# Why I Love Zen-Cart



## Chani (Jun 18, 2007)

I just thought I'd take a moment to explain why I love Zen-Cart for ecommerce.

First of all, it's NOT a cart for people who are afraid to get their hands dirty with coding. You need SOME experience with html, css, and php. PHP is embedded into the template files and certain settings are burried in the oddest places, which I don't like, but keep reading...

Zen-Cart is an extremely powerful shopping cart, even if you had to pay for it.

My first experience with Zen-Cart was for a non-apparel product where I needed people to be able to order decimal amounts of a product (ie: .5, 1.75, etc...). Zen-Cart was the only free shopping cart that I could find that would allow this. Now with apparel, I find that feature usefull for people who want to order Gift Certificates. They can order a GC for EXACTLY the amount they want, down to the cent.

Second, Gift Certificates. This was a feature that I couldn't find in Cube Cart, and was something I felt strongly that I should be able to offer to my customers, along with coupons codes if I so choose.

It's cross-server compatible, which, when I tried osCommerce that software needed special server settings to be changed in order to use it, which I thought was a little strange as it came with Fantastico on the server I had.

You can have unlimited products in unlimited categories and sub-categories, which. I admit, that's more and more common now.

Pricing by attributes is another thing that I find important. I can charge a different amount for a 3XL than I would for S-XL. Maybe other shopping carts offer that, but I didn't delve into them enough to find out.

You can also STOCK by attributes with a FREE mod for Zen-Cart. In other words, you can add the exact amount of stock that you have per color per size per design. I don't use it because I print on-demand, but I would think that that would be EXTREMELY important to screenprinters.

Most mods are FREE! There are some that you need to pay for, but those would be for VERY specific needs.

It INCLUDES a Contact Us form. You don't need to put your email address out there for spambots to grab. I found it very strange that you actually had to PAY for a Contact Us form for Cube Cart.

Last (in this list)...I'm building a site right now that offers custom-printed shirts that are based on user-submitted photographs. I was trying to figure out how I would go about having my customers submit photos to me. I did a quick search to find out if there was a mod to add attachments to the Contact Us form, but the very first link was to a post on the Zen-Cart forum that told me EXACTLY what I needed...useing only the BASE software, you can set up a "File" attribute. When you add that to a product, your customer can upload a picture to your server, so it brings a several-step process down to a single-step process for custom printers. 

There's more that I like about this software, but I'll keep it to those for now.


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## mothertongues (Aug 8, 2005)

Thanks for posting this! I would like to redo my site this year, and I've been reading a bit about shopping carts. So this is really informative! I have never done a shopping site myself, so I'm a bit terrified, but I did software programming (electrical engineer) in a previous life, so I'm not afraid to try. 

Which user forum would you recommend for Zen-Cart users?

Thanks again!


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## Chani (Jun 18, 2007)

Zen-Cart works hand-in-hand with phpBB, but I honestly don't suggest using phpBB. It's too vulnerable to attack, and it takes a LOT of work to keep it updated.

That said, you can share user databases with phpBB and Zen-Cart with the default software.


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## HeatherLHC (Aug 17, 2007)

I have to agree. Zen-cart is so much better than what I had before. I was using prostores and they were going to charge me a lot more to be able to stock/sell items by size. I had very little options for sales, gift cards etc. I love Zen-cart. Its easy to use and very adaptable! Much more cost effective too!


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## ottawayb (Oct 18, 2007)

I have been designing my own site and I have looked at Zen Cart a few times. The question that I have is, can I integrate it into my HTML offline? I have setup product pages, but do I need to be hooked up to my server in order to add product pages?


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## maddog9022 (Sep 5, 2006)

how hard is it to add products and edit it after it is setup. i am having someone set up my site and i dont know much about coding. i am tring to learn but i dont wanna be stuck after the site designer is finished.

thanks


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## Chani (Jun 18, 2007)

You do need to be connected to the internet to add products, but it's a matter of filling out a form in your admin section and submitting it to your site. It's easy to do. 

It's easy to edit products once you've created them, too. You can change anything about your products you'd like with just a couple of clicks. 

I'm not sure if there's a way to have different templates for different products, tho. You would need a modification for that, and I'm not sure if there's one made.


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## maddog9022 (Sep 5, 2006)

awsome thanks


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

mothertongues said:


> Thanks for posting this! I would like to redo my site this year, and I've been reading a bit about shopping carts. So this is really informative! I have never done a shopping site myself, so I'm a bit terrified, but I did software programming (electrical engineer) in a previous life, so I'm not afraid to try.
> 
> Which user forum would you recommend for Zen-Cart users?


Zen Cart Support - Powered by vBulletin


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## Chani (Jun 18, 2007)

Oops, sorry, I misunderstood the question.


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## Buechee (Dec 22, 2005)

I thought about using it. Who else here uses Zen?

Post some links so I/we can get a look at what zen can do.


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## Frazmand (Nov 16, 2007)

How much coding knowledge do you need to know?

I'm pretty knowledgable about HTML and CSS and know some basic PHP. Is it particularly PHP heavy?


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## Chani (Jun 18, 2007)

THe problem is that its php functions are intermixed with its html, so you do need SOME knowledge to at least recognize what you're looking at. You don't necessarily need to be able to code php, tho.


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## printpuller (Jan 25, 2008)

I want to use zencart also I downloaded it and it has a lot of files in Dreamweaver. 
Questions:
Do I set up a local file on my computer in Dreamweaver for my store then move the downloaded Zencart files into my local site and then upload that to my server? 
What Zencart file do I use as my initial locating file (root file)?
Real new at this and it seems like rocket science.


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## A Perfect Pixel (Jul 4, 2008)

I use zen cart for 2 of my non-t-shirt related sites and love it!


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