Newbie Guide to Zencart?

Not a good idea to try to fly, when you're still learning how to crawl...

Everyone who's posted a reply to your questions so far (possibly excluding me) is a Zencart guru... So it's worth listening to them.

My own advice (for what it's worth)...

1. Forget about trying to "integrate" zencart into anything else - including wordpress. eCommerce software (and I mean proper software like zencart) does not function well if attempts are made to carve it up.

There is also some logic in keeping your blog (and any other sites) completely separate from ZC - even on a different URL and a different server. You can then use these additional sites to drive traffic to the store, and if you are careful with the content, you could find that there is a SERP advantage to doing this.

2. Don't try to invent your own "solutions" to login functions. The gurus have worked most of this out and it's better to follow the advice and procedures they advocate.

3. This forum is the most well-supported of any Open Source eCommerce system - by a huge margin. If you have an issue with ZC, the chances are about 99% that the forum will have (or will provide) a solution. So take your time with ZC. Your first few weeks should be testing everything out and reading the advice here.

If you do this (as I did 5 years ago when the forum was relatively young) you will build a robust and effective zenshop that your customers will trust, and will enjoy shopping from.

site:

The only thing is I have my wordpress designed really well so it would be nice to fit my zen cart onto there, and keep my wordpress sidebar but add a shopping cart to it.

site:

That shows wordpress on zencart, I'd want the opposite (zen on wordpress) as my wordpress blog has been designed and I want my zencart installation to fit on that.

gjh42:

That is not going to happen. You can style your Zen Cart template to match your Wordpress template.Nods in agreement.. I believe there is a VERY good and sound reason why no such WordPress plugin exists. You are better off listening to the advice here, and work the otherway around.. There are a NUMBER of ways to "add" Zen Cart to your existing WordPress blog:

1. If you want your Zen Cart store to look like your blog, you can simply take the time to work the Zen Cart stylesheet to make the store match the blog.. Create your own custom template and go from there.. How do I create a new Custom Template?

Here's an example where I did just that:
http: // www . lanikshair . com (site link)
http: // www . lanikshair . com /lanikscorner (blog)
(pardon the spaces, I don't want search engines spidering these links)

On this site I used something I call the WOZ sideboxes on the Zen Cart side to help tie the blog to the store. (in other words NOT using any of the blog embedding features of WOZ -- just the sideboxes) I make sure that the store and blog's top and side navigation are styled to link the two together.. To further tie the blog to the store I use the Wordpress links widget to add links to the blog that tie the blog back to the store (the store's category links are a good way to do this).

2. Another path to styling the store to look like the blog is to use the Sanguine Easy Embed Template. "Originaly designed to work w/ sites that had dreamweaver templates and a bunch of static pages as well as with Zen Cart." This template allows you to "embed" Zen Cart inside an existing HTML "shell" as it were.

It's a great way to integrate Zen Cart into an existing website layout. If you have decent HTML/CSS skills, you would create a template "shell" based on your blog layout, and then sit Zen Cart inside this "shell". The template comes with a generic Zen Cart stylesheet that you would then modify to match the store to the rest of your site's color and style scheme.

I used this template for a client who had static Dreamweaver template pages and a Zen Cart store he wanted to integrate with the static pages. His blog was (and continues to be) SEPARATE from his main site. We then styled the blog to match the main site so that the transition from blog to main site/store is somewhat seemless

http: // anomalyrecords . net (site)
http: // anomalyrecords . net /anomalyblog (blog)
(It should be noted that we eventually did away with all of the static pages -- they were ALL replaced with Zen Cart pages -- but kept the original dreamweaver shell and continued to use the Sanquine Easy Embed Template LONG after the static pages were eliminated)

3. There are two blog embedding solutions where blog content is "embedded" into Zen Cart that you can check out.
   (Listed in MY personal order of preference)
   Numinix's Integrating Wordpress into Zen Cart 1.3.8a:
   http://numinix.com/blog/2009/09/26/i...en-cart-1-3-8a
   Sample of this in action: http://clients.overthehillweb.com/testsite/blog

**WordPress on Zen Cart (WOZ):
**http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&products_id=681
Sample of this in action: http://zen138blog1.overthehillweb.com/index.php?main_page=wordpress

4. Lastly, there are other options for WordPress and Zen Cart solutions posted here:
   http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144224&highlight=blog