ER

Verified User in Retail

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

10/23/2021

"We left Magento for Miva and are happy with the decision."

4.5/5

What do you like best about Miva?

Miva offers a good balance for our small e-commerce company. It requires significantly less technical overhead, support and maintenance than a Magento site, but is more customizable than BigCommerce or Shopify. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Miva?

The marketplace for 3rd party services, plug-ins and integrations is smaller with Miva than with more widely adopted platforms like Magento, BigCommerce or Shopify. We haven't found this to be a show-stopper, but the 3rd party options with Miva are more limited. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Miva solving and how is that benefiting you?

Miva has been easier to keep current with version releases than Magento. Updates, while never fun, have been easily implemented and mostly problem-free. In terms of page load performance, our Miva site is far faster than our previous Magento site, and this has boosted our SEO performance quite a bit. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

AA

Verified User in Apparel & Fashion

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

1/16/2016

"Best shopping cart solution for a balance of power, customizability, affordability and stability"

5/5

What do you like best about Miva?

Up time, software stability, low maintenance Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Miva?

We have been using Miva since 2004 and have frankly had a love/hate relationship with them over the years, but the Miva of the past is a completely different animal than the product it is today. Once we got used to the fact that they morphed from a more modular shopping cart (miva v1-v5ish) to an all-in-one comprehensive e-commerce platform (miva v9-v10), we have grown to appreciate it. While Miva 10's admin UI is streamlined and relatively easy-to-use, we have found that some features are convoluted and require a bit of a learning curve.

One thing I valued in the past that they no longer offer is design/dev services for any size customer. It was always a comfort to know that when you hired a tech, the tech would know miva better than anyone you could randomly hire.

While there are more choices when seeking a developer for larger or more widely-used platforms, our experience so far using the development firms that Miva recommends have been very good (we cannot say the same for experiences with partner firms recommended by other platforms). So while some may find their smaller dev community a drawback, if you use a firm that Miva recommends, you will be in good hands. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Miva:

-Miva 10 is a powerful yet relatively easy-to-use e-comm platform with lots of features.

-The recently re-designed Admin brings it more in line with other platform Admins, which means that it may be more intuitive to new users than in previous versions.

-We are not familiar with all the subscription levels, but for us, we feel that Miva's current pricing is in line with other platforms that offer similar functionality.

-After using many other platforms over the years, we can knowledgeably compare Miva to many of the most popular platforms currently available. Consequently, we would now recommend Miva as the best balance of power, affordability and functionality. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Miva solving and how is that benefiting you?

Miva is our main e-commerce platform. In our 17 years using Miva, the platform has proven to be incredibly stable and reliable. Miva releases and installs (with a click of a button) its own updates (vs some platforms for which companies need to pay a highly-qualified/expensive developer to run upgrades). They seem to take great care in making sure that older apps don't break as a result of upgrades which is much appreciated. The Admin can be used/managed by a moderately-technical staff which means low-cost maintenance over time.

We have used many other e-comm platforms over the years including shopsite, shopify, volusion, 3dcart, magento and shopify. We have come to really appreciate Miva after using all these different platforms for the following reasons:

-In our opinion, Miva offers a perfect balance between offering a high level of customization with stability and ease-of-use.

-As mentioned previously, the platform and its apps/modules are stable and require little to no maintenance which translates to cheaper maintenance costs.

-Other sophisticated and/or complicated platforms that offer a lot of powerful features and/or highly scalable also come with extremely high development and maintenance costs. For ecomm companies that need more than the basic Shopify subscription levels, but don't want to spend or can't afford the sky-high price of building and maintaining platforms like Magento, Miva is the sweet spot.

-Miva support staff is knowledgeable and almost always on-point. Posts to the forum are usually answered in a timely manner which makes troubleshooting easier than with some other platforms.

-Other platforms spend [waste] money on famous celebrity speakers at elaborate vegas events (at which we just kept thinking...that's what I'm paying for when I pay enormous monthly fees?). Miva seems more reserved in its business/marketing methods which tells us that our fees are being spent on product improvements rather than PR and hype. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

JJ

Jodi J.

COO

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

4/8/2022

"Easy Customization"

5/5

What do you like best about Miva?

Miva has great customer service. They were there to help with all of the integration we requested. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Miva?

I don't have anything at this time. Miva has been amazing to work with. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

UR

Verified User in Retail

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

11/1/2021

"Left Miva for Shopify"

0.5/5

What do you like best about Miva?

It was nice when it was an inexpensive platform. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Miva?

I was oniva for over 15 years and was a loyal and dedicated customer. It use to be a good deal but it is built on a complicated coding platform that not many developers know the coding language. That leaves you forced to deal with their professional service team which is wicked expensive. There are about two outside development companies that I am aware of. The issue is that the apps and plugs in that are as simple as turning on a switch in Shopify can cost $1000-$3000 to integrate on their platform. Their platform use to be inexpensive but now their fees are similar to Shopify but Shopify is 100x more advanced in terms of catalog management and also app integration. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

LB

Luigi B.

Graphic and Web Designer

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

11/23/2021

"Good if you're not tech savy, but Shopify and WooCommerce have replaced Miva as my go to."

1.5/5

What do you like best about Miva?

Available support team and changes are often easy to make Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Miva?

You don't have complete control like you do with some other platforms (WordPress/WooCommerce come to mind) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Miva:

Look at alternatives to make sure it's the right fit, but don't hesitate to use Miva especially considering their tech support is quite good. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Miva solving and how is that benefiting you?

For a client with minimal tech experience, they can still manage a Miva store. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

AA

Verified User in Automotive

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

11/23/2021

"A VERY GREAT PLATFORM TO MOVE"

4/5

What do you like best about Miva?

the most i like about Miva is that it integrates a good Catalog for complex products filters, like for automotive industry is even better than Magento, faster and reliable Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Miva?

some limited developers or Agencies can help out, sometimes it gets costly, and that's a challenge when integrating a new system, i found it not to customizable Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Miva:

If you want to move out from Magento, this is your better option Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Miva solving and how is that benefiting you?

is the extensive catalog that we manage, Miva is very robust in handling large quantities of SKUs, is very fast, and allows you to organize your data for a better search Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

MR

Mike R.

Owner

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

2/26/2015

"Strayed to Shopify and Magento, Returning to Miva"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Miva?

This platform is complete, and has updates that never crash your store. While it is expensive, it is all inclusive, and doesn't need extra apps to run.

I tried moving my business to Magento several years ago, and during the build, found that the platform was very slow loading...so slow, that customers would not wait for pages to load, so I abandoned the move to Magento.

Recently, I tried moving my business to Shopify. The cost to host with shopify was significantly less, but that cost is the tip of the iceberg. When you add up all the extra apps required to make our store as functional like our Miva site, plus Shopify's additional cost to process credit cards, plus the lack of customer support, I am abandoning this move, and will continue with Miva. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Miva?

Miva recently implemented a significant cost hike, and I'm still reeling from the sticker shock. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Miva:

Unless you are a code warrior, you will need to hire an expert to set up your store. Miva has excellent programmers that will do this for you, but they are expensive. I hired a programmer outside of Miva to do all of the customizations necessary. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Miva solving and how is that benefiting you?

Miva includes its own hosting, along with its software. This is a huge advantage, because when something goes wrong, the hosting company and the sofware company cannot blame each other. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

DE

Dennis E.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

1/7/2021

"Outstanding technical support"

5/5

What do you like best about Miva?

The tech support folks at Miva are really top notch. They are always quick to respond and bend over backwards to solve the toughest of problems. Miva has been my shopping cart for 20+ years and our web host for almost 10. There are many other options, but when something works as well as Miva, you don't go looking around to save a buck or two. I'm not a programmer and know just enough about html to be dangerous. These guys and gals have never failed to help me fix or understand something in a timely manner. They are great communicators, and always respectful of their customers regardless of their level of expertise. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Miva?

There's not much I don't like, but I would like it if their responses to support requests would include my original comment. It would help keep things in context for me if I had a thread of prior communications on the same issue in every email. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

JY

Jeff Y.

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

9/25/2020

"Solid company that is still small enough to care about their customers"

5/5

What do you like best about Miva?

Aside from the fact that Miva probably has more experience in the ecommerce space than any other shopping cart vendor, they are still small enough to provide real customer support. We've been on Miva since 1.0 in 1999, and as far as I know, even after being bought out a few years ago, the founder still runs the company like his own. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Miva?

Honestly, we hardly ever have to interact with Miva corporate any more because the shopping cart works flawlessly for us. But when we do call, we don't have to wait long to get someone who knows how to help. Sorry, I can't be more critical. What could be better? Well, it could be free, but that's not how the world works. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

UA

Verified User in Architecture & Planning

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

11/28/2020

"Conditioned responses to maximize your business are obtained with miva."

4/5

What do you like best about Miva?

I like miva extraordinary data server, followed by its very precise simplified web approach, its proven record of credit payment dial-up notes, active refund management, network tax billing pipeline, direct prioritization of configured message delivery, real-time trading property scheduling, Native web development functions of sales portals, regular management of bids and product purchase auctions, higher sample percentages, agility of presentation changes, automatic subscription adaptations, product display queries, are used in your company to build electronic performance potential. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Miva?

The image encryption storage power and the maintenance of stable advertising protections are affected by a revenue tracking value error, which causes certain economic adjustment losses in the company, which provide an inaccurate administrative safeguard action, causing general accounting grade misinformation in my company, so that my possibility of trade profitability is poor as this problem is within miva, so a systematized reference condition of approaches to detecting monetary losses must be installed in this software to eliminate this drawback of its platform completely and arise at the digital level with the company. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Miva:

Recommendable in its entirety is the miva software, since its incredible performance allows you to access professional e-commerce possibilities, incorporating a healthy personalization of product presentation data in real time, exercising customer relationship leveling, powerful grouping of marketing campaigns, intelligent opening of purchase profiles, Economically adjustable performance display settings, stable production conditioned ratio, independent dial-up tracking of rich sales transactions, intuitive auto-negotiation reference tracking, administration of content management drives, are all reasons why this system is recommended in its entirety. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Miva solving and how is that benefiting you?

Using this purchase management format, I started to manage payment exercises, active transaction monitoring, inventory value grouping, enabling large integrations with professional data sharing systems, I defined a page design margin for the acquisition of new customers through targeted advertising with service positioning url, I have activated a naturalization of campaign traffic trends in its analytical position has provided me with incredible support for economic failure containment, cost simplification, data security maintenance design, email application, contact list synchronization and an electronic revenue definition, have served to use all the tools offered by this marketing programming. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.