Checkout without payment and order sent to email and 2 other questions

I'm an artist and I want to set up a webshop. The customer can choose from various artworks and select various options (like papertype and papersize), but also can customize the items if they want to do so.

Once the customer is done shopping I do want the order to be sent to me by email only after checkout with Zen Cart. Not to a payment system like paypal or so. Then I can review the order, contact the customer about the customization and then sent a final invoice myself which they can pay by bank.

Is this possible with Zen Cart? I've looked at various other e-commerce shopping systems, but a lot of them can only do checkout with payment system and not by email only. If this is possible is it easy to set up or do I need (to buy) extra modules or so, or is this build into the free version already?

How hard is it for a new user to use Zen Cart? I don't have experience in setting up an e-commerce website, only creating a website with Serif WebPlus. Last question I do have is can Zen Cart run in a subfolder of the main website, so that my current website can stay intact?

Ps. I asked the same question about the email checkout only at PrestaShop also, but there no one seems to care to reply.

You could configure your shop, enabling only the "Cash on Delivery" payment method, which you rename to display "Invoice to Follow" (or some other text to your liking). That way, your shop doesn't actually "take" the money but provides you with a means (using order-status values) to indicate that an order is awaiting processing, being created or shipped.

Yes, Zen Cart can be installed in a sub-directory of your existing site (e.g. https://www.mysite.com/shop)

Regarding ease of use, the first suggestion in things Zen Cart is to read. There are FAQs that support setup of various aspects from installation all the way through digging into the code. Upon setup you'll see that there is a book available that can help with operating the ecommerce part of the store. I haven't purchased it, but I know someone that has.

When it comes to specific questions, there's always this forum, (again suggestion is to search for the issue and read as it more than likely has been covered time and again) but there are plenty of people out there willing to help in one way or another.

In fact there have been other artists that have asked about similar aspects.

I thought also that some of the payment processors offered a means to collect the payment information but not have it charged right away. (Some reason three days comes to mind though.) At any rate, the easier you make the store, the easier it will be to operate and in my opinion there's not much that is exactly complicated about the base functionality.