Zen Cart is an open source online store management system. It is PHP-based, using a MySQL database and HTML components. Support is provided for several languages and currencies, and is free available under the GNU General Public License.

Zen Cart branched from osCommerce as a separate project. Beyond some aesthetic changes, the major differences between the two systems come from Zen Cart’s architectural changes(e.g. a template system) and additional included features in the core. Among the modules already included are a Gift Certificate/Voucher module which allows to create, send and manage the digital coupons. A module to sell downloads(pdf or other media files) is included as well.

• Simple systems allow the offline administration of products and categories. The shop is then generated as HTML files and graphics that can be uploaded to a web-space. These systems do not use an online database.
• A high-end solution can be bought or rented as a standalone program or as an addition to an enterprise resource program. It is usually installed on the company’s own web server and may integrate into the existing supply chain so that ordering, payment, delivery, accounting and warehousing can be automated to a large extent.Other solutions allow the user to register and create an online shop on a portal that hosts multiple shops at the same time.
• Open source shopping cart packages include advanced platforms such as Interchange, and off the shelf solutions as Satchmo, osCommerce, Magento, Zen Cart and VirtueMart.
• Commercial systems can also be tailored to ones needs so that the shop does not have to be created from scratch. By using a framework already existing, software modules for different functionalities required by a web shop can be adapted and combined.