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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    San Diego
    Posts
    2

    What is wrong with Miva Merchant?

    I am am e-commerce consultant and I have worked with most of the major shopping carts (CRE Loaded, X-Cart, osCommerce, Miva Merchant, ...) and it always interests me to see that when reading the "which shopping cart should I choose" type threads, no one really mentiones Miva Merchant.

    Do people not know about Miva Merchant?
    Do they not like it because it is not open source?
    Do they not like it because they think it is not free (It is with hosting)

    What is wrong with Miva Merchant?


    The only reason I ask this, is because, like I said, I have experience with most of the major shopping carts, and I keep coming back to Miva. It is one of the easiest shopping carts to customize and it is very flexiable. The only real downside to is compared to some of the other shopping carts is that there is no real "templating" system which allows complete theme changes easily.

    I would think more people talk about it or ask about it, but it rarely get brought up as a really good shopping cart. Any suggestions?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Middle England
    Posts
    918
    I think that it's because Miva hasn't had such a high profile as it did all those years ago. Miva was actually the first shopping cart system I ever used on a site, it was dead easy to use as a store owner and worked flawlessly. Pluging/modules were easy to add (just upload and go) from what I remember. However as time went by and the site in question needed more flexibility Miva no longer suited so I moved away from it.

    I can think of a few reasons why it doesn't have such a high profile...

    1. The current popular way to go with shopping carts is PHP/mysql - Miva script just hasn't got the mass appeal of PHP, and possibly not the same flexibility.

    2. Miva carts are not easy to customise. Ok so you can add headers/footers and insert "on page" html but that's not enough nowadays. Developers like to have 100% control over layout and content presentation.

    3. Miva still uses "outdated" deprecated html tags in it's core output (even in the latest version 5!), and to edit these you need to dig into system scripts which is quite frankly not worth the effort. Additionally I've never seen a Miva store with a Doctype!

    4. You need a Miva enabled hosting account to run it. I assume web hosts still have to pay a large annual licence fee to run Miva? When you consider that Linux servers and software has a relatively low cost of ownership and the demand for Miva itr's a major investment.

    5. I know some hosts give Miva away with a hosting account, but for $995 a basic licence is prohibitively expensive even, compared to leading systems like Jshop, Sunshop, Viart and Pinnaclecart which cost much less and offer much more. Also you have new entrants to the shopping cart arena like
    http://www.interspire.com/storesuite/ and Magento, both of which are offering "next generation" features.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    San Diego
    Posts
    2
    Hey Bluedreamer -

    You bring up some really good points. Thanks for your comments. I am doing some research for an article I am writing.

    From what you saying it seems like Miva's lack of mass appeal is because if its higher cost (more expensive hosting, additional modules) and also it lacking feature set. Other carts out there are cheaper to maintain and offer the same if not more functionality.

    Does anyone else have a view of miva? I really appreciate the feedback.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Your Screen
    Posts
    3,999
    Configuring a server to run Miva is a real headache. Maybe it's easy for those who do it all the time (they also charge a very pretty penny), but for those who only do it very rarely, it's a PITA.

    As a host, support on a Miva box is a big old guess... if something stops working, is it Miva's fault? Or the OS's fault? Or cPanel's fault? You never really knew 'til you rolled up your sleeves and dug into it (and held your breath, because if it was a Miva problem, how would you know, because you had no idea how Miva REALLY worked??)

    Miva was just a headache, start to finish. Add to that the carbon copy look of the carts (*YAWN*) and limited flexibility -- it's just not worth the expense nor the hassle.

    I know this isn't very scientific, I'm sorry... my Miva days were not happy ones, that's really what I remember the most distinctly...

    Bailey
    Let's Connect on Twitter! @thatsmsgeek2u || Fighting mediocrity one thread at a time.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Posts
    73
    I didn't use Miva, but as I noticed most of big hosting providers offer Miva as an option. I don't understand why they offer Mica if it's expensive and not flexible...

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by bluedreamer View Post
    Additionally I've never seen a Miva store with a Doctype!
    We've done a number of Miva Merchant sites with a doctype using Miva Merchant 4, and are working on one with Miva Merchant 5 now. I can't seem to post URLs even without BBCode until I have 5 posts - but some site names are WonderBrains, MyPaperShop, LockPickShop, and SmallToys.

    It definitely takes some extra work, and in Miva 4, extra modules, but it's quite doable.

    Susan

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