Miva Merchant help needed (getting started)

[bamboo]

I have a client who would like to move away from Yahoo/PayPal to a more professional looking eCommerce storefront/processing. They told me to look into Miva Merchant as this is what they would like to use. I am a newbie in the eCommerce world so the questions I have may be pretty rudimentary so my apologies.

From my understanding and information I read on the Miva website, Miva Merchant is the storefront which you would implement into your website and MIVA Empresa Virtual Machine 5 is the processessing component loaded on the actual web server. If you are with a hosting company, they need to support this which many do. You just pay extra for that package. So far is this correct?

As far as the Miva storefront, would you use their wizards to build/design/layout your site around this or is the storefront a separate component. So for example my client has a static informational website right now. To integrate Miva's storefront, would I just create a 'store' or 'buy now' page and add in the Miva component there and configure, etc.?

They also already have a merchant account and gateway setup.

I'm hoping if they upgrade to the Miva plan with their hosting company that I will be able to just use the wizards to help set everything up and not do any custom programming/scripting if at all possible. Thanks much, any help to get me started would be great.

 

[foxdev]

Miva Merchant is a great system for those just getting started in eCommerce (though there are many well-established larger shops that use it, too). It has a lot of features built-in and a huge aftermarket of low-cost modules that add desired features. Many hosts offer Miva Merchant for an extra $10-$20/month, so no large license purchase is necessary.

If you wish to make a lot of customizations, MM may become frustrating. Source code is not provided unless you spend $$$$ on the source/compiler bundle, and even then, not all of the source is included. But for a starter system, it certainly has its advantages.

Like any shopping cart system, MM includes everything you need for the store. You can have additional static pages, too, but they're not required. MM will dynamically generate all of the product and category pages; you simply create products within the admin tool. MM supports quite a few gateways, including Authorize.net, PayFlow Pro and Link, and many more.

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