Is Zen Cart what I need?

This post could fit in any number of categories but I though I would try the General. I am looking for a shopping cart that fits with with I need. I am not having much luck and came across Zen Cart. I can't go into as much detail as I would like due to NDA but I hope someone can answer a few questions for me.

The site I am looking for a shopping cart on is selling something that doesn't need any shipping. Nothing is downloaded either. I know sounds strange but that is all the details I can give.

Q: Can I turn off all options for shipping and have it not be part of the process?

The site will have its own registration and its own login.

Q: Can I relatively easily modify Zen Cart to take advantage of the existing registration process and login?

The site will have its own pages that show what is being sold. What I really need it to be able to drop a button on current pages that allows the visitor (who has already logged in) to just select an amount to purchase and submit. I don't want or need a formal shopping chart system so to speak. I am not sure I am explaining this good enough so let me know if you need more details and I will try to explain further.

On an existing user page I need to show a history of everything a user has ever ordered for their own viewing.

Q: Is that possible?

I am pretty confident in my PHP ability so more than willing to make an mods i need as long as everything is documented decently.

Thanks for the help.

The site will have its own pages that show what is being sold. What I really need it to be able to drop a button on current pages that allows the visitor (who has already logged in) to just select an amount to purchase and submit. I don't want or need a formal shopping chart system so to speak.

Zen Cart doesn't work like that.

Okay, got to think creatively here. Can I link directly to a product page from an existing page outside the cart? I wouldn't think that would be a problem. Would it?

Can I link directly to a product page from an existing page outside the cart?

Yes, I've done that, but I have to wonder why you want to. I was using static HTML sales pages with Paypal shopping cart buttons since 2001 and just switched to ZC last month. I dropped the HTML pages and entered the products in ZC to take advantage of ZC's features. It was very easy to copy my existing product descriptions, photos, and even links into ZC's product description. The only things I didn't move into ZC were my tutorial pages, and I do have links in the products to the tutorials and links in the tutorials to ZC. (If you want to see how I have it set up, go to my site and click on Quilt Pati products, then any of the hexagons, then you'll see the tutorial link and if you click on it you'll see the link to ZC on that page.)

For your specific questions, here are some answers:

You can set a product when creating or editing to
Product is Virtual: Yes, Skip Shipping Address.

It would not be easy or practical to make Zen Cart use the outer site's registration/login.

Is there some reason why you can't use Zen Cart's product pages? It will be infinitely easier to style them as you desire than to integrate outside pages.

A customer's order history is part of the My Account page.

I really wish I can go into exactly what I am doing but it would violate the NDA. The shopping part of the site is just a small part of the overall site.

Can I customize what needs to be entered to register? Add extra fields if I need to? If that is the case then I might be okay on the registraion side?

I am pretty sure I can use the login with Zen Cart. But the issues I have with the login is that the site will have User Type X and User Type Y. User X might be buying items but User Y won't be but will do custom things on the site not related to shopping.

Q: So, with the Zen Cart login can I use that session data to do other non-shopping cart things on the site that require a login to do? I don't want two (or more based on user type) different logins.

Thanks.

Zen Cart is able to classify users into different groups (by the admin), so you could designate them as Type X and Type Y. It should be possible to have some trigger or flag from registration info that would set this, and the user group should be available in the session info and can probably be used outside if you can read that. It might just be retrieved from the database in checkout from knowing the user's customer_id, so you might need to redo that for your purposes.

It's hard to say anything more specific without knowing more details about the customer types; you or other programmers will have to figure that out.