Your PrestaShop store has two complementary areas:
- The back-office: the administration area, reserved for managing the store.
- The front-office: the store visible to your customers, where they browse and shop.
The back-office (administration)
The back-office is the administration interface of your store. This is where you manage all the "merchant-side" operations, for example:
- adding and modifying products
- configuring your store (payment methods, shipping, etc.)
- processing orders
- tracking inventory
- managing customers
- handling after-sales service
- etc.
Tip: you will spend a large part of your time here. Remember to bookmark the back-office URL for quick access.
The front-office (customer side store)
The front-office corresponds to the public part of your store: this is what your customers see when they visit your site.
From the front-office, your customers can notably:
- browse your catalog
- add products to the cart
- place an order
- interact with your store (customer account, order tracking, etc.)
Depending on your store’s configuration, a customer can browse without an account, but they can also create an account to access additional features (order history, tracking, addresses, etc.).
⚠️ Important: the login credentials are not the same.
The account used to log into the front-office (customer account) is different from the one used to access the back-office (administrator account).
The back-office is only accessible with the credentials created during the installation/creation of the store.
Main differences between front-office and back-office
- Visibility
- Front-office: visible to everyone (your customers)
- Back-office: reserved for administrators and internal teams
- Purpose
- Front-office: showcase products and facilitate purchasing
- Back-office: manage the store (management, configuration, operations)
- Interaction with customers
- Front-office: interface designed for simple navigation and a smooth shopping experience
- Back-office: not visible to customers, but used to manage their orders, requests, and returns