Can I hide my store from the public?

[rkonrad]

Well, provided you know what you are doing, then once you have set up Zen Cart (in a folder as you mentioned) you can copy the Add To Cart links for products into your main (HTML?) website.

But this creates problems of PHP sessions being lost if people backtrack from the Zen Cart site to the main website.

Overall the best approach is to install Zen Cart in a folder, make it look as much like your main website as you can, then remove your main website and move the Zen Cart site out of the folder and into the root (replacing your old website).

Vger

I have a similar wish. The artist of the website I am trying to convert to ecommerce would really like to keep her original site. Is there a way of hiding the zencart store to the public so it wouldn't be accidentally accessed instead of the original store? Or could the index.html file or whatever it would be called in zencart be a link back to the original website? Thanks for your help.

Richard

[rkonrad]

Looking at other posts, it seems, stressed, that you can make the zen cart store look exactly like my original. Unless, this is easy though, I can't take anymore time re-designing. Perhaps it is simple - copying code etc? If not the only other option for me with my time constraints is to go to a template based ecommerce web builder like "bigblackbag". Its not free but easy. Free is still good as long as its not too time consuming.

[schoolboy]

There are a lot of good reasons why you should make your ENTIRE site live within the framework of ZC. In addition to better SEO, and a more efficient visitor experience, you also make sure that the vital SESSION COOKIE is not lost, if visitors navigate out of the ZC environment for too long.

We have successfully used ZC as a completely NON-eCommerce platform, a "blended" showcase AND eCommerce platform, and as a "pure" eCommerce platform.

Our britefactory signature link has a "case studies" link where you can see examples of each format.

The benefits are down-stream. Start now on using ZC as your entire site, and managing and administering it later will be so much easier and efficient.

[Donal]

If not the only other option for me with my time constraints is to go to a template based ecommerce web builder .

take a look here:
http://(sorry, site offline)/

[rkonrad]

Well, thanks for your replies but the website templates are variation of only a few basic themes. My website really needs to be a "barebones" type of look. I still want to explore the possibility of creating an ecommerce store but including the "add to cart" etc links from zencart store to my existing website.

To avoid the problem of people accessing the actual store created by zencart ("store" in my public_html) is there a problem with simply replacing the "index.php" with my "index.html" as from my original site?

Thanks

Richard

[schoolboy]

To avoid the problem of people accessing the actual store created by zencart ("store" in my public_html) is there a problem with simply replacing the "index.php" with my "index.html" as from my original site?

Thanks

Richard

In general, index.html will be loaded AHEAD of index.php by browsers, and the over-ride will therefore load your HTML site - but this is not "universal"

But then you will have the issue of trying to maintain a seamlessness between your HTML site and the PHP site - especially when your visitors do get to the store... moving them back and forth to the HTML then the PHP sites can be quite challenging, and will probaly require you to remove the automatic home page navigation functionality, and hard-code how you want the "home page" to be treated in specific instances. The issue of SESSIONS still remains...

But it's these sorts of issues (while they can be resolved), that just add to your workload. A flat HTML site is generally a LOT of admin work - especially if content needs to change often.


Finally, proper eCommerce is not a "game". While ZC may be OpenSource, it is not a "hobbyist" system. It is serious programming, designed to offer a vast range of tools that are fundamental to online selling.

I suppose one way of looking at it is asking yourself (or your artist friend)... Do you just want to showcase your stuff online and provide the visitor with some mildly interesting content? Or do you want to proactively SELL stuff, and run the site as a business?

If your answer tends to the latter, then go for proper eCommerce and take it seriously. If not, then you could just as well embed a couple of PayPal buttons into your existing HTML site and live with that solution.