Miva shopping carts

[donelleschultz]

HELP!
Regarding www.endloop.com
Okay, here's the story....My company was new to the ecommerce thing. We sell XO services so signed up for their web hosting, they suggest and support only Miva for shopping carts. In order to get the look we wanted on the site, our original graphic designer hired a programmer to "play" with the Miva pages to get them to do what we wanted.
NOW our view cart and checkout pages are PAINFULLY slow, we are getting security warnings that the name of the website doesn't match the security certificate. I get that error message that there are secure and unsecure items on this page and you have to click the ok button twice to get the rest of the page to load. The rest of the site is in Front Page and zips right along. We don't want to have to start over from scratch, now that we have an idea what we are doing, but we need to get this stuff fixed.
Because we made programming changes to Miva, they won't support us. SO I need to either figure it out myself or hire someone to do it for me! So if anyone has any suggestion, please email me (dschultz@endloop.com). Also appreciate any referrals to someone who REALLY knows Miva, if it going to be an act of congress to fix this, I'll just pay someone to do it for me....
Thanks!
Donelle[/url]

[dkitkatt]

I think we're screwed. Overnight I lost my login. Miva wants $150 minimum for tech support to research how they lost my login. My host and site builder subcontracts with MIVA for eCommerce. Given my experience, I would not use MIVA again directly or indirectly. It might be encourageing to see how many others are being gouged in the wallet by MIVA.

[zarrella]

Hi,

My name is Ed Zarrella. I own a company that manufactures shopping carts.

Usually, those error message that there are secure and unsecure items on the page are usually really easy to fix. It's usually complianing that the images are not in the same place as the code. This is probably not MIVA's fault.

The security warnings that the name of the website doesn't match the security certificate is most likely that you are using a certificate that is in the host's domain name, and that is different than yours. The solution to this is to either put the Whole cart in the secure area, or buy your own certificate. This too is probably not MIVA's fault.

The slowness and the "have to click the ok button twice to get the rest of the page to load" is most likely a MIVA problem.

I'm not sure which version of Miva you are using, or what your platform your running. I'd be happy to talk to you about possibile solutions. This would not be the first time we have rescued merchants from Miva before.

Email me if you are interested in talking. zarrella@eastland.com.

--thanks,
--Ed

[dkitkatt]

Ed,
I don't know if you were replying to my post or the original. I don't get any message when I try to login to MIVA. I just get another login screen.
I've used them for a year and a half and edited dozens of times. This login thing makes no sense and charging $150 to find out what is causing it is rediculous. Have you encountered this type of lockout before?

[cyanide]

donelleschultz

I get that error message that there are secure and unsecure items on this page and you have to click the ok button twice to get the rest of the page to load.
I had a look at your code and the problem is...
You are using a base href tag (at the top), which basically tells the browser where everything is located on the server and it happens to be https, but on these pages you have some that are not https.

Let me explain:
Base href = "https://secure.xo.com/endloop.com/mivaroot/Merchant2/"
Which is secure and means: an image like: graphics/00000001/catgry_1.gif falls under the base href directory -no problem

But:
You also have (http://www.endloop.com/mivaroot/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/Header_loop3.gif) which points to a non-secure directory. -bad, and is creating your security warning.


dkitkatt

This login thing makes no sense and charging $150 to find out what is causing it is rediculous.
I haven't used Miva before, but I can't believe they're charging you for this problem. Makes no sense.

[zarrella]

Hi dkitkatt,

I was actually responding to the original message. I haven't encountered that type of lockout before.

I agree with everyone else though, looking up your (or assigning a new) password sounds like it should just be a free customer support task.

-Ed

[swstyles]

Under normal circumstances your host should be able to take care of you. If you have to involve Miva then something smells fishy.

[doubleplus]

I agree with swtyles. I've used Miva for a long time and never once called Miva. My host helps me, or I get help on the user list. To join the user list go to www.miva.com, click on support and user lists.

[Jerry77]

I had XO technologies and Miva. I found that XO was the worst Hosting company I have used. I would call for help and what I learned is that Their servers for miva are slow and overloaded with shared miva accounts.
We finally switched to a company called cybrhost http://www.cybrhost.com and their speed is second to none and it has the latest and greatest MIva 4.16+ compiled. Their customer service is first rate. Your problem is not Miva it's your hosting company.
Since we switched we have not been Down due to too many hits a problem we had all the time with XO.

[doubleplus]

In the Miva community, there are a few hosts that are considered the best for Miva hosting. They are, in order of my unscientific feeling of popularity of recommendations on the Miva Merchant User List:

www.hostasaurus.com
www.driftwood.net
www.cybrhost.com
www.dotcomdesigners.com
www.wpcomp.com

All of these firms are smaller, where you can actually call the owner if there's a problem, and all are Miva Merchant experts. I've dealt with every one of these companies in some way or other and can say that they provide amazing support. Their customers constantly recommend them on the user list. (I did have a bit of a problem with a CybrHost employee being very rude once, but I think it was just a glitch and he called me later to apologize profusely).

By the way, be sure to join the user list by going to miva.com, click on support, click on user lists. Then choose the Merchant Users list instructions. You'll get tons of free help throughout your Miva experience from the people on this list, including myself.

[asimegusta]

Hi,
I just had to add my two cents since I have used miva, free with my hosting service...until, fed up, I just finishing moving my store to another cart. I had the same troubles as mentioned above, i. e. having to pay 150$ minimum to get a yes or no answer to a question. Ping pong between my hosting and miva as to who was supposed to do the fixing when my images didn't load into the correct subdirectory causing them NOT to appear..., long waits and no e-mail responses, long distance phone bills to trying pry a monosyllable response...The last straw was when I, accidentally, (checking web page ranking and optimization) discovered that my frontpage showed not meta description or keywoerds, though I had religiously put them in every page...Come to find out, miva cart developers have put no way of inserting metatags (those creatures the search engine robots are so fond of to get you indexed) Well, upon much web searching and 150$ later miva support admitted the same and confessed they didn't have any module for that... but that a third party would gladly sell it to me, and it probably works but...since it was third party they could not support it ....so if anything were to go haywire because of installing it, I would be up a creek and have to "do some work myself just like everybody" since the miva developpers hadn't. Yes, I was correct to say that Miva has not metatags possibilities... . The happy ending is, my new cart does support tags, give e-mail, phone support and gets the job done fast. My store is indexed and doing alright in it's niche too.

asimegusta
www.mercalydia.com
Mercalydia embroidered home linens
Creating fresh atmospheres in the home][/url]

[doubleplus]

Interesting. All of my Miva Merchant sites have a place for Meta Tags. Heck, worst case I'd stick them in the Global Header.

The worst thing about Miva Merchant is that Miva sells it as a simple to set up shopping cart. So web design amateurs think they can create an e-commerce site. The reality is if you want a nice looking web site, you'll have to know something about web design, HTML, etc. It's really designed for the professional web developer to create sites for clients.

I noticed you said it came free with your hosting account. It sounds like you got what you paid for because you didn't get any support. Miva as a company doesn't support Miva Merchant for free, just like Microsoft doesn't support Windows XP for free. And third party modules are just like Windows programs. Try calling Microsoft and telling them they need to help you figure out why Norton Antivirus isn't working. If they tell you they can't support third party programs, will you move to something other than Windows??

The third party module developers themselves support their products, so you could have gotten that module and been fine.

Instead of calling Miva and paying $150 for support, a simple browse through their support section of their web site would have lead you to a section called "User Groups." In this section, you are told how to sign up for a free user group that has hundreds of people giving free support and advice.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with Miva, but it's not because the shopping cart is poorly designed, it's because your host sold you a lie and you thought you could have a quality e-commerce site for free. Somehow about 70,000 web sites are using Miva Merchant successfully, and being found on search engines all day long with their Meta Tags.

I did visit your site to check out your new shopping cart you are happy with. I went to a bed sheet page and clicked add to cart. Nothing showed up in the cart because I didn't realize the little white box sitting on the page was for me to enter quantity. When I did figure that out, I added a bath towel and got an "out of stock - there are only 1 of these in stock" even though I only put 1 in the quantity box. I then went back to sheets and placed a 1 in the quantity box, but left the options blank. It took the order, and didn't force me to choose the options. There was no way to edit the cart and add or remove items. And your load times are massive. I'd have to say that if this is the kind of cart you wanted, no wonder Miva wasn't satisfactory. As I said, you get what you pay for. If you want to see a nice shopping cart, go to one of my Miva sites at www.harrisdiamonds.com. It's still under construction, but it's still a good example.

[asimegusta]

thanks for your comments. I have checked what you were blasting...

sorry to disagree, different miva, and free isn't true, the hosting put the price of miva cart in it...a bundle..

BTW go to checkout if you want to edit your cart or cancel its contents.
good luck.
Yes I got metatags in all the miva headers...but they never showed in any metatag analyser..sorry again to have bothered you personally. shall we agree to disagree?
just sharing my experience, not touting any shopping cart.

[doubleplus]

Sorry - bit of a bad mood today! We can agree to disagree, sure! I just want people to understand that Miva Merchant is only what you make of it. Every bad experience I've heard about roots in the host not providing support - which doesn't say anything about the shopping cart software itself. Maybe your next complaint should be about the host.

[crafta]

I'm not a web designer but Miva had work for me to a certain degree. It's definitely good enough to run a commerce site but I'm running into some problems as my item list goes up to 4500+. If you really need to customize your site, you probably need a pro. Their inventory tracking is o.k. but need additional programs and hassle to import the orders into your accounting program, such as QuickBooks. There are lots of issue that I still don't understand as far as your product pages not coming up in searche engines because of '&'s generated by Miva program for your product URL. The more I use Miva, the more I realize that I need a real pro to build my site.

[SecureCart]

Hello,
The Miva Merchant program is designed to be an option for host providers. ISP's will pay for the license to resell it to their clients.

Since it is not designed by the host providers, many send you to Miva support as they do because they have no other options.

There are many Miva support companies that have developed because of the success of the Miva program.

With that said, the merchant that may require a more hands on approach might also look into using a service rather then just a program. This allows for support 24/7 and usually any glitch is solved in a few minutes... rather then possibly days.

While we use the Miva programming engine and have done so since 1996 ( called HTMLScript back then ).
Our experience is that when you allow for the merchants flexibility requirements to grow, most issues are no longer restrictive hurdles.

Our approach is that the cart is a far more important aspect of your site. When your site and the cart are combined, you'll always have less options.

Recent Example:
A client had both our service and Miva Merchant.
He has now converted all 33 websites to one cart system that will change it's identity for each site, yet display his orders in one admin location.

One of his sites has 3000 items and is building out to more than 6000 items. He also can design his site anyway he likes.

A little planning up front can save you big $$$.

http://www.securecart.com