Benjamin Teszner (CEO PrestaShop) announced as a Keynote Speaker for Ecommerce Poland

Dear Benjamin, We are very glad and looking forward to see PrestaShop at Ecommerce Poland Trade Fair next year. I hope you will find time to respond to our questions and fulfill our curiosity.

According to many reports about polish e-commerce market PrestaShop might have more than 8% share among e-commerce software solutions. What are the key success factors behind this outcome? Is the situation self driven or rather result of active efforts concerning Polish market and polish community?

Hi! These figures might be underestimated: PrestaShop has around 8,000 active shops in Poland (daily tested stats), which represents a much greater market share! Since 2007, PrestaShop has put the stress on the ease of use and the depth of its list of features. PrestaShop is a 100% free and top quality software, very accessible to both developers (purely PHP-based) and merchants, with a great marketplace where one can find modules to enrich the solution and/or customize the layout of its shop. It’s thus not a surprise if PrestaShop has been widely adopted throughout the world with currently around 130,000 active e-shops. Concerning the Polish market, I must admit that our success was mostly self driven thanks to a wonderful and very active community promoting our software. In 2013, we have decided to boost our development in Eastern Europe and more specifically in Poland: fully translated software and website, emphasis on local partnerships with banks, carriers and development of a strong network of certified web agencies... This is why we’ll be there in Poznan to meet you all!

PrestaShop offers mainly a free, open-source software for deployment of online stores. Can you tell us more about less popular solutions for clients and partners you offer?

PrestaShop has a lot to offer to its community. If you are a merchant, you can find add-ons on our market-place to customize and improve your shop by adding features such as payment, shipping, marketing… there are more than 3,000 add-ons available. You can also use PrestaBox, our Saas/Cloud solution that allows anyone to open a store in a few minutes. With 310 features, you can develop your business quickly and let us take care of the technical side (updates, backup of your data…). If you are an agency, you can become a certified partner: you’ll be recognized as a PrestaShop expert and we will recommend you to the community! And if you are a developer or an integrator, we have a certification program.

How would you describe the future of open-source solutions? Do you think the model of offering fundamental values for free and benefitting from the ecosystem and more customized solutions will be still so popular? What is the best recipe for open-source based business?

I am strongly convinced that Open-Source solutions are the future of the software industry. Look at PrestaShop and its freemium business model: a great software that fulfills all merchants’ requirements, downloadable for free, being adopted by a very large number of merchants which will (i) turn into buyers on our marketplace and (ii) be of great interest to our partners eager to access our user base. In order to be successful and profitable, Open-Source softwares require top quality, best marketing practices… Hence our constant effort to build the best software and adapt it to the different countries to always better serve the needs of our community.

On one of PrestaShop’s community discussion boards in Poland, there are more than 7000 developers registered. It is crucial for open-source solutions to motivate and engage community. What is PrestaShops’s overall and Poland-specific strategy regarding communities?

As mentioned earlier, we have greatly benefited from the involvement of our Polish community. Open-Source is about giving back. Our 2013 strategy for Poland is clear: boost our development by being more present, either ourselves or through our integrators. We will definitely need the support of our community to build the needed ecosystem so that PrestaShop can blossom. And very talented Polish people are joining our team in France to improve the communications with the community, partners, developers and help us understand your market and offer the community what it needs!

What are PrestaShop’s plans for upcoming year?

2013 will be key to PrestaShop’s international development with a list of priority countries such as Poland. We also want to capitalize on PrestaShop v1.5 with regularly scheduled releases and constant exchanges with our community. The objective is to grow our user base with a clear focus on emerging markets and medium-size businesses.

Polish e-commerce market is quite specific and requires slightly adapted and focused solutions. I mean i.e. integration with auction platform, polish payment gateways, national delivery brokers. Most probably you are aware of that and have an idea how to meet those needs. Is cooperation with polish companies your primary strategy or you rather focus on in-house development?

Open-Source is about leveraging your efforts with those of your community. We are very much aware of the specificities of the Polish market. Our international development will of course require strong partnerships with local players. This is precisely what we want to do in Poland in 2013. Don’t hesitate to contact us through our localization page: we’re waiting for your feedbacks that will help us adapt PrestatShop!

Average GNP in Poland is almost a quarter of west-european, therefore prices of many PrestaShop services are slightly less attractive and most probably many electronic merchants would not be able to invest 300 EUR in an add-on. Have you got any idea how to eliminate this barrier?

I fully agree with you. Pricing has to be adapted to each local situation even though great products always have to be paid for! The good thing about PrestaShop’s business model is that we have a huge variety of available services that we sell cheap to many. We believe that this is what Internet is about.

On the 25th of April 2013 PrestaShop will participate in Ecommerce Poland Trade Fair in Poznań. Will it be the first opportunity to meet polish PrestaShop community? What are your expectation to these kind of events?

Being present at the Pozan Ecommerce Poland Trade Fair is very important to us. As I said, Poland is one our top priorities for 2013. We believe that is going to be a unique opportunity to meet our merchants as well as potential integrators and local partners. Coming to Poznan represents a commitment to our Polish community and an efficient way to capture local specificities. Trust me, we are very much looking forward to sharing these moments with you! See you there!

You are invited to Benjamin Teszner's keynote speech during

Ecommerce Poland Trade Fair, Poznań, 25th of April 2013.

Free registration for visitors

Benjamin Teszner, Dyrektor Generalny PrestaShop

Benjamin Teszner jest absolwentem HEC, Sciences-Po and the London School of Economics. Rozpoczął swoją karierę jako przedsiębiorca, tworząc Alafac.com, portal społecznościowy poświęcony studentom. Uzyskując wysokie zyski, odsprzedał działalność grupie prasowej o charakterze specjalizowanym. Nastepnie dołączył do sektora finansowego, spędzając 8 lat w kapitale inwestycyjnym (UFG-Siparex i Weinberg Capital Partners), gdzie w szczególności zainwestował w wielu start-ups. W 2009 roku, przejął dyrekcję generalną Grupy O2i, company listed on Alternext, lider inżynierii komputerowej poświęcony produkcji graficznej i główny gracz szkolenia profesjonalnego w informatyce (€50m de CA et 300 employés). Od września 2012, dyrektor generalny PrestaShop!