Shopping for Shopping Carts: Zen Cart

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There a lot of things about ZenCart that really made my head turn and decide to try the shopping cart software.

Since I am not much of a risk-taker when it comes to software, I really like ZenCart because I don’t need to pay any licensing fee to use the product. Added to this treat is the fact that ZenCart was designed to make a difference in shopping cart software. The developers of ZenCart have put shopper’s need as the top-most priority. Usually, when it comes to using software, most of my major problems start even on the installation stage. But with Zen Cart, even if I am not much of a technical wiz, I was able to install the software with ease. That’s how efficient ZenCart is with regards to usability.

Designing is also not difficult with the software. For the template, I use XHTML and I do not have to worry about the number of pages to include because with ZenCart, extra pages are unlimited. It also has a lot of ad banner controller, shipping options and payment options. There are also features available in osCommerce that you can also find in Zen Cart. In fact, you can install contributed features from osCommerce directly onto your ZenCart. In addition, along with some of osCommerce’s features, ZenCart also has its own added perks. But even with this wide array of features, you do not have to worry about some problems with the software’s performance because it is very stable.

However, there are also things that you should be very particular about ZenCart especially if you are the type of users who have some specific wants and necessities with the shopping cart software you are using.

On the negative site of the software, although you can make use of osCommerce contributions, you still have to concert them to be usable in ZenCart. Also, if you go for organized admin interface, then ZenCart is not the one for you because there are some areas that look like a little bit disoriented owing to too many features installed. Another thing that I find troublesome about ZenCart is the Easy Populate contribution. It should allow you to import products from Excel. However, in ZenCart, it still does not work.