Merchants who choose PrestaShop, and why they stay
PrestaShop is a free, open-source ecommerce platform. Merchants download it, install it on hosting they control and extend it with modules and themes from the PrestaShop Addons marketplace. That model attracts owners who want to keep their data and their code, often with a developer or agency on hand who has shaped the checkout, catalogue and back office around the way the business trades.
The flip side of that control is that nothing is done for you. A PrestaShop shop that has grown past a few dozen orders a day usually has a well-tuned front end and a packing operation that is still a back room, a spare unit or a founder working late. That is the gap a 3PL fills without asking you to rebuild the store.
What a PrestaShop order needs from the warehouse
PrestaShop runs every order through a sequence of statuses that you can see and edit in the back office, and each change is logged on the order. The platform's own guidance is careful about the difference between an order that has been shipped and one that has been delivered, and it warns that once an order is set as shipped it cannot be moved back. So the status your customers see needs to be driven by what physically left the building, not by someone clicking ahead.
The customer also picks a carrier at checkout, and the order records that choice alongside its weight. We respect the service they paid for and dispatch tracked with proof of delivery, choosing between DPD, Evri, Royal Mail and our other carriers where you let us optimise. Orders placed before 9pm can go out the same day; cut-offs vary by carrier, service and daily order profile. Each pick is checked at 99.9% pick and pack accuracy, and custom packaging or inserts can be added to your spec.
How PrestaShop orders and stock move through Smart
Once a PrestaShop order is paid, it flows into our system automatically and joins the pick queue. When the parcel is packed and labelled, the tracking number and shipped status are sent back so the order history in PrestaShop moves on and your customer gets their dispatch email with tracking.
Stock runs the other way. Goods arriving at Smart are checked in against your purchase order, and the quantities we hold sync back to your catalogue, so a combination that sells out stops being orderable rather than turning into an apology email. Returns are graded and restocked with reason codes, and the same stock pool can serve marketplace or trade orders if PrestaShop is one channel among several. You see live stock and orders in the client portal, and Andy Paine is your named contact rather than a ticket queue.
