Can I add the "store" into the background of my existing site?

[KoolAide187]

I'm new to Zen Cart. So far I love it! It has so much functionality. I have been reading on the forums but haven't really heard a yes or no answer to this question though. I want to keep my site as is... but integrate Zen Cart in the background so as if to have a product listed that says send to cart button and it sends to Zen Cart. Is there a way to actually link items from your page to zen cart? I know it could take a while to list the IDs and all that but is it possible? I know the other alternative is to have your main site and have your content shown by zen cart. Just wondering if the first option is really even do-able or not.

[DrByte]

No. Zen Cart is an eCommerce CMS, designed to "be" your site.

There's pretty much no limit to how you can "style" Zen Cart so that it looks like whatever your "existing" site looks, and thus have both the look/feel and the ecommerce capability all-in-one.

That said, while it's a lesser quality experience for your customers and more work for you, you "could" set up Zen Cart in a "subdirectory" of your site, and add product links on your "existing site" for all your products, one-by-one. But then you'd have to constantly do that manually all the time. And you'd lose the SEO benefits of having Zen Cart manage your product content, and make it a longer process for your customers to get to the "buy" stage of your products.

[KoolAide187]

My zen cart is in a sub folder I just need to know how to add my items 1 by 1 like you said.

[gjh42]

For each product, you would make an HTML page in your normal way with a link to the Zen Cart product page, and whatever other information and images you want to display.

If you don't care about making your customers' experience longer before they can add each item to the cart, this will work.
A much better route if you don't want to have Zen Cart handle your main site is to have big "shop" links on your main pages that take you to the cart home with all the product pages laid out there.

I have a question: Is the principal purpose of this site to disseminate information, or to sell products? If it is principally a sales site, why would you want to put the sales process out back?

[KoolAide187]

For each product, you would make an HTML page in your normal way with a link to the Zen Cart product page, and whatever other information and images you want to display.

If you don't care about making your customers' experience longer before they can add each item to the cart, this will work.
A much better route if you don't want to have Zen Cart handle your main site is to have big "shop" links on your main pages that take you to the cart home with all the product pages laid out there.

I have a question: Is the principal purpose of this site to disseminate information, or to sell products? If it is principally a sales site, why would you want to put the sales process out back?

I understand what you're saying. And the process is already hard enough at the moment. I am using mal's ecommerce cart for the moment. And people don't seem to mind the way it's laid out. I just need the functionality of Zen Cart.
Please take a look at my site and maybe you can get an idea of what I am doing right now. It's http://www.echocalls.com click duck calls and then click Acrylic Calls. Right now it looks like crap and I am in the middle of re-doing the whole layout and way the page looks and feels. But I don't know anything about PHP or making Zen Cart templates. I know HTML like the back of my hand and I know a little Javascript. I plan on using a drop down in the future which people can click on a option and the call appears to them. Then they can click buy now or add to cart and it sends to zen cart. Will that not work the same as mal's ecommerce cart I am using now? I want it the same but don't know how to link them to Zen cart.

[gjh42]

It is possible to create a link that will place the item into the Zen Cart shopping cart; someone (possibly schoolboy or DrByte?) has given instructions on this somewhere in the forum within the past year or so. I still don't think it is a good idea to do the work to get this makeshift solution when you could do everything once in Zen Cart, and with little or no PHP code writing. You would need a good handle on CSS and the ability to accurately cut & paste blocks of PHP code in template files.

I see that the mal's cart is a total jump from your page layout and styling; the stock Zen Cart page layout can be adjusted and styled to match your look, so your idea to add the extra shopping cart page would not be a shock.

I would recommend a setup with top categories like your Duck Calls, Goose Calls, etc. having products like Acrylic Calls, XLT Calls, Acrylic Single Reed Canada Goose Call, Poly Single Reed Canada Goose Call, etc.
The products would have "attributes" which would be your color choices. Select an attribute and then add the product to the cart.

Accessories would have subcategories like Videos - DVDs, Headwear, Clothing, etc. Each subcategory would have one or more products in it.

You should really install Zen Cart in a subfolder or other test location, with its demo products, to see how all this works. Almost everything has been worked out already so you don't need to write things from scratch. The Call Builder would need to have some custom javascript to switch the images as attributes are selected; you could probably adapt the js you have to work with that, or possibly adapt one of the free mods in Plugins.

[KoolAide187]

I have the categories setup already. Waiting for pictures to get back from the editors before uploading them as items. So I actually had what you said about how to list the products already in mind. I do appreciate your help though. You have given me more to look forward to. Also I do have my zen cart installed in a sub folder and have been testing new templates with it. I think may make my own or at least try to. I know there is a bit of a learning curve with it though.

[gjh42]

For your first Zen Cart template, you might best start with one that has a similar layout and features to what you want, and adjust colors, fonts, sizes, images etc. on that, rather than starting from scratch.

[KoolAide187]

So on my main site i have pictures listed and code that sends the item selection to a cart called mal's ecommerce. I'm wanting to do the same with Zen Cart no matter how much extra work it will take. The code it sends for example is: http://www.aitsafe.com/cf/add.cfm?us...y&price=129.95
Notice it says userid= which is the company id. &product=Echo+Open+Acrylic+Call+Ivory and the price. So basically it appears to the user as Echo Open Acylic Call Ivory once they click buy and get forwarded to the shipping page. The buyers don't seem to mind doing this so I don't really want to switch the site over to the cart only page because I don't know how to edit zen cart. I work well with html and can edit javascript but i don't know much about PHP. Just wondering how I could make it send a product to zen cart by clicking buy here and they get a product such as: http://echocalls.com/EchoStore/index...&products_id=2

[kobra]

how I could make it send a product to zen cart by clicking buy here

ZenCart is not designed to be a backend or add to cart client for an html site
Mostly for security reasons

I don't really want to switch the site over to the cart only page because I don't know how to edit zen cart

Suggest that you install it and play with it coming here when you need advice