'Net Features : miva merchant

The Feature-Rich Modern Shopping Cart

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:15:00 GMT

Today's e-commerce platforms are much more than just a simple "shopping cart" - they've evolved into all-in-one platforms for retail enterpries to manage not just the customer shopping experience, but also the experience of those within the business itself (from customer service agents to the C-Suite).

Retailers in the process of selecting a platform are therefore faced with very important digital decisions when it comes to the platform that will power their e-commerce initiatives. Platform choices must address content management, product information management, customer services, analytics, fulfillment, promotions and a whole lot more. E-commerce merchants are looking for unified solutions which enables them to be more agile, and thus, obtain greater profits. Yet, time and again, it's the front-end features that likely keep most shoppers coming back.

Often, however, the most innovative features are glossed over by members of the Internet retail community - choosing to follow rather than lead. E-Commerce platform Miva Merchant hopes to change that, with a new award program, The Blades. The awards are meant to showcase Miva Merchant retailers that have achieved a "level of excellence" in e-commerce - from the best use of social media and best web design, to the most unique marketing promotion and (of course), the best new feature. It's those "innovative" features that merit your attention as an e-commerce merchant.

The winners will be announced at The Blades awards banquet during its annual conference MivaCon on Thursday, March 7th, 2013, but why not take a closer look at the nominees - particuarly those within the Best new feature category?

- Oliver + S has been nominated for two features: their responsive design framework, which provides shoppers with a seamless, cross-device shopping experience, and their paper doll “play” feature.

- ScotteVest.com has been nominated for its X-ray mode feature, an effective and visually engaging method of showcasing the functionality of its products. See image below.

- TheMountieShop.ca has been nominated for its multi-language feature, which allows The Mountie Shop to cater to both French and English-speaking shoppers in a single site, with just one click of the mouse.

- RoyalShave has been nominated for their multi-site checkout feature, which allows shoppers to browse RoyalShave.com, as well as their other two sites - Pomades.com and TheStache.com - and check out in a single transaction.

- ScanMyPhotos.com has been nominated for its add-to-cart upsell feature. With a few simple clicks, shoppers can easily order a myriad of photo scanning services and other featured products.

Performance In Focus for Miva Merchants

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 20:45:00 GMT

Cloud performance and security provider Yottaa announced a partnership with ecommerce platform Miva Merchant last week. If the customer experience matters, and you know it does (particuarly around the holidays), exploring solutions to optimize each and every interaction becomes of paramount importance.

As Web retailers increasingly demand faster, more reliable and more scalable performance for their 'Net visitors, the benefits of Web optimization solutions begin to emerge. Two Miva Merchant clients (IntheHoleGolf.com and WalleyeDirect.com) in particular can vouch for the importance of investing in performance optimziation solutions. Since deploying Yottaa Site Optimizer, both companies have seen a decrease in page download times, even during high traffic spikes.

"We are always looking for new ways to help our online merchants not only offer the best customer service, but help them be more profitable," said Philip Hansen, operations manager at Miva Merchant.

"Web performance directly impacts customer service and a business' bottom line. Yottaa helps deliver the speed, scalability and security our eCommerce customers depend on to conduct a successful online business."

Miva Merchant Adds Payment and Checkout Options

Linc Wonham — Tue, 29 May 2012 19:30:00 GMT

E-commerce software and hosting provider Miva Merchant has released a major core software update that includes several new features and modules.

Current customers will notice the following new options as part of the immediate availability of Miva Merchant 5.5 PR8 Update 6:

• Template Import/Export: Imports your store’s category tree and title images quickly and easily.

• Generated Inventory Variants: Automatically adds default prices, weights and costs when generating category variants.

• PayPal Payments Advanced/Payflow Gateway Module: Provides integration with PayPal Payments, Payflow Link and Payflow Pro.

• Checkout by Amazon Updates: Inventory variant options and more.

“With this latest update to our core software, our customers can take advantage of expanded payment gateway and checkout options,” says Rick Wilson, president and COO of Miva Merchant. “We are happy to have the opportunity to help store owners simplify and improve the ways in which they do business and to help them provide a better online shopping experience for their own customers as a result.”

More information about the Miva Merchant 5.5 PR8 Update 6 can be found here. Miva Merchant offers a complete e-commerce solution consisting of PA-DSS validated shopping cart software, PCI compliant ecommerce hosting, credit card processing services and custom website design & development used by more than 50,000 merchants.

Simplifying the Shipping Process for E-Commerce Merchants

Michael Garrity — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 01:25:00 GMT

E-commerce software solution Miva Merchant has recently updated its core software product in a move that will greatly improve the functionality of its products for current and new customers, alike.

The most important aspect of these upgrades were enacted to simplify and improving shipping process for small and medium-sized businesses, including helping them create shipping labels and calculate costs.

Perhaps the most interest enhancement in the fifth generation of the software is a deep integration with DYMO Endicia, which offers mailing and shipping services, Miva Merchant store owners can now to create USPS-approved shipping labels and tracking information from the convenience of the platform.

The update also includes a module to let users calculate real-time FedEx shipping rates for both international and domestic orders. It also offers the self-explanatory Void Shipping Labels functionality, the ability to cancel RMA orders on a product-by-product basis and a new entities module to help users figure out which variable to use on a page to display a specific product.

Update 5 is automatically available to current Miva Merchant customers from the Admin panel of their Miva Merchant stores.

Miva Merchant Now UPS Ready

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:41:00 GMT

Right in time for the holiday shopping - and shipping - season, ecommerce software provider Miva Merchant has become a UPS Ready® Provider through an integration with UPS services. UPS’s services and functionalities are now included in the Miva Merchant 5.5 PR8 Update 4 Release.

“Being a UPS Ready partner is very important to us, because approximately two-thirds of our customers use UPS and this update will make their lives much easier,” says Miva Merchant President and COO, Rick Wilson.

The integration of UPS services is designed to improve the process of picking, packing and shipping for Miva Merchant e-commerce store owners.

Miva merchant users will have access to rate information for UPS domestic and international shipments, UPS label generation from the administration area, ability to customize shipping rules (based on order totals, quantities, weights and geographical restrictions), and more including support for dimensional shipping requirements, and fallback shipping controls.

Miva Merchant Enlists Listrak to Reduce Abandonment

Linc Wonham — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:10:00 GMT

E-commerce software and services provider Miva Merchant is teaming up with Listrak, a leading email marketing solutions firm, to provide merchants with Listrak’s automated shopping cart abandonment solution.

Shopping cart abandonment has risen to 71percent, as reported by Forrester, translating into an $18 billion issue for online retailers. With 7 out of 10 carts being abandoned, it becomes imperative for online retailers to put a strategy in place to recoup that lost revenue. For an increasing number of today's merchants, that strategy involves email remarketing campaigns using solutions from one of several vendors in the space.

Listrak’s partnership with Miva Merchant recaptures abandoners with such a solution. The automated email marketing campaigns incorporate dynamic merchandising to remind abandoners of the items left in their carts and prompts them to complete their purchases. Listrak’s solution also provides the opportunity for retailers to do a series of messages, test offers and incorporate product reviews to recover lost revenue.

“Shopping cart recovery is one of the most important tools available to our merchants today and is often the most meaningful to their bottom line” says Miva Merchant COO Rick Wilson. “We’re excited that our merchants now have another tool in their chest thanks to our new partnership with a leader in this space.”

More than 50,000 online retailers use Miva Merchant’s customizable and scalable ecommerce software and solutions.

Power Reviews and Miva Merchant

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 21:00:00 GMT

Ecommerce software provider Miva Merchant has released a module in conjunction with social reviews provider Power Reviews.

The module will allow Miva stores to integrate Power Reviews' "Review Snapshot" which displays to shoppers the most often cited Pros, Best Uses, and Cons of the product listed.

“Power Reviews Express is a very robust reviews system that can be easily integrated into Miva Merchant,” says Brennan Hyde, Miva Merchant Web Design Manager. “The ability for the merchant to respond to reviews really also adds a social aspect and keeps customers engaged.”

The module is free to download however an account for PowerReview Express is required.

Miva Merchant Goes Mobile

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:30:00 GMT

According to a recent Pew Research study, approximately 42 percent of people in the United States are smart phone owners. Of these, eleven percent routinely make purchases from their phones. This number is expected to increase in the coming years.

Ecommerce software company Miva Merchant has released a new mobile ecommerce framework, designed to give online store owners the ability to develop mobile commerce stores and target the growing number of smart phone users worldwide.

Merchants can purchase a mobile commerce design package for $699.00 which includes the full Miva Merchant store functionality, optimized checkout, integration with their existing 5.5 stores, and professional installation.

“With Miva Merchant’s new Mobile Framework any Miva Merchant store owner can quickly and easily convert their entire store to a mobile friendly version that allows for easy navigation and all the functionality of your full e-commerce store," says Miva Merchant Web Design Manager Brennan Hyde.

“More and more our phones and other mobile devices are replacing our desktop computers and the core of our technology has always supported the ability to be agile in terms of device response,” says Miva Merchant President and COO Rick Wilson.

Email for Internet Retailers

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 23:30:00 GMT

E-commerce software provider Miva Merchant has partnered with email service provider Exact Target, releasing a new email marketing application dubbed Miva Merchant Mailer.

The application includes pre-bult templates and customization options for HTML-capable users. Merchants can also add opt-in email addresses directly from their websites and add them to the email marketing list in real-time. The announcement indicated that other features are on their way, including modular integration with the Miva Merchant software. Existing Miva Merchant users can try the application free for 30 days - pricing starts at $9.95 for up to 250 contacts.

"We've been an Enterprise customer of Exact Target for a number of years,“ says Rick Wilson, Miva Merchant COO. "When the opportunity came up to partner with them to leverage their platform in an easy- to-use, intuitive product for the small and medium sized business space, we immediately moved to offer such a product."

Miva is a very well known solution in the mid-tier e-commerce product landscape, so expect others to start touting their software's current email marketing capabilities or integrating with similar services soon.

Miva Merchants Partners With AccurateTax

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Sales tax software provider AccurateTax has partnered with Miva Merchant (ecommerce solution) to offer its users with a way to calcuate sales tax within the shopping cart software.

"Sales tax calculations have become more complex and the rules are constantly changing," said Rick Wilson, executive vice president, Miva Merchant. "AccurateTax.com offers our customers a plug-and-play solution that makes meeting this challenge simple to manage for customers in every state."

"Miva Merchant customers can install the AccurateTax.com solution with relative ease, and the majority of the work is performed on the AccurateTax.com servers," explains Peter Petracco, chief executive officer, AccurateTax.com. "Because all address and tax data is maintained in a central location, Miva Merchant retailers are able to rely on the accuracy of the sales tax calculations with little maintenance on their part."

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