ZenCart Software Review 

Zen Cart is an open source e-commerce application written in PHP, which uses a MySQL database with some HTML components. Zen Cart was originally based on osCommerce code from June 2003. From that point, Zen Cart has undergone three major point releases. The current release designation for Zen Cart is 1.3.8.

Support is provided for several human languages and different-country currencies. Zen Cart is available under the GNU General Public License and is hosted by third parties. A large number of companies advertise on the Web for Zen Cart hosting and for performance of custom services.

Functionality and Features

Zen Cart Demo or Free-Trial Experience

Since this is free software, any demo material is provided in the downloaded product itself. The Zen Cart home pages advertises easy installation, but when you click on the Download button up comes a screen entitled “Zen Cart E-Commerce Shopping Cart by ajeh, drbytezen, nutzforzen, wilt”.

Now I didn’t just fall off the banana boat; I realize those names are probably user IDs— belonging to development staff—from some of the Zen forums. And the page contains some cryptic (cryptic, if you’re not used to wrestling with software) tables identifying the latest release of Zen Cart and some interim patches.

But if I’m John or Jane Q small-online-business person, the odds are my background isn’t in IT, software, or Web design. In other words, I may be a simple Web user. All I’m saying is the free download page looks like it was written by a code guy, not someone out of sales or service supposed to communicate with human customers.

General Observations

• Easy installation
• Multiple customer modes
• Unlimited category depth
• Multiple sales and discounts
• Multiple payment options

The core product comes with a newsletter manager, gift certificates, featured-product templates, and so on.

The home page tells us that Zen Cart can be installed and set up by anyone with the “most basic Web site building experience.” So I guess it depends on what that phrase means. The reviewers feel Zen Cart is fairly technical, requiring considerable third-party expertise and services for larger-enterprise success.

Limitations

In our research we determined that Zen Cart limitations include the following:

• Support consists of online knowledge base and forums only.
• Zen Cart is hosted by a third party, so an additional player is part of the equation for success.
• The merchant using Zen Cart is responsible for security and backups.
• Performance is affected by the requirement that Zen Cart reside on a single server.
• There is a separate charge to obtain a security certificate.

The killer handicap for installations, except for the most straightforward smaller enterprises, is the level of technical wizardry needed to install, configure, and operate the product.

The template system of Zen Cart improves the shop administration and management functions, but customizing still requires editing of core files. If you have to do a lot of customizing of the template system, lack of modularity makes the product difficult to keep up to date.

Support and Documentation

Technical support is through online knowledge base and user forums only; no phone or email support is offered by the Zen Cart itself. Like product hosting, you will need to make arrangements with a third party for live human support… or else develop your home grown experts.

Zen Cart prides itself on its comprehensive documentation with a singular user’s guide written by Goh Koon Hoek. The manual is available through the self-publishing company, Lulu, yet it isn’t particularly cheap at $47.00 for the hard copy and $29.00 for the electronic download.

As a collaborative project, Zen Cart enables community members to actively participate in developing documentation for the levels of Zen Cart users.

Conclusion

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Basically you get what you pay for. For simpler e-commerce needs, Zen Cart may be the way to go. But for more complex needs, you’ll wind up paying for associated services—through hosting or consulting—in any case.

A highly usable, top-ranked, multifeatured e-commerce solution can be found with Premium Web Cart, which is built on the latest Web technologies and brought to you in an affordable suite of options.

Best Wishes,