8 Admirable Zen Cart Sites
Zen Cart (or zen-cart) is a popular open-software shopping cart that is used to sell products online. The basic Zen Cart set up is rather dull; I wanted some examples of well-designed sites that use Zen Cart. Here are the ones I found (click on the graphic to visit the shopping cart site; under the graphic is a link to the designer’s site):
Peek A Tees
Site by CuriousLight
Dear Johnnies
Site by CuriousLight
Pomona Fruits
Site by JSWeb
Hobby Hill Farm
Site by 2 Dogs Design
Xtreme Beauty
Site by @janidhaval
Chan Luu
Clark and Mayfield
Site by Winnie Lim
You can see live shops on the Zen Cart site itself, and I admired this one:
eFabrics
Thank you to @curiouslt, @coolphotoideas, @janidhaval and @jsweb_zencart for your help with this post.
Note: I cannot attest to the customer service, security nor product reliability of any of these sites. All I can say was there was something about each one that I admired.
Update: Since it turns out that Clark and Mayfield no longer uses Zen Cart but it is a beautifully-designed e-commerce site, I decided to leave it on this post and add one more intriguing Zen Cart design as well:
Isabel Harris
I love how this site uses a subtle, neutral palette of tans and browns, even for the links. It doesn’t shy away from the boxiness of the Web but celebrates it with a grid of inviting products and text.
Popularity: 100% [?]
Themocracy
Thank you so much for including my design! After looking at other good ones, I doubt if I was even close to any of these! Some great new sites here that I am seeing for first time!
Thanks for your help with the post. We can always learn more by looking at other sites; so many ideas out there!
Leora, thanks so much for including my Hobby Hill site! I am thrilled to be included – there are some really great sites here, goes to show how awesome Zen Cart is when in the right hands!!!!
Jill, my pleasure!
Wow I like these sites. Great to see what can be done with Zencart.
I am trying to get to these standards so it’s nice to see.
Thanks.
Glad you liked these.
Nice collection. I really like the “Clark and Mayfield” Shop. Very elegant design. And the product pictures and Zoom are excellent. Well Done!
Someone pointed out that Clark and Mayfield is no longer using Zen Cart. But, yes, it is a great design. Looks like the design could be on Zen Cart, judging by the others.
Very lovely examples of excellent design jobs. Thanks to one of the great Open Source E-Commerce package. But I like my Zencart Website as well
Maybe I am a bit biased 
Have a look at tell me -> http://www.qacaq.com
Thanks for sharing your Zen Cart site.
Thanks for the great list. I think that the Peek-A-Tee site is a great idea – and a good store design too.
I’ve also started collecting Zen Cart Store designs – http://www.kerrinhardy.com/zen-cart/zen-cart-gallery/. Like you said, the default design is not exactly awe-inspiring and it’s good to be able to see what a great design can do for a great shopping cart!
Thanks to the link to your gallery. I may revisit this subject in several months – it’s good to look at others for inspiration.
Hi guys im interested what you think about those ones, all build in zencart:
http://daysale.co.nz/
http://tgaint.co.nz/
Thanks for sharing. I took a look at both – amazing what one can do to build a store front these days.
Very nice sites! I always love to see fellow Zenners and how creative they are with their sites.
I’ve been looking for some great designs for a ecommerce site and I really like the Hobby Hill site you show.
I also found some great looking sites from a company in Australia. A few of these are really beautiful
http://webcare.com.au/category-3.html
Hal´s last blog ..Is eBay Feeling the Heat?
Hobby Hill was designed by a Zen Cart specialist here in New Jersey. I haven’t met Jill Caren in person, but her designs and my pleasant interactions with her online suggest she will do an excellent job on a Zen Cart design.
Thanks Hal and Leora for the kind words about Hobby Hill! We love pushing the boundaries of Zen-Cart and are always taking on new challenges! We will also soon be offering a more affordable line of pre-made designs for those that are looking for a custom look at a discounted rate!
I really like the layout for Isabel Harris website. We are working on the design of our new site as we speak.
Nice list of sites. We have found that well designed shopping carts are hard to find. They either look pretty but are terrible for SEO or are just plain boring. We ended up settling on a paid solution that has nice templates out the gate and a very robust SEO platform.
Some great looking e-commerce sites there. I haven’t used Zen Cart for my e-commerce sites yet, only used VirtueMart. Have you used both? I was just wondering what you thought about both carts? VM is good but it hasn’t been updated for some time (although that may change soonish).
Cheers,
Bob.
I was considering using Zen Cart for a client when I wrote this post, but in the end, he would probably be fine with some PayPal buttons on his WordPress site. I’ve had Drupal enthusiasts recommend UberCart. I’m hoping the plugins for WordPress get better – the one I tried failed when I tried to edit the shipping features. But this was last fall.
Haven’t even heard of UberCart. Oh dear.. more research needed!
I guess I should get into Megento (supposed to be a top end cart) but it’s a massive learning curve and needs a ton of power to run sites (so I’ve read anyway).
Cheers, Bob.
There’s one I started researching called osCMAX. That one sounded good, and since it’s newer, you can ask a lot of questions via their forum – they seem to want feedback.
Magento has been highly recommended as well, true. You have to find one that has features you need plus some support – will you get answers on the forum, for example? Are there hidden costs anywhere?
I’ll should come back again when my class load lets up – nonetheless I’m taking your RSS feed so I can understand your web site offline. Numerous.