificate. If you are on VPS or dedicated server, you can use this guide to enable free commercial certificate for your site. It is recommended to use a commercial certificate on a production site.

Once you have configured SSL for your site, either load the admin dashboard on HTTPS connection or click on Please click here to check if your shop supports HTTPS link. PrestaShop will try to load the current page using an HTTPS connection, if everything is OK, you will see a button to enable SSL on your site. If you wish to enable SSL on all the pages of your site, Enable SSL and save the preferences. Once you enable SSL for your site, you will be able to enable SSL on all your pages.

Furthermore, you can also configure some other options as well, like increasing front office security using tokens and using the HTMLPurifier Library. The recommended options for these preferences are given below the option. You can configure the rounding of the currency of a product. You can also choose to display supplier, manufacturer and best sellers on front office. Save the configuration once done.

Orders Preferences

Order preferences allow you to configure how your orders are processed. You can access orders preferences by going to Preferences >> Orders in left sidebar.

General Order Preferences

In general order preferences you will find option configure few order settings such as:

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1683643857.png” alt=”” />

You can choose the order process type, if you choose the standard option, the order checkout will be done in 5 steps. If you choose One Page checkout, then all the information required will be asked in one single page. Next, you can enable or disable guest checkout. If enabled, your customers will be able to order the product without registration. Next you can configure to choose to disable reordering option, which is enabled by default. If you disable this feature then your customers will not be able to reorder any item with a single click.

Furthermore, you can set a minimum cart value, if any cart value is lower than the specified value, customer will not be able to checkout. You can enable delayed shipping feature, which enables customer to set a delayed shipping date. Next enable or disable Terms of service. If Terms of service option is enabled, the customer will be asked to accept the terms and service before he can complete checkout. If you have Terms of service enabled, then you will be asked to choose a CMS page for the terms of use.

Gift Preferences

In gift preferences you will find configuration options related to the gift pack of the order.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1974555571.png” alt=”” />

You can enable gift wrapping by choosing yes option for Offer gift wrapping. If you have enabled gift wrapping, then set a price for the gift wrap. You can also apply a tax rule on gift wrapping.

Product Preferences

Product preferences allow you to configure how your products are to be handled and how they are displayed. You can access product preferences by going to Preferences >> Product in left sidebar.

General Product Preferences

In general product preferences, the first option is to enable or disable catalog mode. If catalog mode is enabled then any customer visiting your site will not be able to checkout or add any product to cart. Your site will be a showcase only. It is useful when you are updating your store and do not want to process any orders.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/922523944.png” alt=”” />

The next setting option is product comparison. Enter the maximum number of products which any user can compare at a time. Enter the number of days for which a product is considered new. This option is useful when adding a new product to your store, the product is automatically shown in New product page and New product block. After the period specified by you is over, the product is automatically removed from New product page.

Next you can choose where your users will be redirected after adding a product into cart. You can either redirect your users to previous page or to cart summary. Next, choose the max size of the short description, how a quantity based discount is applied and also the updation of an SEO friendly URL. It is recommended to choose NO for this option, as each time you update your product, the URL will change, and the path for the old link will no longer be valid.

Product Pagination Preferences

Configure how many how many product will be displayed on a page.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/2013800986.png” alt=”” />

You can choose how many products will be displayed on a page, using Product per page configuration. Next choose the default ordering of the page, you have plenty of options for ordering of the products. Next choose either ascending order or descending order method.

Product Page Preferences

In this section you can choose many configurable options for the product page. You can choose to display available quantities to your user. Next you can choose to display number of remaining quantities when the quantities are lower than the number specifies.

Enter 0 to disable the feature. Next choose the zoom feature of the image on the product page. If you are using the default zoom which is fancybox, once the user clicks on the image, image will get bigger in a lightbox. But if you enable this feature to use JqZoom, if a user hover overs the image, the image will get bigger. Choose if you want to display the unavailable attribute on product page.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/940841830.png” alt=”” />

Next choose Display the “add to cart” button when product has attributes, This option is used to display add to cart button when a product which are configurable, for example a t-shirt which can have many sizes. If enabled then for configurable products also, add to cart will be shown. If a user presses add to cart button, the product will be added to the cart with default attribute.

Next choose the attribute separating anchor for product links and also choose if you want to display the discounted product price for volume discounts.

Product Stock Configuration

In this section you can configure how your stocks are managed.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/2061435095.png” alt=”” />

You can configure, if you want to enable ordering of Out of Stock products. Now choose if you want to enable stock management for your store, this enables the basic stock management features. In next setting you can enable advanced stock management, which gives you ability to manage your stocks very precisely, per warehouse. If you have advanced stock management enabled, you can enable New products use advanced stock management features. Now choose a default warehouse for your new products also choose how your pack products are decremented.

Customer Preferences

Customer preferences allow you to configure your customer related configuration. You can access customer preferences by going to Preferences >> Customers in left sidebar.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1543680190.png” alt=”” />

The first option in customer preferences is the registration process type. You can choose either only account creation or standard which includes account creation as well as address creation. Next choose if a phone number is required during account creation.

Now choose if the cart will be redisplayed after account creation. If you choose yes then the items in the cart before login will be also there after login. Choose if you want to send a welcome email after the creation of account. Next choose the delay between to subsequent password reset function by a customer.

Next choose if you want to enable B2B mode, if you choose yes, then your store will have some new features. Your customers will now be treated as companies not individuals. Your customer profile fields will be changed changed to acquire professional informations from users. Prices will be masked to specific groups and invoices can be generated manually. Now choose if you want to show Enable newsletter registration and Enable opt-in on registration page.

Theme Configuration

Theme configuration allows you to add and configure the themes for your store. You can access themes preferences by going to Preferences >> Themes in left sidebar.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1590668450.png” alt=”” />

In Your Current Theme section, you will find the active theme for your website. To change your header logo, browse your new logo using the Add file button in Logo tab, it will automatically upload the logo. You can also change the logos for Invoices and emails, on Invoices & Email logos tab. If no logo is provided as invoices and email logos then the default logo will be used. In Icon tab, select an icon as favicon, which your your website icon and also select a store icon, which will be used for store locator. Also choose a logo for responsive mobile website. You can also choose to disable the responsive theme for mobile and tablets from this tab.

If you click on the Theme Configurator button, it will take you to modules section, where you can configure the modules of your theme.

To configure your current active theme, click on Advanced setting button. In the advanced setting section you can configure the name of the theme. Next you can provide a preview image for your theme. Next you can choose if you want to enable the default left or right column. Now provide the maximum number of products you want to display per page.

Scroll down below to find the appearance of the column section. In this section you can configure on which page, you want to display the left or right column.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1126747634.png” alt=”” />

If you want to activate the column on any page, just click on the red unchecked sign, it will turn into green checked sign. Also in front end, the column will appear on your chosen side. To deactivate the default column from any page, click on green checked sign and it will turn into red unchecked sign. Click Save button to return back to Themes preference interface.

To add a new theme click on the Add new theme button on the top right corner. You will see an interface to import the theme. You can browse a zip archive, it will automatically upload and install the theme. You can also paste a link for an archive available online, PrestaShop will automatically download and install the theme. You can also upload the file through FTP into the /themes folder, and select the archive after upload to install it. You can also create your own theme by clicking Create new theme button.

SEO and URL Preferences

SEO and URL preferences allow you to add SEO friendly meta tags and URLs for your store. You can also configure or change your shop’s domain from here. You can access SEO & URLs preferences by going to Preferences >> SEO & URLs in left sidebar.

SEO & URLs

The first section of this configuration page has a list of all the default URLs present on your shop. You can edit the meta info and URL for the page individually from here.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1208970485.png” alt=”” />

To edit the SEO attributes for any page, click on the Edit button next to the page. For example if you want to edit the meta tags of homepage then click Edit button next to index page. You will see following interface.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/543631280.png” alt=”” />

Enter an SEO friendly page title, meta description and meta keywords. For the index page the rewritten URL is not applicable but for other pages, you can edit them.

Before you can use SEO friendly URLs, you will need to make sure that you have Apache mod_rewrite enabled. Most of the hosting providers has mod_rewrite enabled in shared hosting. Additionally you will need to create an empty .htaccess file in your document root directory with write permission on it. You can simply modify the file permission of .htaccess to 666.

Setup URLs

In this section you can enable or disable SEO friendly URLs for your site. If you enable Friendly URLs, then all the URLs of your store will become SEO friendly, which is recommended for SEO purposes.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1991921336.png” alt=”” />

The next option is to configure Accented URL. If you enable this option, PrestaShop will be able to add special characters in friendly URLs. It is recommended to disable this option unless required. The next option is redirect to the canonical URL, it is recommended to enable this option, when you are setting up your website, choose 302 Moved temporarily. When you have finished setting up the site, choose 301 Moved Permanently. The next two options must be enabled when you are facing some issues with friendly URLs, even if you have mod_rewrite enabled and .htaccess created with write permission.

Shop URL Configuration

This section contains the URL of your shop, both the secured URL and unsecured URL.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1929957415.png” alt=”” />

If you ever change your domain to move your site, you can change your domain name here. If you have moved your shop to any folder, you can change the Base URI here. If you have the shop in the domain root then your base URI will be /.

The next section, the schema of URLs enables you to modify the pattern of SEO friendly URLs of your Store. To use this option, you must have Friendly URLs activated on your store. Unless required, you should use the default schema patterns for your links.

The final section of the SEO and URLs page is the robots file generation. A robots.txt file, when placed in the document root directory of your website, blocks specific bots and web crawlers to avoid indexing of the files, directories and pages, which are not meant to be public. It is recommended that you generate robots.txt file, soon after you finished creating your website. Generate robots.txt file by clicking Generate robots.txt file. It will replace your old file with a new one. If you want to add your own rules, then you must do it after the generation of the file by PrestaShop.

CMS Preferences

The CMS (Content Management System) allows you to create static pages for your website, like the about us page. The CMS has a rich WYSIWYG editor, which helps you to create stunning pages for your store. You can access the CMS by going to Preferences >> CMS in left sidebar.

In the CMS interface, you will see the first section, which will show you the list of all the static pages categories available in your store. Categories are used for grouping of the similar kind of static pages. By default you have your root category as Home, all the new categories that you will create, will be a sub catagories of Home category.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/17170809.png” alt=”” />

In the next section you will see a list of all the pages in the current category. By default PrestaShop comes with few pages, which you can either edit or delete using the Edit button next to it.

Adding a New CMS Category

You can create a new category by clicking Add new CMS category on the top right corner.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1864701643.png” alt=”” />

Enter a Name for your category, and select appropriate option for “displayed option”. If you choose YES, then the category will be visible in front office, if NO then it will be hidden. Choose an appropriate Parent CMS category. Provide a description for your category. Now provide a short SEO rich Meta description and Meta keywords for your new category. Finally provide a Friendly URL for your category. For example for Information category, you can provide info slug. Click Save button once done.

Adding a New CMS Page

To add a new static page, click on Add New CMS page button on the top right corner.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/67817992.png” alt=”” />

Choose a CMS category for your page, and provide a Meta title for your page. The Meta title you provide here also becomes the title of the page. Provide a short Meta description and Meta keywords for your new page. Now provide a friendly URL for your page, for example if you are creating Our Portfolio page, then you can provide the friendly URL as our-portfolio. Finally provide the content for your page using WYSIWYG editor. You can also embed images and videos through this editor. Now select if you want this page to be indexed by search engines, also select if you wish to publish the page using Displayed option. You can click Save and preview button to preview the page, or you can click Save button to save the page and return to CMS preferences.

Image Preferences

Image preferences allow you to manage the images types for your store. You can also regenerate the thumbnails using this interface. You can access image preferences by going to Preferences >> Images in left sidebar.

The first section of Images you will see has the default list of image types in your store.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/806937159.png” alt=”” />

You can either edit these image types of you can create a new image type using the Add new image type button on the top right corner of the page, you will see following interface.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1563025088.png” alt=”” />

Enter the name of your image type, you must use letters and hyphens only. Next enter the maximum height and width of the image in pixels. Now choose that the image type will be available for which section. For example if you want the image type to be used in Products and Manufacturer only, then choose YES for these two options. Click Save button to return back to image settings.

You can configure Images Generation Options, in which you can select the file type for your images, you can select JPEG only to disable PNG. Then choose the compression values and other parameters.

In next section you can regenerate the thumbnails for your website. Beware that this option will regenerate the thumbnails for all the images in your store. All your previous and manually uploaded thumbnails will be replaced by new automatically generated thumbnails.

Store Contacts

Store Contacts allow you to manage the contacts for your stores. You can also manage the details of your online store. You can access Store Contacts by going to Preferences >> Store Contacts in left sidebar.

In Store Contacts sections, you will see a list of many demo stores, you can delete these stores by clicking the down arrow next to edit button and then clicking on delete button.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1093738191.png” alt=”” />

Add a New Store

To add a new store, click on Add new store button from the top right corner. Enter the required information into the form, provide name and other details of the store. Also provide a location of the store by giving longitude and latitude of the store. Choose a status of the store, if yes then store is enabled. Provide a picture of your store and also provide the working hours of the store. Click Save button to return to Store Contacts after saving the store.

The next section is the parameter configuration of store locator. Choose YES for Display in the footer, if you want to display store locator link in footer. Next choose if you want to display store locater in sitemap. If you choose yes for Show a simplified store locator option, then it will show a simple list in the store locator page, if you choose NO, then an interactive map with search option will be shown. Next provide a default longitude and latitude for the map on store locator page.

The last section is for contact details. Provide contact details for your store here. You can also change the Shop name, this will change the name of your store.

Search Preferences

Search preferences allow you to manage the search feature of your store. You can also manage the indexing of the products of your store in search. You can access Search Preferences by going to Preferences >> Search in left sidebar.

Search Alias

Sometimes a user misspells a word during search, you can configure search alias to search for right word, even if user misspells the word. You can edit existing alias by clicking Edit button next to the search alias.

To add a new alias, click on Add new alias button from the top right corner. Now enter the alias in Alias field, separated by comma, and result in Result field.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/354618839.png” alt=”” />

Next in the Indexing section, you will find the links to manually index the file. Or you can also choose YES for Indexing option. If you choose YES for indexing option then index of the products will be automatically done when you create a new product. It is recommended to enable automatic indexing.

Configuring Search

You can configure how your search will function through here.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1398170276.png” alt=”” />

You can enable or disable Ajax search through here. If enabled then it will display the top 10 search results directly under search box. If Instant search is enabled then current page will be replaced by search results as soon as user type anything in search box. If you enable search within a word then the results can have the searched query match anywhere in the string. If you enable search exact end match, then only those result will be shown who has the same ending as the searched query has. Finally enter minimum search word length, recommended is 3. You can also blacklist any word, you do want users to search.

Maintenance

When you are updating your Store or for some reason, you do not want users to access your store. Through this interface, you can enable or disable maintenance mode for your store. You can access Maintenance Mode by going to Preferences >> Maintenance in left sidebar.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/283227995.png” alt=”” />

To activate Maintenance mode, simply select NO in Enable Shop option and press Save button. This will disable the front office of your website and a message will be displayed. This will disable the front office for you too. But you can access your front office even if it is on maintenance mode by entering your IP address in Maintenance IP field. You can add multiple IPs by separating them with comma.

Geolocation

The geolocation feature enables you to accept or block connections by specific countries. You can access Geolocation by going to Preferences >> Geolocation in left sidebar.

By default Geolocation feature is disabled in PrestaShop as it needs a Geolocation database. You can download the database from here and extract the database files in /tools/geoip/ directory.

Once you do that, you can enable Geolocation by IP address by selecting YES.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/531281339.png” alt=”” />

Once you enable Geolocation feature, you can configure the option for this in the options section.

In the options section, select the default behaviors for blocked and other countries. You can choose to block the display of catalogue of your store to these countries, or you can also choose to display the catalogue but restrict the visitors to place the order. You can select the countries from which your store is normally accessible.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1995783204.png” alt=”” />

You can also whitelist any IP address, despite whate their country of origin is, they will always have access to your website. Put the IP address one address per line and click Save button.

HP_NO_IMG/data/uploads/users/0311e836-0005-4bab-a66d-c150cb3e0e14/1391714859.png” alt=”” />

Conclusion

In this tutorial we have learnt to configure the basic settings for your PrestaShop installation. You can now successfully make the necessary changes to the preferences of your store.