Item: Miva
Rating: 10
Author: Susan Petracco

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Many of our customers use Miva Merchant. We develop software that integrates with the shopping cart, and we also implement websites who use Miva, either for the entire site or in conjunction with other packages. Miva provides a great balance between ease of use and ability to customize.

Pros and Cons

Ability to design the entire page from opening to close. We can implement any desired design into the package.
A robust API that allows us to program additional features to work with the shopping cart.
Excellent hosting capabilities, but without a requirement that users MUST host with them.
A strong community of users who offer support and advice, as well as active participation in the forums by Miva's own employees.

Currently there is no coupon capability out of the box. I'm excited to see this new feature that's expected to be in the upcoming release.

Return on Investment

The open community has helped our sales because we quickly became known as an expert in the area, and customers came to us instead of us having to cold call them.
The ability to extend the platform with third-party modules, or even to write custom modules specifically for a particular client, made Miva a perfect choice for almost every site.

Alternatives Considered

Because I have worked with Miva Merchant longer than any other shopping cart package, I'm comfortable doing anything that needs to be done within the package. I find it easier to develop modules for Miva than to do plug-ins or extensions for other carts, primarily based on my own level of knowledge of the different packages. Some of the competition software provides the same level of customization, but certain not all of them do.

Likelihood to Renew

The bottom line is that our involvement with Miva Merchant makes us more profitable.

Likelihood to Recommend

I think Miva is a perfect solution for many businesses. I would hesitate to recommend it to a small business who wants to maintain it themselves without the assistance of either an internal or third-party web developer. For example, some one-person businesses need a very turnkey solution and are willing to sacrifice certain features in favor of a more plug-and-play shopping cart. Miva does have a bit of a learning curve, and some technical expertise is useful. Aside from that, I think it works for most businesses. It is PCI/PA-DSS compliant. Once you've learned SMT and/or MivaScript, it's easy to customize either the look and feel, or the functionality. And it's robust enough for enterprise applications.

Support Rating

An overwhelming majority of the support technicians are top-notch. One or two key exceptions stand out, but even those are typically fine - just occasionally wrong or unhelpful. Overall I seem to get quick and useful support, whether it's for the software or a web hosting-based need.

Miva Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

Bug Resolution

Yes - Yes, the support and/or development teams fixed the bugs that I found or provided workarounds as needed.

Miva Merchant makes sense for our business

Software Version

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Miva Merchant