SiteGround Tutorials
ZenCart Tutorial
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ZenCart is an Open Source e-commerce application. It is written in PHP and requires a MySQL database. Zen cart provides easy customization of the look of your online store. ZenCart has built-in system for receiving online payments, setting tax and discount rates, etc.
Advantages of Zen shopping cart:
- Easy installation of Zen cart
- Easy customization
- Automated tasks
- Simple navigation
- Single item and volume discounts, sales, special items, gift certificates, etc.
- Search engine optimization of Zen cart (keywords and metatags customizable for each product)
- Multiple languages, currencies and taxes
- Numerous delivery and payment options
- and much more!
SiteGround.com offers the best Zen cart hosting services for ecommerce websites.You can request a FREE installation of ZenCart with your SiteGround account. A team of professional and friendly supporters will make sure your online shop is running smoothly on powerful high-availability servers.
How to install Zen Cart
Don't have a Zen cart site yet?
Get Zen cart installed for free with the eCommerce hosting pack!
The first thing that you need to remember about ZenCart is that your customers may purchase goods from your store only when they are logged in. Anonymous customers are not supported in the current versions!
You can easily create an online shop, using ZenCart. It can be installed through our Fantastico Autoinstaller in just several clicks! Locate the Fantastico icon in the cPanel's first page.
ZenCart Installation Detailed Tutorial
Once logged into Fantastico, look for the ZenCart link and click it. Then proceed with the Installation link.
Decide upon the location of your shop - if you would like to have it as your site fron, leave the directory box blank, otherwise fill in the appropriate folder name. Next, fill in the administrator details and click the Install button.
Click the confirmation button on the next page, and then you will see the success notice on the last page with an option to go back to the initial ZenCart page for Fantastico.
Add the addresses to your bookmarks, since you will be frequenting them this point further.
How to Configure Your Store
Now that you have logged in to ZenCart's administration panel, you can start configuring it to fit your needs.
We will start off with changing the name of the shop. Please go to the top menu and hover over Configuration. From the list that appears, select My Store (the top entry).
A list of attributes will appear. Select Store name and an Edit button wil appear to the right.
Click that, change the shop name and the use the Update button below in order to save your changes.
Those will be active immediately!
The rest of the options of the store are configured in exactly the same way.
Changing Languages and Character Sets
Since you may be willing to install further languages for your shop, we include directions on how to do that as well.
Please download the desired language from Zen Cart Downloads Section to your local computer. Unzip the files, upload them to the respective languages catalog and admin directories (located under /includes/languages and /admin/includes/languages, respectively). In case they do not exist, you need to create them through your cPanel's file manager or through FTP. Open the administrative interface of your shop and navigate to the Languages option of the Localization menu. On the new page click the New Language button. Fill in the form and finish by clicking Insert.
Some languages require that tha character set is changed in order to avoid text displaying errors. To switch to non-English characters please locate your ZenCart installation in the FileManager, and look for the /includes/languages/ folder under the store's directory. Find the language file in use and search for the following lines:
| @setlocale(LC_TIME, 'en_US.ISO_8859-1');
// charset for web pages and emails |
Replace the en_US.ISO_8859-1 string with the one that describes the charset, appropriate for your language.
Further information about those can be found on the addresses below:
http://us3.php.net/function.setlocale
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vclib/html/_crt_language_strings.asp
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vclib/html/_crt_country_strings.asp
Changing the text on the start page of your shop is done through some code editing. The modifications are done in the language file that you use. In the default installations that is found in
/includes/languages/english/classic/index.php
Edit the file by opening it through a simple text editor and replace the Congratulations... text with the one that you would like to appear. Please make sure you do not change other existing code to avoid functionality problems.
Setting up SSL protection for your shop
The set up procedure varies, depending on whether you have your own certificate, or are using the shared one of your hosting server. The process requires you to change the following files by hand:
includes/ configure.php
admin/ includes/ configure.php
It is important to note that in case you are using word processing software, additional symbols will be added to your files, causing malfunction of your shop. To avoid this, please use simple text editors, such as Notepad.
Using a certificate for the specific domain name (your own private SSL certificate)
For the new configuration settings to be applied, you need to change either listed files. To do that, please find the files, listed above, and open them with a simple text editor. Locate the following lines of code:
| // Define the webserver and path parameters define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.yourdomain.com'); define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://(www.)yourdomain.com'); define('ENABLE_SSL', false); // secure webserver for checkout procedure? |
Set your domain name in the appropriate slots, and replace false in the last row with true. Again, whether you place www. in front of your domain name depends on the certificate you have purchased. SSL certificate can be purchased for "yourdomain.com" or for "www.yourdomain.com"
Using a shared SSL certificate
Again, you need to open the files with a text editor. Change
includes/configure.php and
admin/includes/configure.php
to:
| // Define the webserver and path parameters define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.YOUR_SHOP.com'); define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://server.IP.address.here/~YOUR_USERNAME'); define('ENABLE_SSL', true); // secure webserver for checkout procedure? |
Disabling SSL usage
Locate the files
includes/configure.php
admin/includes/configure.php
and in the code segment
| // Define the webserver and path parameters define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.YOUR_SHOP.com'); define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://www.YOUR_SHOP.com'); define('ENABLE_SSL', true); // secure webserver for checkout procedure? |
change the word true to false. That would be enough to turn the encryption off for your store.
Managing the Product Catalog
To add a new category, start by selecting the Categories/Products from the Catalog menu.
Click the New Category button and then fill in the details. Click Save when done.
To add a subcategory, click on the folder icon in front of the category name. On the new page repeat the process for adding a category.
In order to delete a category, click the X icon in the Action column.
Warning: deleting a category will remove all subcategories and products! You can either confirm removal or cancel the action on the next page.
Creating a product is done in a similar fashion: click the New product button.
and then enter the preferred product details. If you are willing to, you can also upload an image. Please, visit Images for more information. When done, please click the Preview button at the top/bottom of the page. That will show the product preview.
Click Insert to proceed, or Back to continue editing the item.
You can list the newly added product under a category - for that to happen, you need to move the item under the desired category. To do that click the purple 'm' icon at the end of the row.
You will be prompted to select the category for a dropdown menu. Then click the Move button.
Define Meta Tags for the Products
To define Per-Product Meta-Tags go to the Categories/Products list. Locate the desired item and then look for a symbol, resembling BMW's mascot, in the Action column.
On the new page, fill in the details and click Preview, the Update.
It is important to know that metatags need to be relevenat to the product entry, otherwise they will not be useful at all.
Quantity Discounts
Setting up quanity discounts for a product is done through the Product Price Manager. That is located in the Catalog menu.
Find the product you would like to have the discount for, and click the Edit button.
On the new page click the Add Blank Discounts button and fill in the details for the volume discounts.
Click the Update button at the botom of the page to apply your new settings.
Those will be visible in the table at the next page.
Free Shipping for Bigger Orders
Many businesses offer free shipping for orders, worth above a certain amount. You can do that in ZenCart as well. Point your cursor to the Modules menu, and select the Order total option. From the list, click the Shipping module and then the Edit button.
Set the minimum amount for free shipping and click Update at the bottom for your changes to be applied.
Foreign Currency Payments
In order to change the default currency for your shop, please select the My Store option from the Configuration menu. In case the default language for your shop is not English and you are to use the proprietary currency for your language, please click on Switch To Default Language Currency line...
and change the setting to true.
In case you are running an English language shopping cart, but are using a currency, different from US Dollars, ensure that that value is set to false.
If you would like to add extra currencies, please select the Currencies option from the Localization menu.
On the new page click the New Currency button. Enter the information and check the box that sets the new currency as the default one for your store. When done, please click the Insert button,
and after the page is refreshed - the Update currencies button. The Update currencies button will recalculate the values of the other currencies, setting the new default currency to 1.00
If you would like to change the default currency into one, that is already in your list of Currencies, press the Info Button next it:
Then press the Edit button and when you view the Edit currency menu, check the box at the bottom to Set the currency as default.
Now press Update and after the page is refreshed - the Update currencies button.
PayPal Setting
After your customer has selected the products and has completed the PayPal payment, you would like to have him directed back to your store. In order to do that, you can log in to your PayPal account and go to My Profile. Click Website Payments Preferences and set the Auto-Return to be turned on. Then, provide the address of the return page (replace the example domain and shop names with your own):
Non-secured store:
http://www.yourdomain.com/your_shop/index.php?main_page=checkout_process
Secured shop:
https://(www.)your-secured-domain.com/your_shop/index.php?main_page=checkout_process
Please note that whether there is www in front of the address of your secure shop depends on what you have requested when signing up for a certificate.
Changing your sessions setting in the Zen Cart Admin may render your online store inoperable!
ZenCart with Authorize.net
Log into the ZenCart administrator's panel. Click the Modules menu. You will see a page with all the default payment modules. Select Authorize.net and click Install button:
On the next page, to the right, you will have to fill in a short query.
Do not forget to click Update at the end.
Configuring Sales Tax
Open your administrative interface and point to the Locations/Taxes menu. Select the Zones Definitions option. From the menu you can double click to edit an existing zone or create a new one. On the image below is show how to edit an existing zone. Enter a description, according to your preference.
Click Update.
After the zone has been created, please click on the Details button to the right.
Click Insert. Select country and zone. Click Insert.
Select the Tax Rates option from the Locations/Taxes menu.
Click the New Tax Rate and select your tax zone. Set the tax rate and enter a description. Click the Update button at the bottom to apply the tax.
In order to make the addition of new products quicker, you can select a default Tax Class, to be applied every time you create a new product. To do that please go to the Product types option of the Catalog menu.
Select the product type, click the Edit Layout button...
and enter the tax ID number, that applies for this type of products.
Please, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or recommendations about this tutorial at: tutorials 'at' siteground.com