Membership only - no products

I have a project that will require a membership fee but will have no products. I have seen the "One time membership" add-on and that looks like it is what I need but I don't really need all of the other catalog horsepower of Zen Cart.

Is there a simple way to do this without all the un-needed files - a Zen Cart Lite?

Many of the e-commerce features can be turned off in the admin.

Are memberships different?
For example 6 months, 12 months, Silver, Gold etc?
If so you could treat each as a product.

bigbadboy:

Are memberships different?
For example 6 months, 12 months, Silver, Gold etc?
If so you could treat each as a product.

Excellent point.

Thanks for the quick replies. There is only one level of membership, nothing fancy.

The membership fee would still be considered a product. I realize Zen Cart is more powerful than you probably need (always good for expansion in future), but lots of the extras can be turned off in the admin.

As has been said, you're still making a transaction of product for money.
You've also got to think long term. Maybe next year you'll look into offering different levels.

Zen Cart is way more powerful then needed but as you can tell I am new to Zen, but like what I am seeing. I am looking at just using this as the method of transaction - once the viewer pays for the membership they will then be allowed access to an online system (already developed). So from what I can tell while Zen Cart may be over-kill for now, it leaves the ability for future expansion - not to mention my learning along the way.

Definitely.

I'm just completing a build of a site for a property management company that deals with renting properties. They don't need the actual 'shop' side of things right now but could do at a later date. it would be churlish not to use zen at the outset.

Since 98% of membership required area of this site is already finished, I am thinking about just putting Zen Cart in a seperate directory just to handle the transaction - just to keep everything else clean.

Do you see any issues with that?

Zen Cart isn't a backend operation, so I don't see how that'll work for you.

I would use Zen Cart just for the transaction. I would link the cart from the main site - sort of a site within a site. Once payment is made the user would then be sent a link (with payment confirmation from cc processing) to create their account profile within the main system. Account profile require approval by system admin (who would have acces to payments made).

Make sense?