310 likes | 644 Views
Introduction To Zen Cart. What is Zen Cart?. Zen Cart is a free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart system, that allows you to create an online e-commerce store for selling your goods and services. It is written in PHP and requires a MySQL database to work.
E N D
What is Zen Cart? • Zen Cart is a free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart system, that allows you to create an online e-commerce store for selling your goods and services. • It is written in PHP and requires a MySQL database to work. • The software is designed to cater specifically to the requirements of store owners and shoppers. • Zen Cart is free
Features of Zen Cart • Allows customers to shop your store 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365+ days a year! • Easily keep your product/catalog • Product Customization through Attributes • Simple Checkout Process • Multiple Payment Options • Multiple Shipping Options • Multiple Languages, Currencies and Taxes • Wide Array of Marketing Tools • Advanced Pricing Options • Order Total Calculation • Order Management • Custom Look-and-Feel
Store Quick Tour • Zen Cart is divided into two areas: • Store Front • Admin Console
A Typical Shopping Flow Shopping Cart page Product Info page Home page 3 2 1 4 Log In/Sign Up page Delivery information page Payment info page 6 5 7 My Account Information page Checkout success page Order Confirmation page 9 8
Objectives • In this lesson you shall: • Understand how the different pieces of location information (i.e. Countries, Zones and Zone Definitions) are used together to determine the taxes, shipping and payment charges that a customer incurs. • Configure Countries information. • Configure Zones information. • Configure Zone Definitions information. • Specify your Store Location.
Categories of Location • Location is divided into three categories in Zen Cart: • Countries • Zones • Zones Definition
countries • Zen Cart comes with a complete set of countries in the Database • You might have to remove some countries • ISO Country Codes • These are internationally recognized abbreviations of country codes according to the ISO-3166 standard. • ISO-3166 Standard • defines both two-letter and three-letters codes for different countries in the world. • Zen Cart uses both the ISO Code (2) and ISO Code (3)
Address Formats Used in Different Countries • Each country defines a fixed format for their addresses • This address format is available via the post office of each country • Zen Cart comes with a default of six address formats
Zones • Zones are defined as geographical regions within a country • Zen Cart comes with a default set of zones configured for the following countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Palau, Spain, Switzerland and United States. • Purpose of Zones • to allow you to fine-tune your shipping, payment and tax charges based on Zone information. • Adding a Zone
Zone Definitions • A Zone Definition is a logical grouping of zones • A Zone Definition can cover a small area such as a State in a country (e.g. Paris) or several countries in a federation (e.g. European Union). • Purpose of Zone Definitions: Zone Definition allows you to restrict a shipping or payment option only to customers from a specific area in the world. Similarly, you can use a Zone Definition to specify a specific tax rate for customers from a specific location in the world. • Adding a Zone Definition
Specifying Your Store Location • You need to provide Zen Cart with details of where you are located • This is because Zen Cart may need this information to determine how certain charges are to be calculated • To specify your store location
Summary • Location information provides the basis for you to specify shipping, payment and tax rules • A slight misconfiguration here could affect the charges that a customer should pay for your product or service; ultimately it might hurt your revenue and possibly your reputation.
Objectives • We shall : • Specify your store contact information. • See how your store information is displayed in your online store. • See how your store information is displayed in printable documents generated by your store. • See how your store information is displayed in emails sent to customers
Specifying Store Contact Information • Research has shown that customers prefer to deal with businesses that display their contact information prominently • To specify your store's contact information for online and printed documents:
Store Contact Information Displayed Online • Your store contact information is available in the following places online: • Contact Us page. • Order Confirmation page if Check/Money Order payment option chosen by customer.
Contact Us Page • To view your store's contact information in the Contact Us page, go to your Store Front and click on Contact Us from the Information side-box.
Store Contact Information Displayed in Printable Documents • Your store's contact information will also appear in the following printable documents – invoices and packing slips.
Invoices • Your store contact information will be displayed on the top-left corner of an invoice
Packing Slips • Similarly, your store contact information will also be displayed on the top-left corner of a packing slip.
Store Information Appearing in Emails • Contact information presented in emails sent out from your store will only contain the store name and store owner‘s • As shown in the following sample screen shot.
Summary • Your contact information is available through several mediums: online store, printed documents and in emails. • Always keep your contact information updated as it is important for the image and credibility of your business.
Objectives • We shall : • Add new currencies to your Zen Cart store. • Update currency exchange rates in real-time. • Specify the default currency for your store
The Currencies Screen • All currency configurations in Zen Cart are configured via the Currencies screen. To access this screen, click on Localization > Currencies • US dollar is the default currency • has a value of 1.00000000 • All other currencies will be relative to this currency when specifying the exchange rate. • To add a new currency:
Updating Exchange Rates in Real-Time • To update your currency to the latest exchange rates, you click on the update currencies button in the Currencies screen. • Zen Cart will immediately fetch the latest exchange rates from http://www.oanda.com. • If this site is down or the exchange rates you specified is not available there, Zen Cart will switch to another currency exchange site http://www.xe.com