- Zen Cart is an Open Source online store management system. It is PHP-based, using a MySQL database and HTML components. Support is provided for several languages and currencies, and it is freely available under the GNU General Public License.
- Zen Cart branched from osCommerce as a separate project. The major differences between the two systems come from Zen Cart's architectural changes and additional included features in the core.
- Zen Cart's default installation provides everything needed to maintain a shopping cart web site. Products, pricing, shipping, newsletters, sales etc. are managed by the store owner through the administration area.
- The shopping cart is set up to receive payments from major credit cards and several payment gateway services are also provided.
- Some of the key features of Zen Cart are,
- Zen Cart provides multiple language support to the customers.
- Allows customers to shop your store 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
- Updating the product or catalog is very easy, no HTML coding required for adding, deleting, or modifying products.
- It is very safe and secure, no one but your administrative personnel can access your customer/catalog data.
- Easy to install, helpful installation program guides you easily help you through the setup process.
- It has unlimited category depth which allows you to have as many product categories.
- PhpBB integration through external module.
- User frontend is validated to XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
- It also provides you with multiple shipping options and multiple payments options along with a newsletter manager.
- Zen Cart is easily customizable to whatever your needs, depending on the skills and resources you have available. Only minimal skills are required to get started.
- Advanced customizations may require stronger knowledge of CSS, HTML, and maybe PHP or maybe even MySQL, depending on your unique requirements.
