Investigating Zen Cart -- Not happy with Yahoo Store

[batgrrly]

I don't know if there is a pre-use section here, but I need to research something with this cart before I decide to move my store to it. I can lose sales in the process, and don't want that to happen.

I am researching shopping carts because there has been some press lately that Yahoo small business is up for sale. Rather than being taken over and have all kinds of problems, it would be good if there were some improvements....

That aside, I am looking at a all mac hosting place and they recommended Zen. They are set up to use Zen-Cart as one of their choices. I thought I would check this out a bit, because the store is a livelyhood issue and I would have to build a new one and have the old one running until the kinks got ironed out.

I also don't have time to do a lot of xml or anything. I was hoping that I could work with the existing shopping cart. Have any of you had to migrate from and existing store and set up with Zen Cart? I use PayPal Pro, but would like to include google as an option as well.

[gjh42]

Zen Cart has Paypal Pro integration out of the box, and there is an addon for Google - don't know how well that one works.

You should examine the feature list on the site homepage, as well as looking at the FAQs for more detailed info.
You can easily build your new Zen Cart in a subfolder and move it to the root of your domain when it is ready to go. 301 redirects from old store pages to new pages with the same content will minimize the transition bump for search engines.

[rstevenson]

... I am looking at a all mac hosting place and they recommended Zen. They are set up to use Zen-Cart as one of their choices.

I'm a little curious about that as an issue. I don't know why a server company would make an issue out of the hardware they use. Don't get me wrong; I'm a rabid Mac user and have been for 24 years! I just don't see the point of being known as a "mac hosting place".

Having said that, you might want to check into the other applications they offer -- ie, what version of Apache, MySQL, PHP and so on, they offer. That's the important part, not the hardware or the OS of the server.

If you use Macs yourself, you can install MAMP on your local machine, and then install Zen Cart in it to try out the whole thing without dealing with another server at all. I keep local copies in MAMP of both my sites in which to test modifications before making any changes on my server.

Rob

[batgrrly]

Pre User

I have checked with the features that they offer. I just am trying to find a way to migrate without having to have too many bumps.

This MAMP program sounds interesting. It sets up a virtual host type situation. I figured I could test withing Zen first of course. I will keep evrything up and running with my main domain still at Yahoo store until I get the other running. I have set up another domain that is a variation of my main one and will do all the experimenting before I Publish there.

I just need a better cart with easier flow, less confusing to the customers. I am getting too many calls lately where they feel they are being forced to join paypal to buy anything which is not the case, but I have to manually do those then and well, I would rather spend time on other things in the company.

So, I will download zen-cart this weekend and see what it looks like at the back door...another frustrating thing at Yahoo

[schoolboy]

As Rob says... the machine is not as critical as the server software that resides on it.

For really hassle-free operation for a live store, you should host on a Linux box with appropriate versions of php, mysql and apache installed - along with the range of settings that zencart like to have configured on a server.

Zencart is acknowledged as being one of the most reliable and robust systems around.

5 years ago, when I was asking the same questions, I just decided to purchase some hosting space, set up a domain, load zencart (version 1.2.5 at the time) and try it out for a few weeks.

Well... I'm hooked on it now...

[yupspasti]

Zen Cart has Paypal Pro integration out of the box, and there is an addon for Google - don't know how well that one works.

You should examine the feature list on the site homepage, as well as looking at the FAQs for more detailed info.
You can easily build your new Zen Cart in a subfolder and move it to the root of your domain when it is ready to go. 301 redirects from old store pages to new pages with the same content will minimize the transition bump for search engines.

Out of the many posts, this one attract my attention. I believe it is possible for anyone to participate.
Excellent ! I like it very much.