I browse a lot of e-commerce related forums, and I always see threads like, “Which shopping cart should I use?” or “What is the best shopping cart?”

One thing I found interesting it that the responses are almost always: osCommerce, X-Cart, CS-Cart, Volusion, or Zen Cart. Most all of them free, open source, PHP MySQL based platforms. I rarely if ever see Miva Merchant get brought into the mix, even though in my opinion Miva Merchant is as good if not better than all those carts. So why doesn’t Miva Merchant have that mass appeal that all these free shopping carts have?

I asked some people on the forums this same question and I got a pretty good understanding why and also realized there are a lot of misconceptions about Miva Merchant.

First I want to address the misconceptions:

1. Miva Merchant is Expensive – Most people take one look at the Miva price tag and start running. A lot of people don’t know that Miva is free with hosting. Granted Miva hosting is more expensive (about $40 a month) but there are good reasons for that. I think a lot more “Do-it-yourselfers” would consider Miva if they knew they did not have to purchase the software because it comes with their hosting package.
2. Miva is not Flexible – There is a big misconception out there that since Miva is not open source, it is not flexible and can’t be customized the way a PHP based store can. A lot of older customers who have used Miva 4 and older are hesitant to go back to Miva, because Miva 4 flexibility (without OpenUI) was pretty limited. Most don’t know Miva 5 takes care of a lot of these issues. While I hope someday PHP is integrated into Miva, I know first hand that Miva would work perfectly for about 90% of e-commerce stores. Its flexibility and control over the look and feel are both easy to use and robust.

Another reason people don’t choose Miva is because it is lacking in a few features. Things like the ability to accept coupons, customer order tracking, built in SEO features, and small things like a DOCTYPE. Some of these issues are being addressed in the new Miva 5.5 due out in March which should help in this area.

In the recent years, open source software has become wildly popular. Miva now has to compete with really good, feature rich, free software like Magento. However, Miva is definitely on the right path – having recently split from its parent, Miva Corp. will give a boost to the software itself which might have been getting slightly overlooked.

So how can Miva start to get back some of these core users who now opt for free open source software?

1. Features – In order to compete, Miva has to have the latest and greatest features. This means making SEO such as Meta tags, titles and search friendly links easy and built in.
2. Better Documentation – When I first stated using Miva a couple years ago, I had no idea what I was doing and I would scour the internet for answers to things like, “How do I create a three column layout on my category pages?” The Miva forum is a great place to get help, but overall I think Miva needs some better documentation.
3. More Developers – Because Miva is so specialized the only people can work on Miva stores are people who have a lot of experience with Miva. Compare this to a PHP based store like osCommerce where if you put an ad on craigslist for help you will get a million responses. If Miva wants to get mainstream users it needs to attract more Developers.
4. High Profile Stores – What Miva really needs is some exposure. People need to see what is really possible with Miva and how customizable it is. Miva Merchant needs some press to really show people what it can do.
5. Themes (Coming in Miva 5.5) Because Miva doesn’t really have a default look to it, you either have to pay a designer to create a storefront for you, or try to do it yourself. Most users who try to build the stores themselves end up with a jumbled mess which further adds to the misconceptions of Miva. Themes will help a lot in the whole look and feel area.

Miva Merchant is a great shopping cart that is getting better everyday. In order for them to really compete against the open source solutions, they are going to have to win over there customers with features, flexibility, and a great community.

Now you’ve heard my opinion on this, I want to hear what you think. How can Miva appeal to the masses?