Zen Cart -- Thoughts/Reviews

Hello People,

I have been looking into zen cart, but I have had no personal experience with it yet. I would be interested in any reviews or comments you have of it. Thank you in advance.

 

Hi,

I don't know if i'm allowed to post the url to my site here to show you what i have achieved ???
(so i won't until i get the ok to do so)

But i am not really a developer, and have been at home for some time, with a disability which prevents me from getting out and about easily.

So i've seen the web as being my way back to life.

It's happening slowly for me, but i have played with Joomla and Virtuemart, and zen cart...and found Zen easier to setup.

I have very little coding knowledge, so have had to hit the forums for tips.. but what i have achieved has worked..

Alas, the sales i am getting aren't so high, but that's coz i need to learn more about SEO now...

I think the site has had about 25k hits in about 10 months.

hope this helps

 

Prestashop, Magento, Cre-loaded are much better. Zen Cart is vaguely better than the disaster that is osommerce, but that is about it.

Nigel

 

I would go with Magento over Prestashop for sure. The only reason we didn't use Magento in the first place is because it doesn't work with hostgator.
So we are using prestashop, and it hasn't been a great experience. Everything is great as far as setting up products and stuff, but payment options suck.

They have no credit card processor module, I couldn't get paypal or google checkout to work (could just be my fault), it's not adding tax when someone orders from our state, etc...

So we are switching to Magento pretty soon.

 

That is a fair statement. Most of my clients use actual credit card merchants like https://www.sterlingpayment.com/ They are one tier below the actual credit card folks like Visa Etc. As a result, regardless of your volume, they are way cheaper than paypal, 2co, etc. I usually have to write drivers for that stuff anyway but they are actually quite simple to cobble together. All payment modules do is pass the data in the order, if you will, in which the merchant is set up to receive it.

Nigel

 

I know, time like these I wish I knew how to code something like that

 

In my Opinion Zen Cart is certainly a powerful piece of software. Zen Cart is worth considering if your requirements are very basic and you aren't very fussy about the look & setup of it, or if you enjoy hacking PHP and are moderately good. However, if you want a complex store up and running quickly and cheaply, I'd recommend thinking twice. Personally I would rather build my business and focus on how I can increase sales than spend hours hacking PHP files (or paying someone else to do it).

Check at this link for Templates: http://www.zen-cart-template.co.uk/

Greetings

 

...
You are for it at the beginning of your post, then you go against it at the end? And then throw a template link in?

 

I don't know why are you so against ZenCart. ZenCart is a very nice piece of software compared to OsCommerce and it's suitable for small stores but if you're looking for a professional solution, go with Magento.

 

Not sure if you're talking to me, but I was just bashing on Prestashop, not ZenCart.

 

I only have experience in ZenCart as I used it to build my online store (see sig link).

Overall I have been very happy with ZenCart.

Pros.
Easy to setup and configure
Can be made to look unique if you have the time

Cons
I had to rewrite some of the code to tailor it how I wanted it / and to correct the odd bug.

Andy

 

I was talking to everyone. When you choose Open Source software you need to take a look at its community because chances are authors don't offer free support or even paid support for that matter. ZenCart has a large community, a lot of add-ons and plenty of free and paid templates. Consider that when choosing your ecommerce application.

 

That link is for TM templates, which aren't suggested for developing ZC stores since they DON'T follow the template override system of Zen Cart.

If you are a store owner, DO THAT, manage your store, don't pretend to learn how to develop the script or adapt it to your preferences. That's why there are people dedicated to do it for you; of course it's not free, but if you are serious about your store, that's the way on doing it.

I don't suggest Magento for your store...don't know about the others. DO NOT engage with osCommerce since their code is outdated and with security issues. Zen Cart is the way to go...

It runs out of the box and there are plenty free templates if you can't set a budget for designing at the start.

 

I personally love zencart and is what I have used to build all of my stores. I must say that the first few have been pretty ugly but now I buy a reasonably cheap template (around $50) and then customise it, that way the store doesn't really look like it is a zencart store.

My more recent efforts have been much better and there is a learning curve. The best bit for me is the support forums. I've tried other carts before but couldn't figure stuff out or the support wasn't as comprehensive so decided to ditch them.

My thought is to start using any cart that you feel comfortable with and that is customisable, then learn as much as you can about it.

http://www.zen-cart-power.com/
These guys do some nice templates which I use to customise.

 

I love Zen Cart. I have been using it for quite some time and I have no problem with it. I am practically getting my Zen Cart Templates from AlgoZone, I think they have the best templates available.

 

i love zencart

i use it on 2 sites

 

zencart is nice and has the fast/lightweight that appeals to most - however support/release for the new 2.0 version of zencart has been "in the works" for awhile now

magento is nice looking - but bulky and hard to theme as it is now

just really depends on how many products you are trying to sell and what your long term goals are - but yes zencart is a good start

 

I love Zen Cart too. One of the first things people come up with against Zen Cart is how horrible the default 'Classic' template is. So, I've started collecting examples of Zen Cart stores to show that the power of the template override system is what makes Zen Cart a great solution.

http://www.kerrinhardy.com/zen-cart/zen-cart-gallery/

PS I don't have any affiliation with these stores.

 

Started with oscommerce, moved on to zen cart, found a few shortcuts. Since then about 3/4 of the malls I create are all based on ecommercetemplates. I started off using them because it was a fast way to get a site built, had decent support from what I could tell, etc.

Personally, I'd never consider going back to Zencart after using ect, but your mileage may vary.

 

I am getting ready to set up something with zencart now. Hopefully I'll be able to get some help with coding as I need customized templates