Zen cart based e-commerce websites are primarily B2C (Business to Consumer) e-commerce websites where the site sells (or provides services) and the customers buy (or receive services).

However, many business models would want that the transaction be two way. That is, the customers can buy items from the website and at the same time they can sell items on the site to get a discount. For example, I am planning to a new car – but I also want to sell my old car and get a discount. Such transactions are not supported in Zen cart standard software.

However we can easily patch your zen cart based store to allow customers to sell items to your website and gain credits. These credits can then be redeemed to buy new items. The mod also can have features like – the credits are on hold until the item is received by the website and verified. You can options for your customers to self assess the condition of the item they are selling. For example it can be an item in poor condition, good condition or excellent condition. Based on these ratings – credit points can vary.

Expiry can also be attached to the credits thus gained. The credit points will expire in say 30 days after confirmation. This forces the customers to make a purchase in the stipulated time frame and there by increase your conversion rate.

Feel free to contact us today to receive more details about this mod and how we can integrate it on your website. You can use the contact link on the website to contact us or email us at quote @ zencartonline.com

Many zen cart based e-commerce website owners want to start a forum based on vbulletin software. For those who do not know vbulletin is one of the most popular forum system available in the industry. Its open source.

The problem with starting a forum on an e-commerce website is that your members have to register twice, once at the zen cart store and the other time at your forum. This is not only annoying but can be one of the biggest reasons why your forums will not be very popular.

Forums can provide lot of community based support and can reduce the number of support tickets that are sent for common questions. Vbulletin based forums can also help you in forum based marketing where lot of potential clients can read and ask questions before taking a decision to buy products or services from your zen cart based e-commerce website.

In order to make the customer experience better, its best to have some kind of integration between zen cart and vbulletin.

We can help you do a member registration integration between zen cart and vbulletin. That means if a member registers at Zen cart (they buy something), they automatically get registered with vBulletin based forum and vice-versa. Not only that, we can do a login integration as well. This means that if your members login into their zen cart member area, they get automatically logged into the vbulletin forum. We can also configure the forum such that some special area within the forum is only accessible to registered members. This area can be used to provide “member only” support.

This not only enhances customer experience but also makes your website look more professional. We can also help you integrate your zen cart design into your vbulletin based forum.

Contact us today at quote @ zencartonline.com via email or use the contact form on the website to send us your requirements and we will be happy to send you a quote!

Many websites today have a blog integrated with them to better communication about the products, services and general news about the website. Zen cart based e-commerce websites are no exception to this. Blog marketing is picking up rapidly and more and more websites/companies are realizing the potential of blog marketing.

WordPress has emerged as one of the biggest and most popular blogging software script. Its free, open source and secure!

If you are looking to start a blog on your website or integrate wordpress based blog on your zen cart based e-commerce website, feel free to contact us today. We can help you integrate a blog on your zen cart based website that has a similar design. Members that create account on your zen cart based store get an account on your wordpress based blog as well.

We will also do the complete theme integration for the blog.

You can send us your requirements to receive a free quote at quote @ zencartonline.com

Conversion rate is the percentage of people who complete a specific action on your website. In most e-commerce websites based on zen cart, the ultimate goal is the sale. However, it could also be an inquiry, request for catalog, filling up of some survey form or opt-in box, subscribing for a newsletter etc.

It is important to understand that zen cart by itself is not really optimized to help in coversion rates or get you more sales. There are lot of reasons for that. Lets look at what all things you should take care about in your zen cart based e-commerce store to get better conversion.

Make your important/high selling items featured
If something is selling good, why not make it featured on the home page. Make it stand out. Also if you have any promotion going, make sure to run the banner on the home page. The best products on your website should be on the front page. Indicate clearly the pricing, discount that is receivable, item details etc.

Make the checkout process simple
Its best not to ask for long registration details. A 5 step checkout process can be easily compacted into 1 or 2 step process. Also if your business allows, do not ask the visitors to create an account with your website (esp if you are selling a one-off item and customers wont be returning). It just increases your conversion rates.

Add usability features to your checkout process
You need to make sure that your entire shopping and checkout process is user friendly. The “Add to cart”, checkout, back, next buttons should be visible and stand out. I see many e-commerce website where it is almost impossible to locate the checkout button on the shopping cart page. Its generally hidden in the menu or somewhere at the bottom. Its best to have these navigational buttons on the top as well as at the bottom of the page.

You should remove any unnecessary and unimportant text from the checkout process. Focus on getting the sale converted and put minimum distraction in place.

Optimize Thank You page
When the customer is done ordering from your website, they are redirected to a Thank you page. This page contains details about the order process and talks about the next step. Generally customers tend to save this page for future reference. It is best to put some offers or deals on this page. Like requesting them to subscribe to your newsletter or refer a friend. You can attach some incentive to do so (like free shipping on next order, or a discount code etc).

Related item search
You can install the zen cart better together mod and other similar mods to help recommend to your customers some related products based on the choices that they make. This can easily add to your conversion rates and provide for a better user experience.

Site Security & customer confidence
It is important to reassure the customer that your website is absolutely secure. You should display your SSL credentials, hackersafe banner and other such important items on your home page and the payment processing page. This will add to customers’ confidence and they will shop on your website without fear or worry of their credit card data getting stolen.

Give multiple payment options
It is always good to give 2 or 3 payment options. If possible, one of them should always be Paypal. If you are a local provider, you may want to give a check payment or cash on delivery option as well.

Google Base integration
Install and configure Google Base mod for zen cart. This will allow automatic submission to Google Base about all your new and existing items.

We can help you with all of the above and more to optimize and increase your conversion and sales rate on your zen cart based e-commerce website. Contact us today to receive a free quote or email us at quotes @ zencartonline.com

Zen cart is a very powerful open source e-commerce system which is available for free. However it is important to upgrade your zen cart store to the lastest version. This is because many security vulnerabilities are discovered in the code. Also lot of new improvements and features get added to zen cart all the time.

Hold on, Did I just say vulnerabilities? Does that mean Zen cart is insecure? No – zen cart is not insecure. At the same time is not 100% secure. One must realize that 99% of the time, its problems with the environment in which zen cart is hosted. The server and its settings. Whenever such security vulnerabilities are reported or found out, Zen cart and the open source community releases patches in matter of hours.

It is important that you regularly update your zen cart website. Old versions of zen cart are prone to attacks as most of these vulnerabilities are openly published all over the Internet. Also it makes sense to upgrade to the latest version of zen cart to keep up with the new features.

If you have a zen cart store that you wish to get upgraded to the latest version, feel free to contact us today or email us at quotes @ zencartonline.com