Simple shopping cart

Hi, forgive me if this is a stupid/overly general question, but I'm very new to e-commerce. I have a site that derives its revenue from monthly subscriptions by users through Paypal's Website Payments Pro. Only one subscription mode is available. So all I basically need for my site is just a single form for users to input their credit card information, hit "submit" and have Paypal process the payment. Is Zen Cart appropriate to use for such a simple "shopping cart"/checkout page? I've already installed ZC, but am having trouble figuring out how to wade through all the layers of functionality that I don't currently need.

Thanks a lot!

I have a site that derives its revenue from monthly subscriptions by users through Paypal's Website Payments Pro. Only one subscription mode is available.
For only one product it is probably overkill

kobra:

For only one product it is probably overkill

Ah, thanks. Do you happen to know how I could make a very simple subscription form that uses Website Payments Pro, or somewhere I could go to read about it?

Do you really want to pay the monthly fee for Payments Pro for one product ?

If you meant Paypal Express, Paypal has some buttons you can add to a flat HTML site that will take your customers to Paypal to pay.

stevesh:

Do you really want to pay the monthly fee for Payments Pro for one product ?

Yeah, I really need subscribers not to leave my site while paying. I'm just not technically sophisticated enough yet to figure out how to implement Payments Pro on my own.

mg81:

Yeah, I really need subscribers not to leave my site while paying.

How come ?

stevesh:

How come ?

Mainly because the clients who use my service are very keyed into what looks "unprofessional," and probably wouldn't respond well to being redirected to a Paypal checkout page. Also, they're generally older and not very computer savvy, so I don't want them to potentially get confused and think they need a Paypal account to sign up with us.

Then you're kind of limited to a regular merchant account like Payments Pro or authorize.net.

I would suggest you go ahead and use Zencart, turning off or ignoring all the stuff you don't need. You never know where your business might go in the future.

stevesh:

I would suggest you go ahead and use Zencart, turning off or ignoring all the stuff you don't need.

Good, thanks, that was what I was hoping I could do when I first installed ZC. I'm just having trouble figuring out how to turn that stuff off! Is there a guide somewhere to just making a basic checkout page for one product?

Not as such, but if you search the tutorials for specific page elements, you may find activation/customization directions there. Look through every link in admin > Configuration, even if you don't think it applies to you. Tools > Layout Boxes Controller will be useful in removing unneeded sideboxes.

To get your product displayed on the homepage, create a category, then create your product in it. In Configuration > Layout Settings, set
Categories - Always Show on Main Page ->set to 1
Main Page - Opens with Category ->set to your category's id

The one product in the category will open on the homepage.