It would be easier to modify ZenCart in terms of design than OsCommerce. As for features - I would say these 2 solutions are equal taking into consideration all third-party modules and contributions their community do.
already try both, always fail on layout modification. so, between this two, i choose oscommerce, with point 6 ( on scale 1 - 10 )
I guess you could say Zencart is a sort of 'branch' from osCommerce...They basically just took the code in a different direction. Zencart is much more advanced, and is tableless, which is the newer way [and IMHO the better way] to code. Tables really should not be used anymore for layout and design. The community is tremendously helpful, there are an abundance of mods for extra functionality. A lot of mods for osCommerce are rewritten to work with Zencart, so you don't really have to worry about that. I have been using Zencart for 4 years now and absolutely love it.
for the life of me i can't find any contribution for oscommerce that allows uploading of multiple product images for each product....but here is zencart site that does it perfectly: http://bjohnsonjewelry.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_11&products_id=25 so even if oscommerce has more modules, it's about which one has the more "useful" and "practical" modules. if someone knows how to do that with osc, let me know. thanks. also what was the consensus about which one has more choices on payment modules and shipping modules? can someone tell me how to implement international shipping rates into the cart? thanks again.
I don't about osCommerce but by default Zencart has a built in automatic multiple images handler. You just have to name images correctly. For example... Lets say I have a product image I named redShirt redShirt.jpg redShirt_Med.jpg redShirt_Lrg.jpg That gives you your default image, default Medium size images, and default Large image for this product. For additional images you name it like: redShirt_01.jpg redShirt_01_Med.jpg redShirt_01_Lrg.jpg And they will automatically show. For international shipping rates with Zencart all you need to do is set up th USPS and UPS modules that come default with Zencart. They pull the rates directly from USPS or UPS.
Moving away from ZenCart. Magento??? Been with Zen C for 18 months and am now keen to move on to better platform. I think the ZenIDs that are added to the URLs are damaging my SEO. Also I added an SEO URL module and don't think the results were good. It is very difficult to add good landing pages as far as i can see. Within the product pages, and category pages the general layout is poor. I think it could look much better. The ck out process is very long as well. The menu structure could be much better, and general usability i found lacking. I am thinking of changing to Magento, it looks very slick and professional. My concerns are: Apparently it is v server hungry and runs slow?? (i have about 3000 URLs and 10,000 monthly uniques) There is a 12,000$ yearly price tag for a enterprise version.... Would you EVER need that? The transfer from Zen to Magento may be a total nightmare?? There are a number of eCommerce companies local to me sell v good platforms and one of them may be a better option. (faster, more suport, although $$$) Would love to hear form anyone out there with thoughts on this. Cheers.
The zenid has nothing to do with SEO and the searh engines don't even see it! It is strictly to store sessions and only appears the very first time you enter the site.. As I said though search engines do not see it. At all. Please learn ZenCart before you give up on it or say it is horrible There is a bit of a learning curve, but there are mods for almost anything you want to change, such as page layouts, navigation, one page checkout etc.. No matter the shopping cart you would never want to leave the basic template layout. There are MANY sites out there with nice layouts, just take a look around. You can peek at mine if you would like... eclecticaclothing . com
Good luck with that. Zen Cart is so flexible that you can do whatever layout you want, you just have to know the code. Better how? What other uses a menu should have than send you to a page/link? Not any more. I agree 100% with khopek in all what she said.
khopek, Nice site! I am brand new to zen cart and wanting to be able to use it before I say anything bad about it! I have paid for templates in the past, now I wanted to see what something FREE looked like. Did you do this site completely free or did you pay for any mods or templates? Where would I find the most information about customizing zen cart?
Most of the free templates for zc are found here: zencarttemplates.info zen-cart.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=14 Search Google, there are some good sites and blogs about it; but the best place is ZC's forums.
If you are looking for an easy to use plug and play solution I would recommend the Retailer eCommerce Shopping Cart. Click my signature link to check it out.
I have been using Oscommerence for more than 6 years, and there is basically no update. It is stable, but new releases are taking forever to come out.