# Incorporating Zen Cart into existing site



## neato (Mar 21, 2006)

In the past, I've always used paypals shopping cart, just because it was so easy. But I'm in the middle of redesigning and reformating my website. I was thinking of trying an e-commerce package like zen-cart. But it seems that all the sites that use these shopping cart programs look the same. Don't they restrict your design?

[edited]

Do you think I can incorporate a shopping cart program without compromising entirely my look? Also, I know basic (very basic) web design with dreamweaver. How much of a learning curve will there be to incorporating e-commerce?

Thanks!


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## skulltshirts (Mar 30, 2006)

I dont know much about shopping carts, but I just wanted to say your site looks nice and clean. Good job on the look. I wouldnt comprimise the look for a shopping cart. You should have many options for shopping carts that wont restrict you on design
Thomas


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## neato (Mar 21, 2006)

Thanks for your comments. It's getting there!

Do you know what the options are? I'm not rich either, so please don't tell me it's $3000 software, or hire a web designer at $150 per hour.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

My new favorite shopping cart is CubeCart (http://www.cubecart.com)

It's VERY easy to customize into a unique look since the templating is separate from the php code.

The script is free if you keep their "powered by" lines at the bottom, or $69.95 to remove the powered by links at the bottom.

You can definitely keep your site's look and feel using cubecart. I just set a site up with cubecart last week and it went pretty darn smoothly. I did a zen-cart installation last month and it was a pain to customize (still can't do all the customizations I wanted).

If I was going to start over today with a t-shirt site, I would use cubecart. They have some good addons available that would be good for t-shirt sellers (like inventory management that can track size/color option inventory, javascript multiple product views, etc)


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## Comin'OutSwingin (Oct 28, 2005)

Ooohhh. Sounds good. I'll remember cubecart. I was thinking of going with Oscommerce, but sounds like cubecart may be the way to go. I'll put that on my list.


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## neato (Mar 21, 2006)

Are these programs pretty easy to figure out? Can I incorporate them right into dreamweaver?


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## statc (Mar 31, 2006)

What do you mean by incorporating into dreamweaver? You can edit the files in dreamweaver yes, and if you have apache/php installed on your pc you can view it... what's the URL to your site? im curious to see it


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## neato (Mar 21, 2006)

http://www.rocketranger.com
I've only got the home page up at this point though.


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## neato (Mar 21, 2006)

Sorry, I'm pretty dumb when it comes to web stuff. I can sort of make my way around dreamweaver, but I have no idea what apache/php is.

Is this going to be over my head?

Maybe I should just stick with paypal.


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## Comin'OutSwingin (Oct 28, 2005)

I'm new to the "web" stuff, myself. I just started learning dreamweaver a couple of months ago, and have tought myself a little html.

I'm guessing that if we can do dreamweaver, customizing with cubecart can't be too difficult. Especially since Rodney emphasized the EASY part. So hopefully it shouldn't be too bad.

Did you do your site yourself? Looks good.


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## neato (Mar 21, 2006)

Thanks, yep I did it myself. Well, I'm doing it myself. Still have some work to do. But thought maybe I'd get my ecommerce figured out before I keep going.


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## Comin'OutSwingin (Oct 28, 2005)

Nice. 

My site is on it's way also, but I got a tip from some folks here that suggested that I put an anticipated "live" date, and I think that would be good for you also.

I see that you last updated it yesterday saying you are almost up and running, but if someone stumbles across your site, they don't know what "almost" is. And as far as they are concerned you could have been putting up "almost" every week for a year.

So I think a time frame would be good.


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## statc (Mar 31, 2006)

Oh well if you guys have any questions or some problems with the coding side of your cart system.. tell me and I'll help you guys out. Been doing web development since I was 12


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## neato (Mar 21, 2006)

Thanks Statc. Any suggestions on programs? Cubecart? Zen Cart?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

Cubecart is very easy to setup.

They give you step by step instructions on how to install it and customize it.

To keep your existing layout, you would just design your layout in dreamweaver, and then copy and paste the HTML code (available in the code view of dreamweaver) into the approriate parts of the cubecart templates.

It's free, so you can always just download it and try it out. I can tell you from experience though that it's much easier to work with than both zencart and oscommerce.


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## skulltshirts (Mar 30, 2006)

Hey I wanted to chime in here on this conversation. Its just my opinion, but I don't think you should put up a website that isnt complete. Its been taught to me that way. I was taught to build the site on your hard drive and only upload it when the site is ready to do buisness. Alot of times, you only get one shot at a customer and if that person comes to your site and it isnt ready, then more than likely that person is gone for good and you lost your chance at them.
What do you all think about this?
Thomas

ps... Neato, could you put your website in your signature so we can see it. The forum rules allow you to have it in your signature but if you post it in a thread it gets deleted. Which is understandable.


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## neato (Mar 21, 2006)

Consider it done!


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## TeeShirtSamurai (Feb 8, 2006)

I took a lot of time looking at shopping carts. For the past couple of months I've been designing my site using Dreamweaver/Fireworks. I knew nothing about either but it's coming along really well.

A week or so ago I got to the point with my site where the design was done and it was time to incorporate a shopping cart. I looked at ZenCart CubeCart and OsCommerce. I didn't care for any of them. If I knew more about web design and coding I probably wouldn't have too much trouble but at this point I don't need to undertake learning yet another brand new thing.

So, for those of you using Dreamweaver like myself I found a great shopping cart. It's called Cartweaver and is made by the guys who have worked with Macromedia for a while. It comes in three flavors; ASP, PHP and Coldfusion. It has a lot of great features I was looking for and best of all it is an extension that plugs right into Dreamweaver. The support is excellent. It does cost $250 but in my opinion it's worth it.

Hope this helps.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

For that $250, you could have paid someone to setup cubecart for you 

But sometimes ease of use is the biggest selling point. So if you're familiar with dreamweaver and the cartweaver is only a few clicks to install, then it might be the way to go.

But if you're already doing the do-it-yourself route and you've designed your layout and know how to edit text files, cubecart is pretty darn easy to use.

Right now on my own website, I'm using shopsite (www.shopsite.com), but it's pretty darn expensive (it was what my host supported and was already installed on the server). 

I have no complaints about shopsite and its abilities to have a unique look and feel, but if I was starting over, I'd probably use a less expensive solution like cubecart.

It's interesting to see what different carts people use to sell their t-shirts though. Maybe this could be a shopping cart review type thread


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## lawaughn (Jul 5, 2005)

I use to use ZenCart. I had someone at www.getafreelancer.com custom design a template for me by using some of the graphics from my site. He designed and installed it in a hour . I only paid $35 for that.


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## TeeShirtSamurai (Feb 8, 2006)

Rodney said:


> For that $250, you could have paid someone to setup cubecart for you


Ah, yes, the eas_ier _way out_. _This is an approach I considered but while cheaper and less painful it would have eventually crippled me. 

It's always better to do things yourself when time allows. If I need to upgrade a portion of my site, change the layout, something breaks, etc. I can fix it -- this way I know how every single component of my operation works.

A few people mentioned using Dreamweaver so I thought I would point them to a solution they may feel comfortable with.


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## statc (Mar 31, 2006)

All carts are pretty much the same. all depends on how much you customize it.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> It's always better to do things yourself when time allows. If I need to upgrade a portion of my site, change the layout, something breaks, etc. I can fix it -- this way I know how every single component of my operation works.


I agree, I also prefer to learn and do it myself in most cases. If you have the time (which is key), then it can be less expensive in the long run to do it yourself.

However, if you don't have the time and would rather focus on designing and marketing t-shirts, then it can sometimes be cheaper to pay someone to do a 3 hour job that might take you weeks to learn how to do.

I know a bit of PHP, but when I need a full scale application developed, I don't think about doing it myself, I outsource it since the application is a means to an end (the end being getting the site up and running and in front of the public).

I guess it depends on how steep the learning curve would be for the person as well.


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