Completely lost

[jen549]

Hello everyone, I am really hoping someone can help me. I have read lots of reviews about zen cart, and it seems to be very highly thought of, however my computer skills are limited.
I built my own website, but it is a template one which I have upgraded.
It is automatically setup for Paypal, but I really want to use a different cart and payment system and would ideally love for my cart to be integrated into my site.
I have downloaded the most recent version of zen cart but no idea what to do next.
I can add html to my site as that is what I did with the paypal system.
Is it possible to do this with a template website?
I did read through the FAQ's but just got very confused.
Any help at all would be most appreciated.
Many thanks,
Jen

[stevesh]

It's hard to answer such a general question, but the first thing to note is Zencart isn't meant to be a cart add-on for an existing HTML site. It's designed to be your whole site. You can style it to look like your existing store if you like, or take the opportunity to restyle your store.

First thing, I guess, would be to install Zencart on your remote server and take a look at what's available in the store section and in the admin section. The FAQ/Tutorials don't make a lot of sense if you don't have a working Zencart installation to refer to.

[janissaire]

May this will help you:

Most people have their sites set up on their host as a

Public_Html Folder

All the folders/files for your site are in this folder

Create you ZenCart - there are two ways you can do it manual/fantastico. I'll let others cover the manual if needed btu this one has always worked for me:

Go to Cpanel > Fantastico > Ecommerce>Zencart>Instal

You will usually be asked what directory @ your website name?

You will enter in the name you want to call your store i.e. mystore

You will enter in an admin name / pass word / email

Click finish - your store will now look like

http: // www. yourwebsitename / mystore < this is how people find your store.
(the above has been spaced out so the forum doesn't think it's an active link)

Check your file structure inside your public_html folder - you should now see something like this:

Public_html

Your Website foders

mystore < This is where your zencart file are so that you can modify them.

The very first thing you do now is:

http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.p...ecommendations

Once you do that you then go back to your website where your using the templates.

Inside those templates, whereever you need it you make a hyperlink to your zencart store - your zencart store will operate independantly from your main site as it's own site.

Hope this helps.

[gjh42]

jen549 - If you follow janissaire's instructions, you will also have to copy or move all product information into Zen Cart's category/product structure so it can be purchased.

Seeing your current site live will let us advise on the best way to integrate or replace your HTML pages with Zen Cart.

[jen549]

thanks everyone, I really am a complete novice at this.
So far I have a site built (a template one) the link is www.beautyrevolution.co.uk (no sure if I am allowed to put the link on here - sorry) it is a weeblt site.
At the moment I have the store built using paypal buttons - am not happy using this system as it is quite messy - it is also password protected at the moment as I don't yet have the stock.
But you can see what the website looks like so far.

So would the best way be for me to have a link from my website to the zencart shopping page, which I can customise to look similar to my existing site?
And build it from there?

I'm not really sure how to access the public html folders either or remote servers.

Is there an idiots guide to this sort of thing?

[gjh42]

Your existing HTML pages are in the /public_html/ folder, or whatever is the name of your host's equivalent. You obviously have gotten to that; was it done automatically by your sitebuilding program? Ask your host for the server control panel login name and password if you don't already know it. If you can't get that, your current host is not suitable for hosting a real e-commerce site like Zen Cart, and you will have to find someone else. You also must have FTP access to your server account; ask your host for the username, password and port for FTP.