Zen Cart Shopping Cart

July 9, 2007 / General Discussion

Zen Cart is an open-source e-commerce system that aims to be a Very Easy solution for online commerce. Zen Cart is based on the PHP programming language and a MySQL database. Its home page provides you with a great overview of the project. Zen Cart is the art of e-commerce; a free, user-friendly, open-source shopping cart system.

The software being developed by a group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think e-commerce done differently. Some “solutions” seem too complicated programming exercises instead of responding to users’ needs, Zen Cart puts the merchant’s and shopper’s requirements first.

Similarly, other programs near impossible to install and use without an IT degree, Zen Cart can installed and set up by anyone with the most basic computer skills. Other software is so expensive but Zen Cart is FREE!

Zen Cart Specially Designed for Online Shoppers:

Delivers the exact online shopping experience to your customers. The program provides several “Spotlight” lists in addition to the traditional category-to-product links. Once a product is added to the shopping cart, secure checkout is a simple 3-step process.

After providing the billing information, your customer chooses the shipping method. Next, a payment type chosen from one of the popular payment modules PayPal and AuthorizeNet are just 2 of the included modules Last, the customer reviews the order, shipping, and payment choices, and confirms the order. You are immediately notified of the order and your customer automatically receives an e-mail confirmation. Zen Cart addresses many of the goals we set:

  1. Zen cart makes it easy to set up a program.
  2. It is easy to customize
  3. Automated tasks, such as order confirmation
  4. Make navigation easy.
  5. Built-in promotions; discount coupons, gift certificates, newsletters, and product notification
  6. Offers individual item specials and store wide discounts, including group discounts and quantity discounts
  7. Built-in Search Engine Optimization tools, including per-product meta tag controls
  8. Password protect the Administration Tool
  9. Support multiple languages, currencies, and tax structures

In short, Zen Cart is a shopping cart software.

Zen Cart For Web Designers:
Zen Cart gives web designers a robust and customizable electronic storefront that easy to keep updated with new features. there no big revisions required to get things right for your clients!

One of the secrets behind its power lies in our robust template system that “abstracts” the look-and-feel from the code and logic behind Zen Cart. This helps you to give clients a custom solution that integrates quickly and perfectly with their existing marketing websites.

Zen Cart For Developers and Hosting Providers:

Developers are able to deploy cutting-edge solutions based on Zen Cart’s modern standards and technologies. Combining PHP server-side technology with the ability to choose from multiple databases on the back end, results in flexible software that you can customize and modify to suit your needs.
Minimum/suggested server requirements:
PHP 4.3.2 or higher, Apache 1.3.x, and MySQL 3.23.x or higher.
Philosophy

The Zen Cart ideals are simple:

  1. Keep the goals of the store owner in mind at all times
  2. Make everything simple to use
  3. Listen to and be responsive to our users
  4. Continue to expand the database and server options
  5. Strive for the perfect shopping cart

We simply want to deliver a fast and easy-to-use shopping cart program that’s freely available to everyone under the GPL. Zen Cart’s development team encourages feedback and contributions from the community and they invite open discussion about e-commerce solutions.

Further, the team intends to openly communicate with our users about what’s going on, our goals, planned timelines for releases, and to make sure we have got the perfect set of features that promotes profitable businesses for store owners.

About Security:

They take security issues very seriously. Whenever a security risk discovers, a fix is posted immediately, using whatever means most appropriate.

It is a safe program. And If you face any security problems also just forward that issue to the security team of Zen cart they will immediately send you the Updates.

You should make Bug Reports?

Because the code is always evolving there are bound to occasional mistakes. If you find a code error or bug, please report it on the forum of Zen cart.

They take bug reports seriously and find resolutions to them immediately. Patches issued sparingly in the interest of keeping code both manageable and still current