PrestaShop 9 migration and custom theme for Ammerlaan Import

Ammerlaan Import sells milking, livestock and fencing parts and equipment to farmers, resellers and private customers in France and across Europe. Most customers are professionals who order wear parts by their reference number.

The store ran on PrestaShop 8.1 with a commercial theme that bundled 41 modules on its own. Over the years it had piled up 35 overrides of the PrestaShop core, modules that were no longer maintained and a checkout adjusted by hand for each carrier. Every update had become a risk.

The brief came down to four points: move to PrestaShop 9.2 and PHP 8.4, deliver a design built for professionals, lose no data at all (orders, customers, wishlists, invoice numbers, loyalty points) and keep the store offline for as short a time as possible, since it takes orders every day.

The whole project was carried out on a full copy of the store, isolated from the live site, with e-mails cut off, payments disabled and robots excluded. All 180 installed modules were audited one by one, then updated, replaced or removed. The version upgrade was done in stages (8.1, 9.1, then 9.2), each one backed up and reversible.

The design started from the store's own data. The best sellers are parts ordered by reference, and the whole catalogue distinguishes original parts from compatible ones, so search by reference comes first. Five mock-ups were presented and reviewed with the client, on desktop and mobile. Their feedback set the final direction: keep the historic brand colour and speak to resellers and private buyers as much as to farmers.

The chosen mock-up was built into a child theme of Hummingbird, the official PrestaShop 9 theme. The foundation stays standard and is updated by PrestaShop, and our code only carries what is specific to Ammerlaan. The home page, category page and product page were delivered in four phases, each tested automatically in a real browser, on desktop and mobile.

Where no existing module fitted, we wrote our own, native to PrestaShop 9. Order and invoice numbering identical to the old one, prices excluding and including VAT with the right tax notices, editable product tabs and department tiles, a sticky purchase bar on mobile, a cookie banner compatible with Google Consent Mode v2, and a checkout fix for carriers that showed at €0 before the account was created. Chronopost and DPD pickup points, 0% VAT for European businesses, quantity pricing, quotes and quick ordering by reference were adapted to the new foundation. This work is as much custom development as it is e-commerce.

More than 60 test orders went through the checkout before launch. A differential import tool, written for the project, carried over to the new site everything that had happened on the old one during the work (orders, customers, carts, stock, catalogue). It was rehearsed until it produced zero discrepancies.

On switchover day the store was frozen, the final import checked at zero discrepancies, then the new site went live. Maintenance lasted about 25 minutes. Card payment was verified under real conditions as soon as the store reopened, and the client's feedback on the day was handled that same afternoon.

5,300 products, 7,500 customers and 8,500 orders were carried over, along with wishlists and loyalty points. All 8,361 invoice numbers were compared one by one before and after the migration, and every one of them matches.

The store now runs on PrestaShop 9.2 and PHP 8.4, without the 41 modules of the old theme, and with seven LNK modules that we maintain. The old site remains available internally as a reference and as a fallback.

Another PrestaShop 9 migration carried out with the same method: the Guirled redesign.