I've used Miva Merchant since 1997. It's good software & the cart was easy to use for a first-ever, ecommerce venture. However, getting help is hopeless. I've read through volumes of their online help, but sometimes it's not solving my problems. They don't even respond to emails. Too bad, because I like the software.

Posted by: DavidW
Thursday, January 24, 2008

David,

Have you tried contacting us recently? If you have problems getting ahold of our support I would like to personally hear about it. You can call our main number at (858)490-2570 hit option 5 for the company directory and search for my name.

Thanks,

Rick

Posted by: Rick Wilson
Thursday, January 24, 2008

My company has been using Miva since 1999. I have come within an inch of going to another shopping cart in the last 2 years because Miva has been completely unresponsive to any of my requests for added functionality. I hope that the new Miva doesn't forget where their paychecks come from.

Posted by: Mike
Thursday, January 24, 2008

Hi Rick,

I LOVE Miva-- there are tons of great modules out there that really extend the functionality of it. Plus, there are several consultants (the one we use is Sebenza.com) that are available to help in all aspects of Miva as well as server admin. We just finished our busy 4th Quarter and Miva 5 handled the load with no problems or downtime. Hats off-- I'm looking forwarded to the bug fixes in 5.5 and to see what else Miva has in store down the road.

Regards,

Brian
www.shopwildplanet.com

Posted by: Brian - shopwildplanet.com
Friday, January 25, 2008

I have been a Miva user since the beginning of the company. The recent buy-back of the shopping cart, and the subsequent movement of customer support back to San Diego has me jumping for joy. The current team, not outsourced to some foreign land, understands the nuances of language, AND is extremely responsive. All of you with support problems must give the new kids on the block the opportunity to prove how much they care for your business. MIVA: keep up the excellent work!

Posted by: David Klemp
Friday, January 25, 2008

I have been using it since 2000 when I started my business.

Please, please, please create a solution to operating with Google Checkout (yes I understand it is really their issue but that leaves a growing number of customers unable to use that checkout option.)

And please come up with a streamlined checkout process in the product.

Posted by: Lon Weiss
Sunday, January 27, 2008

I haven't been using Miva long but as a beginner in ecommerce, I have to say it's fairly easy to learn in advanced mode. The number of modules available allow you to customize your store with the same or similar functionality as big-box storefronts. Miva is also a cost effective and solid solution.

Posted by: Terence
Sunday, January 27, 2008

I started using Miva years ago. And soon began looking for a new cart. It's very cumbersome software. It appears as if its develpers cared more about making it easy to set up the shopping cart than to actually run it. It was free with my hosting so I went with it. Since then, I've found much better features on many other free carts, Cube Cart, being what I'd recommend these days (though it's not free anymore).

I wouldn't recommend Miva at all.

Posted by: John
Sunday, January 27, 2008

When is MySQL 5.1 going to be supported?

Posted by: Gary
Monday, February 04, 2008

I was a Miva fanatic back when you could actually change some of the functions of the cart. I learned how to program in Mivascript just for that purpose. Once they changed all of that I left it for OsCommerce which I'm now leaving for Magento Commerce.

Posted by: Cartel
Tuesday, February 12, 2008

I've been working with Miva Merchant since version 1. I've tried other carts, the features and functions may be in them or they may not be. Trying to get support for these open source carts hasn't been the easiest thing in the world. You're pretty much treated like your a stupid noob. With Miva Merchant, I could ask what even I thought was a stupid question and still be treated with respect within the community. That's something that Miva Merchant has, is community!

Other open source issues are the numerous security updates. Seems like no sooner did I get the thing installed, I had to turn around and upload updates. With MM5 all the updates are piped in.

Watch for even more exciting things to be coming from Miva Merchant!

Posted by: Leslie
Thursday, February 14, 2008

I think folks in India had been doing a pretty decent job and I think there was an issue with management who was not very supportive of download and training to people there until James took over the charge intoto. I think James Harrell should have been given enough time to manage the project. I found him a genious.

I dont exactly agree with David Klemp's term of outsourcing to some country. I have been an active user of Miva Merchant too and had received good services when ever the need was and found people there extremly friendly and devoted to work. My issues were constantly taken care and resolved by the then supervisor mangal Tripathi.

Cheers to new team to sustain the same!!

Posted by: Minimini
Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Hummm--! We had a problem with SEO and Meva. Have you resolved it? I like Open UI but the SEO stuff was mind boggeling. What would make me come back?

Posted by: Judi Stiegler
Monday, March 03, 2008

Hi judi,

what is mind boggling about seo and miva merchant for you? it is easy to optimize miva merchant for the search engines in v4 and v5

jason

Posted by: jason of jmh web services
Tuesday, March 04, 2008

My bead stores have been using Miva Merchant for years. We have tens of thousands of products and it is still very fast even with the dozen Miva Modules we have installed to enhance our store. We also use Miva Synchro to download our orders into Quickbooks. Our web host set us up with that. We host with a Miva Hosting Partner that Miva Tech support recommended to us called Morditech.com and we could not be happier. I highly recommend Miva and Morditech.com

Posted by: Robert E. Black
Wednesday, March 05, 2008

I smell a rat in Minimini. Someone is clearly trying to blow smoke with that post.

Posted by: rat sniffer
Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Jason,
You have told me nothing. It was not easy I was running open UI. I really am looking for a reason to come back to Miva. I like the product, but the session codes and long URL's were killing me. Yes I a person do them, but they refused to work on Miva again. So we switched carts ---and I am not happy.

Posted by: Judi
Sunday, March 16, 2008