| As an IT professional working for a UK
ISP I've worked and dealt with virtually every online shopping cart (free and
commercial) that's available, and out of the lot I'm convinced that if you've
got products to sell online then you can't go far wrong using Zen Cart as your online ecommerce software solution. |
The Art of eCommerce Revealed! |
- Free – No software costs, no license costs, no upgrade costs! Your cost of entry to the world of e-commerce was just lowered further.
- Powerful – Powerful features that come out-of-the-box! Tweak your store to meet the demands of your customers with multiple payment integrations (e.g. PayPal, WorldPay, Secure Trading etc), gift certificates/discount vouchers, multiple currencies, volume discounts, and many more.
- Flexible - Different business, different needs! You can customize your store's functionality with the many built-in options. Or further expand the existing features with free or commercial third party add-ons.
|
In common with most online shopping cart systems, Zen Cart is a
highly complex piece of software, and in consequence it's many features,
functions, and versatility inevitably make it relatively complex to set up and
configure in the first instance, but once your cart is set up and configured you
can relax because everything else, product entry, and order handling is quite
straightforward.
 |
For example: One of the first things you'll see after installing your Zen Cart software is a message on the shop-front saying "Warning: I am able to write to the configuration file: /base_dir/user/public_html/..." | What this warning message is saying is that you need to FTP into your setup and change the file access permissions (CHMOD) to read only. After which the
warning message will disappear. |
 | |
| To fix this particular issue see my guide to CHMOD and file permissions in the
'How To...' section of this website if you don't understand or know how to CHMOD files. |
| Zen Cart Initial Setup |
| Navigating around the myriad of menu items to locate operational
or functional 'switches' and configuration settings when you first set up the
software can be a bit of a 'trial' if you don't know your way around the
administrative interface, and there are some elements where you will need to FTP
into the server and manually edit a couple of the .php files.
My 'How To...' guide will hopefully help you locate and modify a number of
configuration settings, or if you need more help than the guide can provide, I
do offer an install and configuration service for Zen Cart. |
| Zen Cart Essential Addons |
There are a number of what I consider as 'essential' addons for
Zen Cart.
-
Ultimate SEO URLS (for optimised URL's which help with search engine
positioning)
- Additional Image Handler (for adding additional product images to your
products)
- Improved Attributes Handler (makes product attribute navigation easier)
- Royal Mail & Parcelforce Modules (for UK based carts)
|
| |
|
