Duplicate existing store

I have an existing store that I need to duplicate. The new site is on a different domain name and webhosting package and is under the control of a seperate company, but it contains the same product catalogue. The new site will be marketed to a completely different customer base and will be on a login to browse basis. The price structure will be quite different from the existing site.

I figure that the easiest thing to do is duplicate the site and the database and then alter prices, company identity, etc afterwards.

What is the best way to do this? I'm happy to copy the site files over to the new server but I'm not sure how best to copy and move the database over.

Moving the database is the easiest bit.

Though since this will be for a different customer base, it might be better just to move the products. You could export them using Easy Populate and then load them into your new site.

Or if you really want to everything over (which would include customers, orders and admin settings) then you need only backup your database using phpMyAdmin or the Backup MySQL mod available from the downloads section and then restore it to your new site (you should know how to do this anyway, yes?)

The existing site is brand new and with very few customers on it just now so I think a database backup and then restore would be the simplest way to go. I've never had to use the restore function from my database backup in admin, so I'm not entirely sure what i should be doing.
Any advice is greatly appreciated as I don't know what the protocol is for restoring to a different location.

If you have done a backup with the Backup MySQL Database, the file will have been placed in the admin/backups folder of the backed up site (unless you downloaded it instead).

Just move this file to the admin/backups folder of the new site. Go to the Backup MySQL Database page in the new Zen Cart, the backup should show so click on it, then click the Restore button.

Thank you!

kuroi:

If you have done a backup with the Backup MySQL Database, the file will have been placed in the admin/backups folder of the backed up site (unless you downloaded it instead).

Just move this file to the admin/backups folder of the new site. Go to the Backup MySQL Database page in the new Zen Cart, the backup should show so click on it, then click the Restore button.

Oh knowledgeable Kuroi ( or other smarty...)!
I have just installed 1.3.7.1 version. Currently my shop runs on a 1.3.0.1 version.

If I do a mysql backup can I transfer it to my new cart without ruining the new carts files? (i have no idea what the backup will do....obviously)
Or should I just backup each file like addresses etc seperately?

Thanks!

There's no benefit to backing up the individual files, as that's how the normal backup works anyway, it just just them all as a batch.

However, there's no risk to your newly installed files either. What will happen is that after restoring the older database into the new site, you will get warning messages and when you go into the Admin will be invited to upgrade the database.

Make sure that you have the zc_install folder for the 1.3.7 version available and execute it, making sure that you upgrade and don't install. Also ignore any warnings about your configure.php files not being writeable, you don't want them to be written for an upgrade anyway.

kuroi:

Make sure that you have the zc_install folder for the 1.3.7 version available and execute it, making sure that you upgrade and don't install. Also ignore any warnings about your configure.php files not being writeable, you don't want them to be written for an upgrade anyway.
Excellent thanks Kuroi!
As I deleted the zc_install folder as instructed at time of install, should I just upload that folder to my server again? (I assume nothing in it changes when installing?)

Your plan and your assumption are both correct.