Just want shoping cart, not a store

I've never set up commerce before so am a bit clueless. :blink:

I would use the PayPal Webpayment Standard, but the cient doesn't want to use them. I understand as I have used it and get complaints that people claim that can't use a credit card. They can but the UI sucks so they are confused.

So can I use Zen for just a shopping cart without implementing a store site? The clients commerce needs are very simple.

Also, am I going to need my own SSL for this?

How complicated is it to set up Zen and get it working properly? How long should this take for newbie who is a designer not a dev?

Thanks

zencart is a very complex application. every page with in zencart is being used from moment client enters the store to the time they checkout . so you can not just use cart part of zencart and discard the rest.

ZC is very easy to install . if the conditions are met , it is up to your host to make sure all the things that ZC needs are installed and configured correctly on the server . if thats ok , it will take you about 4 minutes or so to install zencart .

There are many payment processing modules available to install on ZC , so you are not bound to paypal in any way .

I have one ZC store working for past 2 years with no problem. if there has been any problem with ZC it was due to my Host doing something with their server :wacko::wacko:

Thanks for the reply. As I suspected, it sounds like Zen is overkill for this particular project.

Can anyone recommend that might be simpler - just a shopping cart app without all the inventory control and other features of a full blown store.

Thanks

Greg

there are many carts out there ..if you google im sure you will find many simple carts .. but you have to also take security into account , not many of those simple cart provide security level that zencart provide , also zencart user based support is the best :P

is good idea to install copy of zencart on your system and give it a go and see how you and your client would feel about it . .

You can easily install Zen Cart and then turn off the 3/4 of the default functions that you don't need - that is what I did.

Zen Cart can look very simple if you want it to, yet keep all of the power for whatever you want it to do.

I'm curious what you would have in a shopping cart if there are no product pages.

I ran a static HTML store with Paypal's shopping cart before installing ZenCart. It worked fine, but was a bit of a nuisance to maintain stock levels manually, which is why I switched. And it took me days of working at it almost 24/7 to get it running (however, I'm not a programmer or developer, just a computer user). And then it took several days to enter my products from the HTML pages. But since then, maintaining it has been an absolute piece of cake, and I LOVE ZC's multiple-category links to help my customers find what they are looking for. Whatever you are currently using to show products that will wind up in the shopping cart, it's worth at least looking at how ZC shows products. (If you don't want to use some of the features, such as inventory control, you can just turn them off.)

fensterbaby:

Can anyone recommend that might be simpler - just a shopping cart app without all the inventory control and other features of a full blown store.

Take a look at FoxyCart.