OK, I know this info is all here...

Clearly, all the info I am about to ask about is available here at zen.cart.com. So why am I posting? Because before I go any further I want to get some feedback on whether what I am doing is the right way to go at all!

I am building a very simple website for a friend, it includes the need for payments for the following items.

2 tee shirts
gift certificates
registration fees for classes and programs

I know I can do every I need just using paypal buttons, but since I would like to offer the room to grow to this person I thought I would look into alternatives, and zen-cart is clearly the best alternative for a small (or large) e-commoerce website.

I want to control the look of the zen-cart site so that it is not disruptive to the rest of the site, that part looks easy enough.

The organization already has a cc gateway, can I use the existing info to set up zen cart for cc usage?

The class payments are currently included in a registration form. Can I (easily) create an item for sale that also has a form to fill out? Beyond name and address, I need things like child's name and such.

Can all this really be done by someone like me who is only minimally gifted at doing any html and knows no php?

Is there a place I can go to get everything done for me, for a small fee??

OK, that's it. I hope these questions feel valid. I have already invested the time in installing zen-cart, but before I really get my hands dirty I thought I would pose these questions.

Thanks very much in advance,

henry

henry,

All of this is possible, and depending on what the current site looks like and what it does function wise and what of these will be migrated to the cart this can be simple to difficult////sorry for the neblous answer but with out seeing any of this, it is the best one that I can provide

Thanks,

There is nothing migrating from the existing site, the hosting service is networksolutions.com

I am building a simple set of pages and have installed zen-cart into a fresh top level directory, so far that is all.

Is it possible to be more specific if I give you more specifics, just let me know?

I really appreciate your response,

Henry

Yes Henry,
You can do it! ok all ego stroking aside.....The templating system will take you a little bit to wrap your head around but once the lightbulb comes on its easy. If you don't have any expierence with css I would suggest bookmarking http://www.w3schools.com/

The class registration could be handled by adding text fields to the products by setting up attributes. You could gather address info there but since the customer have to provide that info already on the registration page I would only worry about collecting the other info you require.

Not that tough have a go at it and when you get stuck come here and we'll point you in the right direction

There is nothing migrating from the existing site...

I am building a simple set of pages and have installed zen-cart into a fresh top level directory, so far that is all.

The ideas that you have for your "simple set of pages" is great btut you really do need to create as html pages or what ever you are doing...

The idea and goal is to make Zen Cart look the way you envision these pages being. and all or almost all within the Zen Cart structure.