What is a shopping cart?
Online shopping is the process consumers go through to purchase products or services over the Internet. An online shop, eshop, e-store, internet shop, webshop, webstore, online store, or virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or in a shopping mall.
The metaphor of an online catalog is also used, by analogy with mail order catalogs. All types of stores have retail web sites, including those that do and do not also have physical storefronts and paper catalogs. Online shopping is a type of electronic commerce used for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions.
What is the Zen Cart?
Zen Cart's default installation provides everything needed to maintain a shopping cart web site. Products, pricing, shipping, newsletters, sales etc. are managed by the store owner through the administration area. The shopping cart is set up to receive payments from major credit cards and several payment gateway services are also provided.
The following is a list of some of the key features of Zen Cart as stated on their website:
* multiple language support
* multiple customer modes
* unlimited category depth
* multiple sales and discounts
* multiple display modes
* XHTML 1.0 compliant template system
* extra pages
* multiple ad banner controller
* multiple shipping options
* multiple payment options
* newsletter manager
* discount coupons
* gift certificates
* featured products
* quantity discounts
* phpBB integration through external module
What is Web Hosting?
Web hosting is a folder on the internet that stores your website, files, databases, webmail, domain names, controls and configurations.
Designs Direct web hosting comes with a 99.9% uptime commitment, round-the-clock support. All Go Designs Direct data centers feature integrated monitoring and fire systems, cutting-edge security technology and 24/7 onsite security staff. You can be sure any Web site hosted by us is monitored 24-hours-a-day by experts.
What are Secure SSL Certificates
Secure Socket Layers technology is accessible via https over web browsers. It permits users to establish safe and secure remote access sessions from virtually any Internet connected browser.
256 Bit Encryption - Secure SSL Certificate (For Ecommerce on your website)
All of our Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates enable you to protect transactions and other activity on your Web site with as much as 256-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. Your visitors’ sensitive data is protected with the highest grade of protection through 256-bit encryption. Encryption strength is measured in key length — number of bits in the key. To decipher an SSL communication, one needs to generate the correct decoding key. Mathematically speaking, 2n possible values exist for an n-bit key. Thus, 40-bit encryption involves 240 possible values, 128-bit encryption 2128 combinations, and 256-bit keys involves a staggering 2256 possible combinations, rendering the encrypted data de facto impervious to intrusion. Even with a brute-force attack (the process of systematically trying all possible combinations until the right one is found) cracking a 256-bit encryption is computationally unfeasible.
How do I receive payment through my shopping cart website?
There are multiple gateway options, if you use a merchant terminal at your shop we recommend offline transactions, after a purchase has been made via your secure website payment page, you will receive 2 parts of the customers payment info, which you key in manually into your merchant terminal, you can also set up live transactions through various companies, (e.g. Pay Pal).
Will my products show up in the search engines?
Yes they will, the Zen Cart offers superior search engine optimization for every product you implement into your shopping cart database, it utilizes automated meta tag descriptions for each product you include, while creating your product title, image, price and description. No other shopping systems comes close to offering this level of SEO. It is important to provide qualitative product titles and descriptions as this is what all major search engines look for.
