Hey guys, Just trying to get my ducks in a row for an ecommerce website. I'm setting up a zencart-based website and am rounding the final lap on completion. I couldn't find an all inclusive post on this. I want to be able to recieve payments via paypal and credit cards.

What I think you need (basics):
payment gateway
merchant account (plan to use paypal which apparently has both gateway and merchant account capabilities)
SSL certificate

My question is, what all is needed to complete a fully working zen cart website (i.e.: services that I need to purchase, how to setup shipping rates, or anything else similarly tedious)

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Member Avatar for LastMitch

Hey guys, Just trying to get my ducks in a row for an ecommerce website. I'm setting up a zencart-based website and am rounding the final lap on completion. I couldn't find an all inclusive post on this. I want to be able to recieve payments via paypal and credit cards.

@PsychicTide

Are you familiar with any programming?

It's not hard to set-up an e-comm website. It's like learning a CMS.

Indeed, very familiar. I'm a computer science major not far from graduation and have been a freelance web dev for about 7 years. I just want to make sure I have everything in order as I'm not 100% certain of the parts of an active e-commerce website (I just took care of logic/algos, in the past someone else took care of the services which needed to be purchased to complete everything else).

Anything for the framework has great doumentation, but the services/frameworks I'm assuming I need are as follows (very basic):
SSL
Custom Code / Framework (Zen Cart)
Merchant Account + Payment Gateway (PayPal + PayPal Express checkout)

Member Avatar for LastMitch

@PsychicTide

SSL

That is from your host server.

Custom Code / Framework (Zen Cart)

Since you are developer, then it wouldn't be any issue at all creating & writing the code.

There is a default template you can used.

Merchant Account + Payment Gateway (PayPal + PayPal Express checkout)

You need to know how to implement that. That is separate from the website.

why dont you go for opencart that is very easy in use and fast you can also make multistore easily on them...

Alright, I've setup my website using a paypal sandbox account (testing purposes), guess all that needs to be done is purchase the SSL and set it up (I hope). thanks for the help guys.

Member Avatar for LastMitch

Alright, I've setup my website using a paypal sandbox account (testing purposes), guess all that needs to be done is purchase the SSL and set it up (I hope). thanks for the help guys.

@PsychicTide

You are close to be be done! Congrats. I thought you might take some time of doing this but you done it quick.

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