{"id":418,"date":"2011-02-05T11:21:46","date_gmt":"2011-02-05T16:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deliawilsondesign.com\/blog\/?p=418"},"modified":"2012-09-30T07:42:33","modified_gmt":"2012-09-30T12:42:33","slug":"10-questions-to-ask-your-potential-zen-cart-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/10-questions-to-ask-your-potential-zen-cart-help\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Questions to Ask Your Potential Zen Cart Help"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Just because someone says he \/ she knows <a href=\"http:\/\/zen-cart.com\" target=\"_blank\">Zen Cart<\/a> does not mean they are  an expert! I&#8217;m a <a href=\"http:\/\/zencartdelia.com\" target=\"_blank\">Zen Cart Expert<\/a> and I get to clean up the messes made  by those who say they can work on Zen Cart.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>But first, what is Zen Cart? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is an open-source (free) shopping cart  for your website. It&#8217;s one of the ones you will find in your hosting  control panel for an easy install.<\/p>\n<p><strong>And there lies the problem.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One click &#8211; yippee! I have a shopping cart. Uh, oops, that&#8217;s ugly. So you start trying to change the look of it. Uh, duh, how?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Well, changing the look of the default Zen Cart cart<\/strong> requires knowledge  of CSS (changing colors &amp; layout), ftp ( for uploading new images),  admin configuration settings&#8230;. Oops, no? Okay, so now the free  shopping cart is not quite as valuable as it was before you installed  it.<\/p>\n<p>But this guy says he&#8217;ll make the changes for just a couple of bucks or  look, I found a free template! That&#8217;s better. But wait, I want this  change here and he says he can&#8217;t or he does it wrong. That free template  has a couple of small things I want changed. The cost rises.<\/p>\n<p>When you finally get around the point of spending the dollars to get  your changes made or a mod installed, then is when the quest really  begins.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why getting the right <a href=\"http:\/\/zencartdelia.com\" target=\"_blank\">Zen Cart expert<\/a> is so important?<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your cart must remain as easily upgradeable as possible. The wrong changes will drive up the cost of your next upgrade. This is of major concern.\u00a0 Any open source script needs to be kept current to keep it secure.<\/li>\n<li>Straightening out the quickie fixes can cost you big bucks later.\u00a0 Just because it seems to work doesn&#8217;t mean there aren&#8217;t problems.<\/li>\n<li>Continued support is necessary since you will always need more changes, upgrades and answers after the job<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>So here are 10 questions to ask your potential Zen Cart go-to person:<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li> How many Zen Cart sites have you worked on?<br \/>\n(1-10, forget it;10-20, still not so much; how about 50+? Now there&#8217;s an expert )<\/li>\n<li> Can you get Zen Cart to match an existing site?<br \/>\n(No? go on to the next person if design is your chief concern. Even if it&#8217;s not, this can be a key to how adept this person is.)<\/li>\n<li> Name me 5 admin configuration settings that can change the look of my  site. (There are many settings and these are extremely important. Being able to rattle off 5 off the top of one&#8217;s head is a good start.)<\/li>\n<li> What is the latest version? When did it come out and how many versions did it take to get it right?<br \/>\n(Hopefully, this will get a laugh and a quick explanation of the trials and tribulations of the present version.)<\/li>\n<li> Have you written any Zen Cart modules that are uploaded to the Zen  Cart and can you send me to some forum posts you&#8217;ve made?<br \/>\n(No posts  means you might should avoid this person because he \/she is not very involved the <a href=\"http:\/\/zen-cart.com\" target=\"_blank\">Zen Cart<\/a> community where support is so valuable &#8211; even to the experts.)<\/li>\n<li> What is the first skill in your tool chest? (best answer is zen cart  knowledge; css and php are the other 2 most important ones)<\/li>\n<li>Can you provide training? Do you have any tutorials or written materials? Can we do an online training session?<\/li>\n<li> After this project is over, can I get continued support from you? How would you provide it?<\/li>\n<li> Who would you recommend for web host and why?<br \/>\n(If the only  recommendation is his own hosting, run&#8230;&#8230; If not, do you get money  from your recommendation?)<\/li>\n<li> Do you have customers who can provide a referral? (No? Well shoot, why are you still talking to this person?)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Now, I must tell you that once you&#8217;ve gotten the best answers to these  questions, in general, this will weed out\u00a0 the large firms who work  on many different types of sites who sit very high in the search engine  results. Also, dropping out will be many non-English speaking coders who  charge very small prices as well as talented PHP coders who think they  can work on anything PHP without any Zen Cart knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, the field will be narrowed considerably. Take the right care in hiring your <a href=\"http:\/\/zencartdelia.com\" target=\"_blank\">Zen Cart expert<\/a> and your cart will be a source of satisfaction, not frustration, and maybe even a money-maker!<\/p>\n<div class=\\\"clearBoth><em> Author: Delia Wilson Lunsford, Founder &#038; CEO, WizTech, Inc. <\/em><\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just because someone says he \/ she knows Zen Cart does not mean they are an expert! I&#8217;m a Zen Cart Expert and I get to clean up the messes made by those who say they can work on Zen Cart. But first, what is Zen Cart? It is an open-source (free) shopping cart for [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zen-cart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450,"href":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiztech4zc.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}