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They call me ... the Duke of Discounting!

Sales and Specials done improperly just erode your profitability. My discounting software helps you upsell, cross-sell and sell more products, increasing your profitability. Take a look:

• Quantity Discounts for Zen Cart - Buy in volume, save money.
• Better Together for Zen Cart - Buy two linked items, save money; buy one, get one free; buy one item, get a free gift.
• Combination Discounts for Zen Cart - Buy multiple linked items, get a discount on another product / receive another product free.
• Big Spender for Zen Cart - Spend over a certain dollar amount, get a discount on other products / receive other products free.
• Big Chooser - Conditional Discounts for Zen Cart - Buy multiple items, get a discount on other products or combinations of products, or receive other products or combinations of products free.

Need to know more about discounting? See the Zen Cart Matrix-o-discounts.

Want to know more about the difference between Big Chooser and Combination Discounts? Read the Big Chooser vs. Combination Discounts comparison.

Do you have a discounting plan you need implemented? Summon the Duke and I'll give you a quote.

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My Zen Cart™ 1.3 Contributions

My Zen Cart™ contributions are free software. The contributions listed here are original works.

Download	Link to Support Thread	Relevant Zen Cart Version	Help
Blog Integration	support thread	1.3.0 and up	help page
Newsletter Discount	support thread	1.3.5 and up	help page
Dymo Ship To Label Printing	support thread	1.3.8 and up	help page
External Polling	support thread	1.3.0.0 and up	help page
Search Helper	support thread	1.3.0.0 and up	help page
Welcome Google Searcher	support thread	1.3.0.0 and up	help page
Giftwrap At Checkout	support thread	1.3.7 and up	help page
MailChimp Newsletter Sidebox	support thread	1.3.0 and up	help page
Local Message	support thread	1.3.0 and up	help page
Military Discount	support thread	1.3.0 and up	help page
Installment Plan	support thread	1.3.0 and up	help page
SMS On Sale	support thread	1.3.6 and up	help page
Social Bookmarking/Social Shopping	support thread	1.3.0.0 and up	help page
Better Together	support thread	1.3.5 and up	help page
Quantity Discounts	support thread	1.3.5 and up	help page

Other Zen Cart Contributions I Support

These are contributions written by other people that I am now supporting.

Download	Link to Support Thread	Relevant Zen Cart Version	Contrib Version	Help
Ask A Question	support thread	1.3.0.0 and up	1.8	See Readme file in contribution
Invoice	support thread	1.3.0.0 and up	2.0	See Readme file in contribution
Email Archive Manager	support thread	1.3.0.0 and up	1.4	See Readme file in contribution

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Zen Cart Forum Postings

I post on the support forum under the userid "swguy."

Here are my Zen Cart Support Forum posts.

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My Zen Cart Extensions

My Zen Cart extensions are shrink-wrapped software, generally priced in the $30-$60 range.

Extension Name	More Details
Better Together Admin Panel	Tired of having to edit the setup() function to add Better Together discounts? The Better Together Admin Panel gives you a user interface to add every type of linkage that Better Together supports.
Big Upsell	Big Upsell displays your Big Chooser and Big Spender discounts on the shopping cart page and the first page of checkout. It's the "Checkout Candy" for Big Chooser and Big Spender. See Big Upsell for more details.
Big Chooser - Conditional Discounts	Big Chooser uses the specification language of Big Spender to create product based (rather than dollars spent based) discounts. See Big Chooser - Conditional Discounts for more details.
Promotional Pages	The promotional pages (for Quantity Discounts, Better Together, Combination Discounts and Big Spender) show off your discounting policies on a single page. A link is provided in the Categories sidebox (under Specials). See Promotional Pages for Discounts for more details. The individual Promotional Pages are free software (but a donation is appreciated). The Integrated Promotional Page (showing all discounts on one page) is $30.
Buy The Set	Buy The Set enhances Combination Discounts by providing you with a single button that will add all the discounted products in a linkage to the cart. See Buy The Set for more details.
Big Spender	Big Spender allows you to offer product or category discounts (or free gifts) based on the numbber of dollars spent. Categories and products can be included or excluded, choices of products or categories may be specified, discounts can be run one or many times, and many features for promoting the discounts are included. See Big Spender for more details.
Buy Both Now	Buy Both Now enhances Better Together by providing you with a single button that will add both linked products to the cart. See Buy Both Now for more details.
Combination Discounts	Combination Discounts extends Better Together, allowing you to create linkages between 3, 4 or more categories or items for the purpose of discounting. See Combination Discounts for more details.
Article Manager	Article Manager automatically creates an "Articles" page for you from the contents of an "articles" directory on your site. See Article Manager for more details.
Customer Password Edit	Customers missing or not receiving their password reset emails? This extension allows you to reset their password to a value of their choice. See Customer Password Edit for more details.
SMS on Message	Like SMS On Sale? You can also get a text message notification when someone sends you an email through your Zen Cart "Contact Us" page. The message includes their name, home country and telephone number. Useful for shop owners who are away from their computers for extended periods of time! See SMS On Sale Extensions for more details.
Checkout Candy	Checkout Candy allows a shopowner to add a last minute call to action on the shopping cart page and the first checkout page. Although any desired message may be added, this module is ideally suited to interoperate with Better Together; it will display any outstanding Better Together offers based on the content of the cart. For more details, see the Checkout Candy page, or for Combination Discounts users, the Checkout Candy for Combination Discounts page.
Valid Cart	Valid Cart allows a shopowner to place preconditions on checkout. Unless these conditions are met, Checkout is not permitted. Messages are displayed on the shopping cart and checkout pages, and the buttons required for a checkout are not displayed. For more details, see the Valid Cart page.
Discount Preview	Discount Preview allows your customers to see the discounts they will receive on the second checkout page. It is designed to work in conjunction with Zen Cart's Group Pricing Discount feature, as well as with my Better Together and Quantity Discounts Contributions, and my Big Chooser, Big Spender and Combination Discounts extensions. For more details, see the Discount Preview page.
Quantity Discounts Extensions	A variety of extensions to the Quantity Discounts Contribution are available; please see Quantity Discounts Help for details.
Better Together Extensions	A variety of extensions to the Better Together Contribution are available; please see Better Together Help for details.

Custom Solutions for Your Business Needs

Some of the projects I work on are completely custom and can't be priced in advance without a deeper understanding of the specific needs of your business.

Business Need	More Details
Dynamic Pricing	Zen Cart attributes permit you to raise or lower product prices based on a single attribute - but what if there are inter-attribute dependencies, or if pricing needs to be based on a combination of attributes? Take a look at my Dynamic Pricing solutions.
Product Validation	Zen Cart has no ability to do inter-attribute validation, and it also lacks the ability to validate text attributes. Need this capability? Take a look at my Product Validation solutions.
Price Estimation	Got a product with lots of priced attributes? Customers complaining that they must "Add to Cart" to see the price of a particular configuration? My Price Estimation solution provides a client side price estimation feature that allows different prices to be displayed without a page refresh or needing to go back to the cart.
Search Customization	Search not working the way you want it to? I can make it work exactly the way you want. Take a look at some past search customizations I've done.
Other Customizations	Need customization to discounting behavior? To a Shipping module? I can make it work exactly the way you want. Email me your specifics and I'll give you a quote.

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Newsletter

I publish a newsletter on Zen Cart every month or two.
Here's the most recent issue:


I invite you to view more back issues or sign up for future issues.

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My Zen Cart Tips and Tricks

This section is a set of tutorials which are intended to illustrate various aspects of Zen Cart and show how simple changes can be made.

To prevent your mods from being overwritten, you must follow the follow the create your custom template guidelines. Please read these before proceeding if you are not familiar with this topic. In the examples below, we will name our template "custom."

Link to Tip	Relevant Zen Cart Version
Installing My Mods (Beginner's Guide)	All versions
Timing Discounts with Better Together and Friends	1.3.5 and up
Category Issues with Discounting Modules	1.3.5 and up
Promotional Pages for Discounts	1.3.0.0 and up
Highlighting your discounts	Any version
Making your Shipping Policy more visible	Any version
Installing phpTrafficA in Zen Cart	Any version
Upgrading and Maintaining Your Zen Cart	Any version
Easy Giftwrapping	1.3.0.0 and up
Adding Conditional Messages to the Product Info Page	1.3.0.0 and up
Probing the Cart in the Product Info Page	1.3.0.0 and up
Adding Boilerplate Text to your Product Description	1.3.0.0 and up
Changing the Title of the Admin Page	1.2.7d and up
Checking to Ensure Javascript is enabled	1.3.0.0 and up
Adding Keywords to your <h1> tags on the Product Info Page	1.3.0.0 and up

The entire contents of this site, including but not limited to algorithms, code fragments and advice, are provided on an as-is basis, with no warranty stated or implied.

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Key Zen Cart Resources

• Zen Cart Home Page
• Zen Cart Support Forum
• Zen Cart Tutorials
• Creating a custom template
• Debugging a blank page error
• Zen Cart Manual (e-Start your Web Store with Zen Cart)
• Zen Cart Wiki
• Zen Cart Templates Demo
• Zen Cart Button Generator

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Zen Cart Services

• Zen Cart Certified Hosts
• Zen Cart Support Commercial Help Wanted

When you host on Certified Hosts or buy support from the Commercial Help Wanted forum, you're helping to support Zen Cart™.

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My Blog

My blog touches on Zen Cart, but is really more about shopping carts and e-commerce in general.

It's called thecartblog.com.

You can read it as a web page, or subscribe via RSS. I use Google Reader as my RSS reader, but use whatever works best for you.

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Software Updates

A variety of mechanisms are available for you to follow my work and get notified when I update something.