Zen Cart E-Commerce Shopping Cart Reviews

I am a Web Designer and Developer and have been using Zen Cart for Ecommerce Web Development for a number of years. I have found that it is one of the best Open Source Ecommerce Systems by far for managing an Ecommerce Shop online. The great thing about Zen Cart is that the code is lightweight and well developed for ease of understanding. This means you can run a heavyweight shop online that has lots of products with the confidence it will load fast. I always use Zen Cart for any Ecommerce project I develop for my clients as I know I can rely on it to deliver. And it also has an active forum for help and advice when problems arise. Zen Cart is also updated regularly, often with security patches and optimisation of code, all in order to make the Shopping Cart run smoother and more secure. Zen Cart also has a wide range of modules and plugins available, and is highly expandable. I would recommend anybody to consider using Zen Cart for any Ecommerce project. Nick Smith (Venture Web Design - venturewebdesign.uk)

This is an excellent project, very flexible. Most of the other webshops are either for selling to the public direct, or aimed at big businesses. I use it for my daughter's website, selling wholesale to local shops. I added the pay by invoice module so she can invoice them and they pay by bank transfer. As a sole trader, she did not have the income to pay for most solutions out there. We will be making a contribution. Keep up the good work!

I have used Zen Cart with on a couple of multi-million-dollar web stores over the past 11 years and I do recommend it for reasons that include: 1. Ease of use 2. Availability of a large number of plugins for a wide range of applications 3. Both the platform and plugins are completely free of charge! 4. The platform is PCI compliant 5. It has survived the test of time 6. The platform was adopted and is currently in use by thousands of online stores around the world.

Hii. can any one help me. how can i host this to my laptop. i am having 2003 server too. pls any one help me to do the same, by providing any link or information to my mail. juni01star@gmail.com

Fastest script for e-shop. Easy to install and use. Long life to project :)

Excellent in many ways, frustrating in one or two. If you are selling downloadable products, this cart is the best, permitting you to bulk-upload updated product. I do wish upgrading could be less fraught, and a consistent mod management system would be a godsend. The template management system could use better consistency and documentation. The developers are highly resistant to importunes from users to implement such simple requests as email-verified accounts and Captcha, holding the view that "anything between you and your customer is an impediment to sales." If that thing happens to be sql injection attempts, DOS attacks and just plain spam, I would prefer verification and Captcha. That said, there is hardly an alternative for a full-featured DIY cart.

Good ecommerce platform - works well wish add ons were easier to put in.

Thanks for great project! Simply the best!

i found Zen Cart as a very useful tool.. thanks

I use this software. Thank you for your work.

Many cofigurations, very usefull!

Awesome e-cart!

Wonderful piece of software.

Used this on several ecommerceprojekt I built. Works like a charm!

Zen Cart is a tremendous asset to the world of ecommerce. Based on PHP and MySQL, this software offers an extremely flexible ecommerce platform. The biggest plus about this is the massive support forum. There are 103,000+ members at the forum at this time and growing everyday. Posts are answered frequently within minutes. Try to best that anywhere on the net! Install is pretty straight forward and only requires that you create a database and database user through your myphpadmin in your webhosting control panel. Directing your browser to the install directory will start the install process. There are 6 or 7 steps where you have to answer a few questions. Total time to install is about 10 minutes. Immediately after install you are offered the choice to go to the admin section of your store or go to the storefront on the web. All installs result in the same basic color scheme and layout (white background with green boxes). You can stick with the basic green and white or you can edit the css file to change colors. You will need a text editor in your control panel to make the changes and you will have to understand hexidecimal color codes ..... i.e. #FFFFFF. Other changes can be made from your admin section of the store. There are thousands of customizeable settings thru the control panel. It may seem overwhelming at first but after a few years you will get the hang of personalizing your store. And again, the forum will offer you tons of support and a guiding hand. I'm not saying you need a couple of years to use zencart. But I am saying that after a couple of years you can make spectacular modifications to your website. (You can even turn around and sell these mods as customized zencart templates.) You can be selling merchandise within 30 minutes after the install. You will need pics of all of your merchandise and the accompanying descriptions. That can take some time all by itself. You have choices for payment which include paypal, merchant accounts, COD, Cash/Money Orders, First data, and Authorize.net. You have shipping choices also which include flat rate, per pound, per unit and plugins for fedex, UPS and USPO. You can upload items one at a time, or you can upload them from a spreadsheet with many more items. Some of the things Zencart offers: Group Discounts Coupons Gift Certificates Quantity Discounts Attributes likes small, medium and large Multiple Users with customized access rights Banners, Top, side and bottom Reports Invoices Order Updating State Tax settings Any currency Sale Makers Specials Low Stock Notifications Newsletters and much much more. You have to have a lot of time to dedicate to this on line store in order to be satisfied with Zencart. If you dont have the time, then pay someone else to do it for you. And be prepared to pay big money. Zencart is free and you can have a website worth 10's of thousands of dollars if you do it right. Qualifications to use Zen cart: I would say that you would have to have at the minimum a basic understanding of html, database awareness, and preferrably experience in some computer programming language. Anyone will do because you only need to know the ramifications of typos, syntax errors and call statements. Of course if you just use the out of the box store, then you wouldnt need to know any of the above. But very few people actually use the out of the box store. So the decision you have to make is to pay someone big money to design and later maintain your ecommerce site, or you can spend a few years learning like we all had to do. The first option is for the lazy or very busy person with money. The second option is for the person who wants to save money and has the time to learn how to do it! One thing is certain......Zen Cart is only getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Learn it now or learn it later.

Easy to use...!

This is surely one of the best open source projects.

I have used this regularly for over a year, love it and would be hard-pressed to use anything else.

Great project! Very useful!

I use both on a regular basis.

I admire this program

I have used this on four different shopping sites and as an open source product it offers everything the commercial products claim. If you are looking for a shopping cart, this is it. This product is flexible, highly configurable out of the box with so many options that I have used it in a number of different sites, all different in their operation.

I really like this product and can't give it a thumbs-down, although I have had much trouble manipulating the site and the software to get my site right, I read the forums but there are no real direct answers there. Can't anyone just make things straight forward anymore. This template loaded flawlessly though and there was a lot of good instruction and direction at that stage and I was hopeful. I may have to site my lack of understanding and knowledge of php and css, but the documentation could have been a bit more helpful.

Simply awesome.

Very good component. I'am using it.