Advantages and Disadvantages of Zen Cart Shopping Cart

Posted by: WH13 Administrator on March 5, 2013 Under: Articles

Zen Cart Pros and Cons

The Zen Cart shopping cart is one of the most widely-used shopping cart software for e-commerce websites nowadays that uses PHP and MySQL. There are several advantages of the Zen Cart shopping cart that are reasons enough for this tool to be considered.

Zen Cart Back Demo
Picture 1 : Zen Cart Backend Demo

Zen Cart Advantages

Developed by experts. Zen Cart is developed and improved by real professionals and experts in the field of e-commerce as well as master programmers. With this, this tool is deemed a very reliable and trusted tool as you know that the people behind this software can also be trusted.

Focused on user’s needs. Not all shopping cart solutions out there are truly focused on the needs and the requirements of the users and they are created in a very complicated manner. But Zen Cart is different because it is created with the needs and satisfaction of the users and their customers in mind.

Easy to set-up. One factor that proves Zen focuses on consumer needs is the fact that it is easy to set up. It involves basic programming and requires basic skills so that set up can be achieved easily by those who only have basic knowledge.

Convenient Features. Zen Cart offers features that make consumers build a convenient e-commerce site that would provide convenience to your shoppers. These features are multiple customer modes, multiple sales and discounts, multiple payment options, discount coupons, multiple language, unlimited category depth, unlimited extra pages, multiple shipping options, and gift certificates.

Free. This is the best advantage of Zen Cart. It is a free e-commerce shopping cart. Anybody can download it free of charge. Why should you pay a hefty price for shopping carts when you can get a nice one for free? This makes this shopping cart a very practical choice.

Customizable. Zen Cart is an open source tool which means it is also customizable. Users have the freedom to customize their store the way they want.

Zen Cart Front Demo
Picture 2 : Zen Cart Frontend Demo

Zen Cart Disadvantages

No matter how great a shopping cart is, there will always be a few negative sides and Zen Cart is not exempted from these downsides.

Poor layouts. Zen Cart may be customizable, convenient and free but these positives come with a cost and that is in terms of its appearance or layout. In exchange for all the benefits, you are forced to stick with a poor store layout that makes your website complicated and looking a lot messy.

Upgrades are hard to do. If you want to upgrade your Zen Cart version into a more advanced version, it is possible but, it is not that easy. In fact, the process is stressful and time-consuming which is not something you expect from upgrades.

Requires PHP knowledge to customize. This tool may be customizable but, only for those who have basic and advanced knowledge of PHP. There is no way pure beginners can successfully use this tool for their e-commerce website without assistance from experts.

When it comes to e-commerce shopping carts, research and gathering of more information is very important to ensure that the cart really offers you all the things you need without compromising other important factors.

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