ZenCart – open source professional ecommerce software solution review
Sep 1, 2008 by Veiko Herne E-commerce
Zen Cart (or ZenCart) www.zencart.com has been developed by group of professionals from Newcastle, England, Cleveland, Ohio and Ontario, Canada. It’s not a simple shopping cart module, but truly professional ecommerce store management platform (named also a shopping cart system) with newsletters, coupons, gift certificates, etc more capable to run Amazon type of stores than small websites with thousands of products allowing unlimited category depth and site search.
Even if Zen Cart comes with one standard outlook, there is several free sites and commercial stores (algozone.com, zen-cart-templates.ichoze.net, zencarttemplates.info, www.templatemonster.com/zencart-templates.php, themestock.com) available to give your store a custom outlook.
Installation and store setup
ZenCart shopping cart installation went smoothly, however the system complaint again several PHP setting parameters like register_globals=on (had to create separate php.ini for those), and even I didn’t had secure server protocol purchased to my hosting account, I was able to complete the installation with some simple steps.
There were eight editable pages from the administration module to customize the site layout using pure HTML language or JavaScript based Rich text editor, the side box content can be set on and off and their sort order can be modified. The software which I installed was with “Contemporary Classic Green” and English language but additional templates and languages can be purchased and downloaded.
The administration module is extremely broad and from first look, I was little bit confused where to start.Defining the products should be most reasonable step to start and as those are belonging to categories, those should be defined first. For SEO purposes, you are able to define your own Meta tags (title, keywords and description) for the category and build category tree structure.
Each product can be in stock/out of stock or defined by the availability date, the price model can be free, call for price or priced by attributes, it can be “virtual” without a need for the shipping address or can have free shipping.
It can have units which can be defined as minimum and maximum for order. Images can be uploaded, defined as existing files or there can be separate web page for the product (for example manufactures page). Manufactures with their images and URL’s can be also defined.
Product Options allows defining options like colour, size and assigning them to products or product groups. It had very powerful feature to assign, copy and delete those characteristics over the product database.
Products can be featured or have special price for the limited period of time.
From the localization module administrator can define Countries which can be divided to Zones, Tax Classes, Tax Rates , Currencies and their rates and Order Statuses (ordered, processed, delivered, etc).
The Sale Maker is a module to start limited period discount campaigns which can be new price, discount amount or percentage for the products in price range for the product category.
The Payment module allows to configure payment gateways and preinstalled options where Authorize.net, PayPal, Linkpoint, NoCheck, cash on delivery, offline credit card processing and check-money order.
The Shipping module allows configuration of basic shipping costs and Order Total module discounts and taxes used by the system.
The customers’ module shows customer orders, account balance, number of logons with last login reviews written, and discount group. Customers can be disabled but not deleted. There is possibility to create discount groups assigned to customer.
Setting the Zen Cart system options, site look and feel, banner campaigns, etc can be done either using Configuration or Tools module. There where lot of options to switch on and off, however for your custom store lookout I would recommend to purchase or develop separate template package.
Coupons can be defined giving fixed fee discount for the minimum order value and offering free shipping. Those can be valid limited time, zone and limited per amount and per uses by customer.
Gift certificates will be emailed to customers or customer groups by some discount value, and those can be redeemed in customer next purchase.
Coupons and Gift Certificates codes are automatically generated containing 10 characters and numbers.
Media manager allows defining of Artists, Labels, Genre and Media types. Those can be assigned to products.
Administration module produces reports by products viewed, products purchased, and customer order total, products low on stock and customer referrals.
Installation from Fantastico Deluxe software package
Many web hosting companies offers this software package which bundles lots of web software. Among them is Zencart. The installation is quite simple (several clicks).
See this video which shows how to install several e-commerce software on Bluehost hosting company (Zencart included)
Or on Dreamhost hosting company
Usability
Customers can locate products by category, new products, bestsellers or search by keyword. Products can be listed by Product Name, Manufacturer, Price, Model or Date Added. Music can be listed by Labels or genre. All those options can be set on and off from the Tools / Layout Boxes section in administration module.
Language and currency can be changed Ad-Hoc, which option also can be set on / off.
Who is online option will show only how many registered customers and guests are using the site at the moment.
Tell a friend option allows send the page link by email.
Registered customers are able to write reviews which must be approved by administrator before they appear online, email a product page to friend and purchase the product.
Returning customers can sign in by email address and password, otherwise the registration will ask postal address, telephone number and age verification. Those options can be setup using Configuration/Customer details in administration module and several other options (fax number, US state list, and referral) can be added.
After the products have been selected to shopping cart, users are able to estimate shipping or proceed to checkout.
During the shopping process addition shortcuts to visit shopping cart and direct link to checkout will be shown on upper menu bar.
After selecting the shipping method and altering the shipping address if necessary, customer is able to use coupons and redemptions, alter the billing address, select payment method, enter special instructions and by doing the final confirmation on next page the deal has been done.
Conclusion
ZenCart isn’t software to setup your few products shopping cart for your website quickly. It takes some amount of time and specialist skills to have your site look and feel defined, product database created, rules defined, etc.
But for any commercial superstore it’s a good option.
I was missing more convenient way to enter fluctuating currency rates and new deliveries to my stock from suppliers.
Resources
Here you have some video tutorials regarding ZenCart shopping cart and ecommerce system.
ZenCart installation
ZenCart template installation
- WebsiteSource (lots of Zen Cart video tutorials)
- Webcare (another site which has lots of Zen Cart video tutorials)
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Tags: e-commerce software, online store, open-source, php, review, zencart
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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March 14th, 2009 at 2:58 am
Un ottimo cms, davvero molto affidabile e sicuro.
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