Miva

What do you like best?

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.

What do you dislike?

Miva recently implemented a significant cost hike, and I'm still reeling from the sticker shock.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

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.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

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.