What a PrestaShop specialist actually does for you
PrestaShop is a strong platform with a weak default. Out of the box it ships duplicate URLs, filter navigation that can generate thousands of crawlable URLs, a theme layer that most agencies patch instead of understand, and a module marketplace where quality ranges from excellent to dangerous. The stores that run well are the ones where someone owns the whole stack.
That is the job I do. Custom modules and hooks rather than a plugin for every wish. Theme work in Classic and Hummingbird that survives the next core update. Multistore and multilanguage setups that keep 22 markets on one codebase without 22 forks. And the unglamorous half - PHP version moves, security patches, backups, monitoring - that decides whether a store is still there next year.
- Custom module development and hook work, with upgrade paths that do not break on the next release
- Theme development on Classic and Hummingbird, Bootstrap 5 and TypeScript, without jQuery debt
- Multistore and multilanguage architecture: one estate, many markets, one deploy
- Integrations with ERP, PIM, payment and logistics providers, built against the Webservice and the new Admin API
- Performance: caching, database work, image pipelines and Core Web Vitals on real product pages
Why one developer instead of a PrestaShop agency
An agency sells you a project manager, a designer, a developer and a support desk, and each handoff between them is where context dies. Jungheinrich handed me 22 storefronts that had been run that way, with almost no documentation, and the estate is healthier now with one person than it was with a team - revenue included.
Working directly means the person who diagnoses the problem is the one who fixes it and the one who is still there when the next release lands. There is no ticket queue between you and the code, and no junior learning PrestaShop on your invoice.
It also means I say no. If your store needs a fifty-person build with a design studio attached, I will tell you that on the first call and point you somewhere sensible.
How an engagement runs
It starts with a look at your actual store: the codebase, the module list, the server, the Search Console data. Not a questionnaire. Within that first look I can usually tell you which of your problems are configuration, which are modules and which are structural, and what order to fix them in.
Then the work happens on a staging copy of your shop, deployed through version control, with a rollback path for every change. You see each step before it reaches customers. Nothing is billed as a black box and nothing is locked into me: the code is yours, documented, in your repository.
Scope, timing and cost depend on the store in front of me, so I do not print a rate card. Tell me what is broken and I will tell you what it takes.
The rest of the cluster
Development is one of four things a PrestaShop store needs from a specialist. The others have their own pages, because the questions people ask about them are different.
- Upgrades and migration: 1.6 and 1.7 to 8, 8 to 9, Classic to Hummingbird, with orders, customers and URLs kept intact
- Maintenance and support: the standing care that keeps a live store patched, fast and backed up
- PrestaShop SEO: duplicate content, URLs, filter URLs, structured data and multilanguage hreflang, fixed in the code rather than described in a report