Switching over, need help!

[meljen]

Hi everyone!

I have a few questions about Zen Cart, I am REALLY stuck and feel I can't even begin without having these initial steps prepared.

First of all, I currently have myself completely set up with godaddy. I already have working domains & a working shop in use (not Zen Cart yet). I have a main domain that has my shop's welcome page and a few other pages, including an important FAQ page. I then have my shop ('quick shopping cart', if anyone is familiar with that) set up on a subdomain (shop. ---- .com) and I would like to move all of that to a new host and use Zen Cart instead.

Ideally, I would like to eventually move things OFF of my subdomain and have that forwarded to my main domain. I would also like to have my new zen cart version of my shop hosted on my main domain.

My problem is I have no idea how to go about this in the best way possible to make the transition as seamless as possible. I am very worried because I have fairly consistent traffic and a LOT of followers.

I am thinking of two ways that might work...

#1 - Set up zen cart on a temporary domain and get it all ready, then move it to my main domain. Not sure how easy this is to do, and I've read that I have to edit configure files...? I would then close down my godaddy shop & have my subdomain forward to my main domain, where the new zen cart would be.

#2 - Set up zen cart DIRECTLY on my main domain, and somehow hide my progress on the shop from my followers. Is this possible? I don't want them to see weird tweakings and errors as I get zen cart ready. But then I don't have to worry about changing over domains.

What do you think would work best? I am completely new to zen cart, and I am sort of freaking myself about it. I know it would offer my customers more in the long run, and ironically my monthly costs would be LESS, but I don't want to start setting it up and have things become a big mess due to the fact that I already have working domains and a working shop that are taking up the space I want to put my zen cart at when it's all ready.

Please help! Thanks in advance. :-)