Adding PDF product literature to the Product Listing

Sooo....up until now I've been working on creating our new store in Zen Cart as a separate appendage to our main site. However, after some discussion, my boss and I are leaning towards rolling our entire site into Zen Cart. We want to do this for several reasons, including the fact that there is a great deal of repetitive information presented on the main site and in Zen Cart (which requires twice the work to keep up to date.) But, before we decide to do this, there are a few things that I need to be sure could be accomplished.

Currently, our main site features all our software products available for sale, with all their features listed, etc. Visitors can download a demo of various products and can download pdfs of product literature and users guide manuals. But, to purchase anything, they have to navigate to the webstore we currently have set up (which is not zen cart now), find the product, and so on. Not particularly elegant.

I want to know if it is possible to allow users (whether guests or logged in members) to download pdfs and an installer of a demo directly from a product listing page -- without running through an add to cart scenario. Each product would require a minimum of three of these items--one product literature pdf, one product manual pdf, and one demo download--and many would also require several additional downloads for various drivers needed to use the demo or the full blown software.

I realize if this is possible, it would require some special coding...which I can arrange to hand off to someone more capable than myself. But I'd like to know if its a possibility before we invest too much time and effort....

There are also several other things we'd need to figure out how to work into Zen Cart, but the above issue is the most important to know first.

Thanks for any input here!

There are a lot of options it depends how much you want to track and control the pdf and demo downloads.

The easiest way is to just place the pdf and demo download links right in the product description section of Zen Cart.

Think of the product description section of ZC as a web page by it self. Just wrapped in the shopping cart.

Skip

Ok, good good. And it shouldn't be too much of a problem if the links for the pdf's were icons rather than text, right?

As far as the demo download, as you suggest, we do currently "track" these on our website in that the visitor must complete a demo form to receive the installer link via email. The form information is both emailed and automatically loaded into a potential customer database.

But I'm thinking that with the Zen Cart set up, it would probably make most sense to require people to either create an account or login to their account in order to have access to the demo download. Guests to the site can see that a demo is available, but there would be a message saying please login or create an account to access. And, we'd want to know who downloaded any time a demo file is accessed--bc this often alerts us to customers needing technical support.

Does this login idea make sense and any thoughts on how to go about this?

links for the pdf's were icons rather than text, right?

icon or text is fine.

You could just create a demo product with a value of zero allow the customer to add to cart and after check out they would get the download info. You would get all the customers info and when they come back to buy they only need to login, select the product they want go through checkout and pay for it.

Not crazy about doing the demo that way. While it certainly would be the easiest option, it would be a nightmare with our customers. I am positive they wouldn't understand having to go through the checkout process even if its a free "purchase." You wouldn't believe some of the calls we get.... ;o)

I suppose I could simply make it a link to the current form we are using and keep that process the same. However, I am correct in understanding that the customer would then be "leaving" the store and thus would lose anything they had placed in their cart? Is there a way to pop up a message before they leave that warns them to that?

If I were to do it.
I would use define_pages to handle all your pdf links and demo downloads a page for each product.
(Why define_pages because you can use php coding in them.)

This way you could code the page to show a demo download link inactive unless they where logged in. For them to be logged in they would have to create an account. Once they logged in the link would be active. This way there is no cart or check out involved. You could even have a buy it now link in the page also.

If you do decide on the defines pages, it can be a little daunting creating them all yourself. I know I had a hell of a time.

There is a great little program in the downloads section called defines pages generator. GET IT!

Simply name the page, type in your templates name, and the directory you want the new files to be written to, and wala! DONE!

It creates all the files needed to make the defines pages work; all properly named and in the proper file structure. It even modifies the readme file to give you the url of the page. Simply ftp, and all you would have to do is make a link in your descriptions to the new page.