Miva Reviews

“Confusing and admin interface UX lags behind

Pros

The thing is like the most about it is that there are lots of choices for discount coupon varieties.

Cons

Confusing and the admin portal lacks distinct URLs for various pages inside the portal. Every time you refresh you are returned to Home. Coupons are also slightly more complex than they should be. And frequently when I login, it simply refreshes teh login page without an error and does not bring me into the admin portal.

“Top choice among all options

Pros

I have used multiple different e-commerce shopping carts from both the buyer side and the user side and Miva is hands down the best, most configurable and easiest to use.

Cons

There are alternative choices at cheaper pricing that work well for beginning but when its time to get serious I would say Miva is the go to.

“Improving daily

Pros

After six months of being live I can confidently say we're happy with our choice of Miva. It is not perfect but there have been very few features I've looked at that have not worked out great.

Cons

The backend admin interface is something I find difficult to navigate.

“Support team is simply amazing

Pros

Miva has been a dependable platform as it is stable and fairly easy to use. Our business model is complex with a lot of requirements but there is a growing number of developers who can build the features we need for success. Wholesale pricing levels for various customer groups have been a great addition. The best thing about is our Customer Success team. Justin and Wayne have been fantastic to work with. When I don't need management-level help, the ticket system is handled by REAL PEOPLE who are skilled techs. I have not had to wait days or deal with AI, bots or non-native English speakers. Justin and Wayne helped resolve all my concerns, coached my team and me for growth and suggested tasks we could handle ourselves to save on expensive developers. Even after we renewed our contract, they kept in touch, following up regularly to ensure we were making progress. They even volunteered to be a resource, setting up calls to review account details and offer training. The amazing support and dedicated reps really boost our team's confidence. They are continuously expanding features and addressing the challenges we face as a growing business.

Cons

I wish we had been in touch with the customer service team more consistently from the start. Some of the features we wanted needed plug-ins or custom programming. Thankfully we found several skilled private contractors who were able to help and get done what we couldn't.

“Using it for over a decade and quite happy with it

Pros

Its biggest strength is its ability to customize your website to match the experience you want to offer your customers. With modules, plugins and an user friendly ybackend, plus the recent addition of a GUI-based page builder, even those with limited programming knowledge can create smart, well-designed pages. And whenever we have run into challenges, Miva has always been able to provide a solution.

Cons

Aside from MivaScript being a special requirement for finding web design assets that work on the Miva platform I don't have any major cons to mention. However it can sometimes make it challenging to quickly find reliable resources.

“Modernized our website completely today

Pros

It is simple to use and edit. Adding new products and managing stock is also not a problem for me anymore.

Cons

I am having trouble receiving the verification code to log in on the new device.

“Miva was our company's best choice

Pros

The most beneficial aspect of Miva is the expansive toolset available to us. I use it daily not only for its website and storefront management but also for customers to place their orders and the amount of control I have over everything and ease of use is unmatched.

Cons

There is not much to complain about. Still if I had to say something, we wish that it would offer its services at a more competitive price. Nothing negative to say other than that.

“Highly dependable tool

Pros

Mive software perfectly meets all of our ecommerce needs.

Cons

The cost is a bit higher than we expected but the convenience and I believe the increase in sales due to how easy it is for our customers to use make it worthwhile.

“Scale to match your budget perfectly

Pros

Account representatives have always been the best. They are fast to respond and locate answers for my questions. May not always be the solution I want but they provide me answers. The administration is also well thought out and easy to navigate. Plus they are continuously improving it as well so always nice to see updates that make my life easier. The available features are excellent and make our web site stand out.

Cons

Well the main issue is the cost as it tends to keep adding up or I would say it's just getting higher. When you get good developers from the pro services team, they usually do excellent work but it always makes me hesitate before asking for something, since time equals money. So it is important to figure out exactly what you need before making a request. Also I have faced some limitations in what I'd like to do but that's something you will encounter with any service if you have a creative mindset like I do

“Miva worked well but too expensive

Pros

It handled everything I needed and performed really well.

Cons

One thing I noticed is that it is really expensive compared to other mainstream alternatives.

“Great flexible online selling platform

Pros

Miva Merchant is quite flexible. It is simple and affordable enough for startups yet has the capacity to grow with your business. The best part is its API which allows for customization. If you have specific needs whether it is how your products are displayed, how shipping costs are calculated or how you integrate with third-party services, Miva can handle it. There is also a strong community of freelance developers who can provide solutions. The customer support is better than most and there is an active web forum where users help each other out. I have been working with Miva for nearly 20 years and it's a great community to be a part of.

Cons

Sometimes there tech support staff don't give the most useful responses to my inquiries. I believe it is due to the company expanding as occasionally my inquiries are handled by recently hired staff who lack extensive experience. To be honest as a software engineer myself, the inquiries I pose are typically challenging ones. At least they reply fast as I never have to wait more than a day to receive a response.

“An excellent solution platform

Pros

I must say it offers the best catalog for detailed product filtering especially in the automotive sector. Overall it outperforms Magento in terms of speed and reliability.

Cons

Only a few developers or agencies can assist and it can get expensive which is a challenge when integrating a new system. Also I found it to be less customizable than I expected.

“Pretty easy to customize

Pros

Miva offers a highly scalable and customizable platform making it the perfect solution for our niche products that require extensive options and personalization. Since 2001 our website has relied on Miva and we have no plans to switch. Their customer support is excellent, always resolving issues quickly and the Miva Community Forums provide a great space for users and developers to share knowledge. Features like MivaScript, theme components and template branches allow for a highly personalized shopping experience, while tools like product attributes, product filters and customizable shipping methods help streamline inventory and order management. The platform also integrates seamlessly with shipping and order processing platforms and offers built-in SEO features and Google Analytics integration. Plus Miva's flexible design tools like page templates and CSS/JavaScript management, make it easy to build and maintain an attractive and functional website. With their reliable support and active community, Miva has been a vital partner for our business for almost 20 years helping us adapt and grow over time.

Cons

There is not much I dislike but a couple of things stand out. The main challenge is mastering the proprietary MivaScript especially if you want to do some custom dynamic rendering that is not included with the default Shadows Readytheme. Luckily Miva offers a lot of documentation online to help you learn and there are plenty of developers on the Miva Community Forums who offer services at reasonable prices. Also it would be nice to have a few more ReadyThemes to choose from but the Shadows theme is pretty solid right out of the box.

“Setup process is quite simple

Pros

It offers excellent customer support. They assisted us with every integration we needed.

Cons

I don't have anything to say at this time. They has been amazing to work with.

“Switched from MIVA to Shopify

Pros

My company Linentablecloth.com switched to MIVA from Magento in late 2017. They are a smaller shopping cart company with great employees. The first couple of years were good likely because we were paying a significant amount over $10k/month. The team is great too and the support is decent. The platform itself was an improvement over Magento as it is reliable and we did not have to worry about keeping the website running smoothly.

Cons

But over time it has fallen behind its competitors like BigCommerce and Shopify and their prices have become ridiculously high in comparison. Managing the product catalog is disorganized and difficult to use. They also lack integrations with popular systems like Google Shopping, Trustpilot, Zendesk and Mailchimp, so you end up paying their professional services team thousands and waiting forever. For me they did not deliver on many promises like the Google Shopping feed which was one of the main things I was promised when I signed up. After some missteps by my company and the impact of COVID, my revenue dropped significantly over the last couple of years. Despite proving that MIVA's costs were three times what BigCommerce or Shopify were charging, they refused to reduce my monthly fees. So in September 2021, I switched to Shopify and it's been WAY better. Honestly I feel a bit silly for not realizing it sooner. Shopify is pretty easy to set up and use as I built a website to replace my MIVA site in just two weeks by myself without any outside help. Catalog management is much simpler compared to MIVA and the cost is one-third of what I was paying them. It seems like MIVA has taken hedge fund money and is under pressure to increase revenue but treating loyal customers poorly is not the way to do it. I still respect the great employees at MIVA but I cannot recommend them as a solution for any e-tailer. Shopify is number one for a reason.

“Very satisfied with our choice

Pros

I really like that it can integrate with other programs like Signifyd and our orders can easily be imported into another system. It is also quite convenient that it works with SHIPSTATION.

Cons

What I dislike most about MIVA is that if you manually add an order or part it cannot be processed into the program we use to complete and manage orders. We used to be able to input a code to view all the customer credit information but since we started using Signifyd that option is no longer available.

“Simple to customize and functional

Pros

One thing I really like about it is that it is scalable which allows us to use it from our start as a small business all the way through our expansion. The upgrade process has been smooth and has saved us money. Plus using Miva has worked well for us because unlike most other products in its category, there are no maintenance costs or requirements which has been a huge benefit in saving both time and money since the data is hosted by the providers. This product makes customization easy, helping us create a unique platform for our customers that aligns perfectly with our goals and company theme.

Cons

My main issue with this software is that it can slow down occasionally when there is heavy traffic. Additionally the user experience on the mobile version is not quite up to the same standard as the web-based version.