Miva Merchant Shopping Cart Review

Miva Merchant was founded in 1996, and according to its Website, Miva Merchant has deployed over 200,000 online storefronts. The Miva Merchant Platform consists of software, services, and a partner network assembled for the purpose of helping to create and enhance online businesses.

Miva Merchant partners are used to service enterprises using the Internet to expand their market reach. Partners need to integrate the Miva Merchant platform of applications and APIs with their existing services to deliver complete online business solutions.

Functionality and Features

Immediately from examining the MIva Merchant Website, you see that the Miva solution consists of “joining the Miva Merchant community.” The community is represented by:

1. the software you purchase from Miva,

2. the design services you purchase from Miva,

3. the customer service suite you purchase from Miva, and

4. the partner-hosting services you can make arrangements for

The experience is not going to be turnkey, but instead will require your company to manage a large number of relationships while at the same time paying a considerable sum of money for the several modules that it will probably take to accomplish your objectives. The reviewer did not see a demo module; solution complexity does not appear to be amenable to demonstration.

General Observations

The following positive features seem to be implemented in a standard configuration:

• Phone customer service support is available

• Product pricing by customer type is included

Depending on the mix of modules you purchase or how you tailor your installation with professional service attention, a large number of other positive features can be added. Undoubtedly premier Miva partners have developed some solutions that will satisfy large- enterprise demands.

Core Functionality

The functionality you arrive at has to be negotiated among your relationships in the “Miva Merchant community.” Thus no “base Miva” or standard set of Miva implementations exist; it’s a mixture of custom modules and custom code.

Limitations

Specifically, the following attributes compose a sample of the limitations noted: • Setup is highly technical.

• Software updates require the merchant to download and install.

• Load balancing is not available as the software sits on a single server.

• Search engine friendly catalog is an add-on module (no autofeed)

• No direct checkout

• The ability to create shipping labels is not available within the MIVA Merchant application.

• MIVA Merchant does not offer XML Tools for integration capability.

• QuickBooks integration requires an add-on module.

• Reliability varies according to the need for MIVA Merchant to be hosted by a third party.

With suitable partnering and professional service input, most of the above limitations can be mitigated.

Support and Documentation

Miva Merchant has a well-developed customer service approach that—for a $129 fixed fee, plus $19.95 per month—appears to offer 7 a.m.-to-7 p.m. (Pacific) email ticket-resolution support, and telephone resolution support.

A wide assortment of documentation has been produced and everything I could see on the Website is free, either as a PDF file or as html on your browser. Hard to comment on document quality overall … some obvious formatting issues. Overall, however, documentation appears to be conscientious and caring.

Conclusion

From this reviewer’s chair, Miva Merchant looks intimidatingly complex, requiring many more players than I would like to see if my objective is to keep it simple and turnkey. If I’m surrounded by code-head types and I have a big budget with lots of time, then fine, Miva may be the way to go.

Rating 2.5 stars (out of 5)

As an alternative, a scalable, easy-to-install, top-ranked e-commerce solution is Premium Web Cart, which is full-featured and user-friendly. It is also constructed on the latest Web technologies and comes to you in an affordable suite of options… all with the primary objective to help you grow your business.

Best Wishes,