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Miva is a versatile eCommerce engine that caters to both B2B operations and businesses of all sizes. Users appreciate the platform's high …
Overview
What is Miva?
Miva Merchant is a point-and-click, online store development and management system that allows merchants to build their online store through a web browser, and lets developers provide aftermarket enhancements for the online store.
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- Order processing (6)7.777%
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What is Miva?
Miva Merchant is a point-and-click, online store development and management system that allows merchants to build their online store through a web browser, and lets developers provide aftermarket enhancements for the online store.
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.miva.com/miva-ecommerce…
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Alternatives Pricing
What is Shopify?
Shopify is a commerce platform designed for both online stores and retail locations. Shopify offers a professional online storefront, a payment solution to accept credit cards, and the Shopify POS application to power retail sales.
What is Wix?
Wix is a free, hosted website builder, designed to be user-friendly and customizable without requiring coding from the user. It is well-known for its eCommerce solution, which allows users to build an online store.
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- Competitors
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
- FAQs
What is Miva?
Miva is an ecommerce platform which provides businesses with a flexible website and fully-customizable catalog and checkout system with control over the look, content, and functionality of their online store.
Miva is invested in its core competency as an ecommerce platform provider, continuously developing solutions to modern merchants’ most pressing needs. The vendor states Miva excels at supporting businesses whose complex product catalogs or specialized industry requirements have proved too challenging for other ecommerce platforms to handle. With over two decades of experience serving businesses that sell everything from aftermarket parts and fresh-caught seafood to custom diamond rings and swimming pools, Miva invites sellers to bring them the problems other platforms can’t handle.
How Miva Supports a Ecommerce System:
- Interface provides web management for non-technical users
- Platform designed to enable B2B and DTC sales on a single website
- Extensive native functionality minimizes the need for third-party apps and plugins
- Unlimited product variations for high SKU count (from thousands to millions) catalogs and dependent SKUs
- Managed ERP integrations with Miva Connect
- Back-office integrations through Miva’s JSON API
- Built-in subscriptions and reordering for frictionless repeat purchasing
- Online sales quotes help sales teams automate their sales processes
- Custom product builders help customers bundle products into kits and custom orders
- Advanced shipping logic supports complex shipping and compliance requirements
- Smart pricing options for customer and rule-based pricing
Miva Features
Online Storefront Features
- Supported: Product catalog & listings
- Supported: Product management
- Supported: Bulk product upload
- Supported: Branding
- Supported: Search & filter
- Supported: Mobile storefront
- Supported: Product variations
- Supported: Website integration
- Supported: Visual customization
- Supported: CMS
- Supported: Customer service tools
Online Shopping Cart Features
- Supported: Abandoned cart recovery
- Supported: Tax calculator
- Supported: Shipping calculator
- Supported: Checkout user experience
Online Payment System Features
- Supported: PayPal integration
- Supported: Returns & refunds
- Supported: Single-click checkout
- Supported: eCommerce security
- Supported: B2B features
eCommerce Marketing Features
- Supported: Promotions & discounts
- Supported: Personalized recommendations
- Supported: SEO
- Supported: Product reviews
- Supported: Customer registration
eCommerce Business Management Features
- Supported: Multi-site management
- Supported: Order processing
- Supported: Inventory management
- Supported: Accounting
- Supported: Shipping
- Supported: Custom functionality
Additional Features
- Supported: Online Sales Quotes
Miva Video
Lotus Sculpture outgrew Yahoo Stores and moved to Miva to keep his business on track.
Miva Integrations
- Mailchimp
- Avalara
- QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise
- QuickBooks Desktop Premier
- QuickBooks Desktop Pro
- PowerReviews
- Authorize.net
- Visa Acceptance Solutions (CyberSource)
- ShipWorks
- PayPal Payments Pro
- Endicia
- ShipStation
- Affirm
- Chase Paymentech
- PayPal Express Checkout
- PayFlow
- UPS
- FedEx
- USPS
- Canada Post
- StoneEdge
- 4psite
- King Webmaster
- FirstData Global Gateway
- Intuit Merchant Services
- AccurateTax
- eBridge Connections
Miva Competitors
- Shopify
- Volusion
- WooCommerce
- BigCommerce
- Magento Commerce Cloud (formerly Magento)
Miva Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | No |
| Supported Countries | All |
| Supported Languages | English |
Miva Downloadables
- Marketview Liquor was struggling using a custom in house shopping cart that hindered their business. They chose Miva to unlock their online sales potential.
- Crown Automotive is a Business to Business specialist selling Jeep parts, they needed to expand online and only Miva could handle all of their unique requirements.
- Coolest Shoes in California ran into lots of problems with open source PrestaShop and switched to Miva to streamline their operational issues and keep them focused on their business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Miva Merchant is a point-and-click, online store development and management system that allows merchants to build their online store through a web browser, and lets developers provide aftermarket enhancements for the online store.
Reviewers rate Order processing highest, with a score of 7.7.
The most common users of Miva are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Miva Customer Size Distribution
| Consumers | 0% |
|---|---|
| Small Businesses (1-50 employees) | 90% |
| Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees) | 8% |
| Enterprises (more than 500 employees) | 2% |
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(29)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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- Pros
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- Recommendations
Miva is a versatile eCommerce engine that caters to both B2B operations and businesses of all sizes. Users appreciate the platform's high level of customization, allowing them to tailor the customer experience and backend connections to their specific needs. This flexibility extends to design and code adjustments, making it easy for users to optimize their sites for SEO and Google snippets. Miva prioritizes security by ensuring compliance with PCI/PDA-SS requirements, giving customers peace of mind when it comes to protecting their data. The platform also seamlessly integrates with popular third-party services like PayPal, Power Reviews, Shipworks, and Authorize.net.
Miva Merchant goes beyond being an online cart and offers a robust templating system and powerful customization capabilities using Miva Script. Customers find it to be a cost-effective choice for comprehensive e-commerce systems that provide all the necessary functionalities at an affordable price point. The platform has gained popularity among developers for its ongoing development, responsive support, and active community. One of its standout features is its user-friendliness, even for non-tech-savvy individuals, thanks to its intuitive interface and excellent customer service available 24/7. With Miva, users can create functional and user-friendly websites that remain under their control while striking a balance between ease of use and customization options.
The platform's configurability allows businesses to overcome security and SEO challenges effortlessly, while its ability to handle high traffic loads without issues ensures seamless operations even during peak periods. Miva serves as a reliable backend sales platform, providing modern front-end interfaces for retail and wholesale customers while offering integrations to automate various processes. Users value Miva's exceptional customer support, with knowledgeable staff delivering timely and insightful responses. Many online companies rely on Miva Merchant for merchandising and content management, particularly those offering a wide range of products.
However, some users have encountered challenges such as MAP pricing implementation, inventory management with POS systems, and integrating live data feeds. Despite these hurdles, Miva Merchant has been successfully utilized to create and launch ecommerce websites, providing wireframe design, strategy, implementation, and ongoing support. Users appreciate the platform's powerful and customizable nature when building online storefronts for clients. They have managed over 1000 products seamlessly through Miva Merchant, allowing customers to place orders, track shipments, and create accounts. The flexibility and customization options of Miva Merchant have received praise for facilitating unique online store designs and streamlined workflows. Its extensive community of developers enables the creation of custom templates, giving stores a unique look and feel. In addition to the built-in scripting language and modules, users have found that Miva Merchant offers further customization options to meet their specific needs.
The exceptional assistance provided by Miva's support staff, online documentation, and user community has been commended by users. This level of support is particularly valuable for users who may be new to the platform or facing technical challenges. Miva Merchant has proven to be a cost-effective and flexible choice for many businesses seeking an ecommerce solution.
However, it is worth noting that some users have experienced reliability issues with hosting, as well as a lack of critical management features and delayed updates when compared to other ecommerce platforms. As a result, some users have chosen to migrate from Miva Merchant to alternative platforms like Shopify and Big Commerce, citing cost and feature considerations as key factors in their decision.
Despite these challenges, Miva Merchant continues to come recommended by service providers due to its flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and feature set. The platform remains popular among developers and businesses alike for its ability to create and manage online catalogs and ecommerce projects effectively. With its customizable design options, secure infrastructure, powerful integrations, and ongoing development support, Miva proves to be a trusted solution for those seeking full-featured ecommerce systems.
Limitless Customization Options: Users appreciate the platform's limitless customization options, with several reviewers stating that they can fully customize their store design and functionality to accommodate any design elements. They find it convenient to use external API options via XML and JSON, which adds even more flexibility to their customization capabilities.
Easy to Learn and Use: Many users find the platform easy to learn and program, specifically mentioning PHP, JQuery, and other programming languages. Some reviewers have praised its user-friendly interface and intuitive features, making it effortless for them to navigate and utilize the platform effectively.
Solid Architecture and Reliable Performance: The solid architecture of the platform is highly appreciated by users who find it reliable. Several users have mentioned that they trust the platform's performance as the company invests in its future development, ensuring a stable and dependable experience for their businesses.
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User-Friendly Admin Area: Some users have found the Miva admin area to be not very user-friendly and outdated in terms of its user interface UI. They have expressed frustration with navigating and using the admin area, which can make managing their online store more challenging.
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Limited Theme Engine: Several users have mentioned that the current Miva Merchant lacks a clean and standards-compliant theme engine like WordPress, making it less desirable compared to other options. This limitation restricts their ability to customize the look and feel of their online store according to modern design trends.
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Cumbersome Page Content Editing: Users have pointed out that editing page content in MIVA is a cumbersome and old-school task, lacking a WYSIWYG editor. This means they need to rely on manual HTML coding or use external tools for editing content, which adds complexity and time-consuming steps to their workflow.
Based on user reviews, the most common recommendations for Miva are to consider its power, affordability, and functionality. Users highly recommend it for businesses with unique needs and coding knowledge. They suggest investing in support and customization, including hiring expert programmers or development teams. Users also emphasize the importance of attending Mivacon conferences, engaging with documentation and forums, and taking advantage of Miva's robust support services. Additionally, reviewers advise evaluating the size of the business and desired level of control before choosing a platform. They recommend comparing features, exploring hosting options, and considering costs to ensure Miva's flexibility meets specific business requirements.
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Reviews
(1-7 of 7)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
July 26, 2022
Easy for Beginners to Use, Powerful Enough for Larger Businesses, Flexible Enough to Meet Specialized Needs
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I'm a software engineer, not a merchant. I've been working with Miva for more than 20 years. My specialty is writing plug-in modules that customize the store's behavior. Miva Merchant is extremely versatile and flexible. It's quite powerful and easy to use out of the box, but modules can do anything you can imagine to enhance your site and streamline your workflow. A module can change the way your products are displayed, provide special fees or discounts, and modify shipping costs. It can connect to other servers to upload or download data, so you don't have to do it by hand. I'm not aware of any other e-commerce package that can beat Miva in this. The company is big enough to be stable and reliable, but small enough that they treat customers like real human beings. They have some very smart people in charge, and the top executives even answer my emails personally (although I'm careful not to abuse the privilege). There's also an active user community, and a set of Web forums where experienced users answer questions for newbies. The company also participates in these.
- One of my clients sells online professional training courses. I wrote a module for him that lets customers take their exams on the Web site. It saves their work, computes their score, and even prints out a diploma when they pass.
- Miva Merchant has built-in support for the most common payment processors ( PayPal Authorize.net, etc.) and shipping carriers (UPS, FedEx, Post Office, etc.). But if you want to use one that they don't support, I can write you a module for that. Or I may have one already that will work for you; I've written a lot of them.
- Miva Merchant isn't just for online shopping. Some merchants use it to handle telephone orders, or for purchases in their brick-and-mortar stores. I've written modules to help with this.
- As a software engineer, I find their technical documentation to be sketchy and hard to use. But that's only a problem for those of us who write modules or do other deep dives into the internal functioning.
June 04, 2022
Review from a "non-tech" business owner
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I'm not your typical "tech-savvy" online retailer, so you're going to want to read this review. I'm the target audience for Wix and Shopify, and I have chosen not to use them. This is why: Our company has used Miva Merchant for our online retail presence for over 20 years. It's easy to use, especially considering my degrees are in psychology and absolutely nothing to do with tech. Their tech support is insanely good compared to other companies. They answer all of my questions, even the dumb ones. And there a lot of dumb ones. I need the versatility of Miva Merchant for the look and feel of the website almost daily. I have a very rudimentary "web" background from the 90's-early 2000s when my parents owned the company. Since I've only recently re-entered this company when my parents retired, I'm way behind the curve on what I can do (but I am constantly learning). This is where Miva Merchant really shines for me. I want to be more independent with caring for the upkeep of the website. Miva Merchant has tons of guides on using their platform, but the engineers and techs at Miva Merchant are willing to help and have made my experience jumping back into online retail a breeze. To be honest, I've looked at other platforms like Shopify Plus and Wix. It's just not what we need. We have so many product lines and recently added a wholesale line. I need a platform that's tailor-made for retail and this works for our small business. We're about to completely overhaul the look and feel of the website and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else when this happens. If I had to pinpoint one aspect of why I have chosen to stay with Miva Merchant, it's customer service. They don't farm it out. I can call or email 24/7 and I get immediate service. I never call them and get a foreign company with impersonal, handbook-driven customer service. I will emphasize that point especially if you are 1) new to online retail or 2) upsizing your online presence.
- customer service
- tech support
- diverse retail platform
- some integrations are limited or difficult (apple pay, etc.) but I have not found these to impede the functionality
December 23, 2015
One of the best ecommerce shopping carts available
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I use Miva Merchant as an ecommerce solution for my clients. Miva Merchant is easily capable of handling everything from smaller stores/individual sales to large and enterprise level businesses. The design is fully customizable in Miva, so I can implement my own or others' custom designs into a store and also adjust the code for SEO, google snippets, etc. Miva is extremely secure and passes all PCI/PDA-SS requirements which is extremely important. Miva is fully compatible with a number of popular third-party services like PayPal, Power Reviews, Shipworks, Authorize.net, etc and can be easily integrated with others.
- Expandable Functionality: Store functionality (gift certificates, coupons, shipping,etc) can be customized via code on the page templates, or third-party services/modules can be integrated to add features. Even better is that more and more of the third-party features are being built into the core features with new releases!
- Design: The store design can be fully customized to accommodate almost any design elements. Access to the page template code allows you to make customizations such as adding third-party code snippets (order tracking, live chat software, etc), adding if/then logic statements for dynamic customization, or to add a full custom design to the entire store.
- Security: PCI/PDA-SS compliant - There are not a lot of carts out there that are fully PCI compliant, and this is especially critical now (credit card companies are really beginning to crack down on this).
- The Miva admin area hasn't been the most user-friendly in the past. However, the admin in the the upcoming new Miva Merchant 9 Release has been completely revamped, is VERY user-friendly, and is formatted for desktop as well as mobile devices.
- Some fairly standard ecommerce functionality like Gift Certificates, Coupons, Sale Prices, etc have previously required third-party modules or template customization. However, many of these features are being built into Miva Merchant upcoming releases.
April 08, 2015
Miva Merchant Review
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We used Miva Merchant to build e-commerce websites for clients. We worked with small businesses and individuals on their e-commerce needs. The manager of our company had decided that Miva Merchant would be the best, most secure, e-commerce site to use.
- It has a user friendly experience when purchasing and checking out.
- It was easy to teach the client how to upload products to their site.
- It had many options for payment gateways.
- Miva Merchant has it's own language which had a high learning curve for me to understand.
- Customizing the template to match a html/css static site was difficult because you needed those Miva Merchant code pieces to be in the correct places.
- It used to let people store user's credit card information and process the payment later, which, when hacked, is really bad.
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Established retail company launched an online store with Miva Merchant over 5 years ago. Early on it was a very suitable platform and met our needs well, particularly its somewhat unique versatility. However, things have been in steady decline for some time. Their hosting was incredibly unreliable and lacked critical management features for no good reason. What you get initially with Miva is really only the shell of a proper online store. Things have gradually gotten better in regard to the features included, but companies who've been on the platform for years and paid for third-party modules and specialized development work receive no benefit. They're consistently about three years behind the pack compared to other major eCommerce platforms and have recently resorted to questionable tactics to increase the revenue they derive from people who use their system. I do feel some online merchants with highly specialized needs could find the customization options offered by Miva compelling, but the start up and ongoing costs for a real storefront are quite severe and lack many useful features compared to other more popular store systems.
- General versatility, though changes commonly require the aid of a true Miva developer to implement
- Compatible with many payment gateways and a fair assortment of third-party services
- Developers employed directly by Miva to handle merchant projects are personable and responsive to most requests
- Prospective and established merchants considering the Miva platform should be warned that they've recently implemented an onerous new fee when more than one person accesses the store admin area at any given time. Specifically, Miva merchants will now be on the hook for $50 per additional simultaneous user per month. If we had remained on Miva, this would have increased our annual costs of using the platform by at least $3,000, perhaps more. The president of Miva claims this is standard for SaaS e-commerce platforms, but I know of none that do and this change makes their platform incredibly unattractive for merchants who expect their business to grow in the future. Furthermore, certain third-party services can be detected by the Miva HQ tracking system as admin users, also triggering an additional seat fee.
- Exorbitant pricing for adding some basic features that feels like a petty cash grab. For instance, we opted for the $1,000 mobile optimization package and received a bare bones mobile-friendly site with no appearance refinements aside from crudely plopping our logo at the top. They forgot to optimize a few key pages, like the product search results, and it seemed like whoever did it rushed through the work in an hour or two. Other projects they helped with went better, but there's frequently minor coding errors we've had to clean up ourselves.
- Features released with updates practically always require developer assistance to test and properly enable.
- Issues that should be treated as bugs are instead left for third-party modules to correct. For example, if a wholesale customer adds items to their cart before logging in, those items retain the standard retail price when the order is placed. We informed Miva tech support of this, expecting that they might look into fixing the problem, but were instead told that we should buy an add-on module that forces a cart recalculation at checkout. Why should this be the responsibility of an extra module to correct? It should be noted that a year or two ago Miva purchased the Emporium Plus plugin catalog, including the cart recalculation module, yet that is still omitted from the core platform.
December 04, 2014
A Shopping Cart Solution for Online Businesses of Any Size
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I currently offer E-Commerce consulting, marketing, and management services for a broad range of online companies most of which are using Miva Merchant as their shopping cart platform. The online stores I work with are offering anywhere from 20 to 180,000 products online. The shopping cart is primarily used to merchandise products and as a CMS system.Some of the more challenging issues my clients face are work arounds for MAP Pricing (Minimum Advertised Pricing), integrating in-house POS systems with Miva to manage inventory, and integrating live LTL freight rates directly into the shopping cart. All of these feats can be achieve but may require you to think outside of the box. The good thing about Miva is that you are only limited by your imagination as far as what you can do with the platform.
- Miva Merchant is extremely robust and has very few limitations unlike most other shopping carts.
- Offers the most bang for your buck! You can run a multimillion dollar online store using their smallest package at $50 per month with ease. No joke!
- There are many 3rd party modules available for added flexibility.
- Support staff is great and you can find answers to many questions in their forum (where senior techs tend to hang out). Video tutorials are available too!
- There is a learning curve and newbies must have patience when setting up a new store out of the box.
- I was never a big fan of the mobile layout. Fortunately a Responsive design is now available (and rocks)!
- The ability to tie into 3rd party POS systems more easily would be a nice added feature (but I guess that would require the POS system to be integration friendly as well).
December 01, 2014
Why We Pick Miva Merchant
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We don’t actually use MIVA Merchant at our organization but recommend it to our clients. Miva Merchant is a good choice because of its flexibility, cost effectiveness and its other features. Manufacturing Solutions Center is a service provider for the small to medium manufacturers. We work to help solve problems and test products. Ecommerce is one of the services we provide.
- Price Groups. This feature is beneficial to the developer and their customers because it allows creation of as many groups as needed. Developer can change the price of products based on membership in a group. They can also assign price change to all or certain products in a group. Registered customers benefit from membership discounts, which encourages customer loyalty.
- Availability Groups. This feature is excellent because it allows developer to control what categories and products customers see in the store based on membership in a group and only visible to customers who registered and are a member of that group.
- Manage Orders. End users like the Manage Orders features. Orders have various filters available such as Order Number, Date Range, Order Status, Batches and Batch Report. The most useful feature is the Batches which is a collection of orders, grouped together and given a name with just 1-click.
- Coupon capability. If end users want to offer coupon discount, they will have to purchase through a third-party. It will be an excellent feature to have.
- Product layout. The product layout from previous Miva Merchant is much better. Merchant 5.5, the product “Code, Price and Quantity in Basket” is at the bottom of the product instead of with “Colors”, “Size”, and “Quantity” on the right hand side. Custom image sizing does not display well.
- More Custom Fields/Dropdown options. Our end user has to purchase Addendum from a third-party to use the custom field.
- Some of our customers are having problem viewing our store after we upgraded to Miva Merchant 5.5. Our products page is empty.