Miva Merchant does not have a built in coupon or discount
modules. While there is an upsale
module built it, it only give the ability to offer a special discount at
checkout. A coupon module is a rather powerful incentive to certain customers to
nudge them to initiate the buying process. Other discounts that may also be
attractive to some is a "buy one get one free" and a volume discount module that
offers discounts to people if they buy more than one of the same item. Such modules
can be found at Emporium Plus
and Viking Coders.
There are some discount modules that offer the customer discounts based on the amount
purchased in quantity or in dollars at Emporium
Plus and that can be configured to offer the discount throughout your Miva
Merchant store, or within one or more categories only.
Shipping Modules:
There are quite a few built in shipping modules in Miva Merchant. The
tutorials on this site will help you configure the one, or ones that fit your needs.
The built in shipping modules will be sufficient to most users, but some do have
special needs that are not covered by the built in modules in Miva Merchant. For
example, if you rely on UPS, you will find that the built in module is not going to be
robust enough to cover certain issues like dimensional weight, where a large yet light box
will cost a lot more than just how much it weighs. In this case you may want to
check Viking Coders UPS
advanced module. If your business has a considerable customer base outside of the
USA, you may find it costly to ship overseas at the same rate that you want to charge a US
based customer. While Miva Merchant built in shipping modules will allow you to
configure more than one option, it is not an automated selection. You can have a
selection for USA shipping at one rate and another rate for an International shipping, but
that means that the customer will have to make the choice. Some may choose the wrong
one by mistake, or on purpose to get the lower rate. If this does not happen often
then it is not a big deal, but if it does happen often in your store, then you may want
only the appropriate option to show based on the customer's shipping address. Emporium Plus has
an extensive selection of international shipping modules for Miva Merchant and at a very
reasonable price. You can have the module charge by the county to ship to, along
with weight, price, or number of units. You will also find there a multitude of
shipping modules that offers options based on the ship-to state, or even zip code.
Look and Feel Modules:
While we find Miva Merchant to be very customizable using
html, some people want a very specific design, particularly of the product and the
category pages. Some want to show many columns of products in the category, and
others want certain things not to show on the product page, or to show in a different
place from where it is predefined in Miva Merchant. Viking Coders offer the
Category Template Module, and the Product Page Module just for that. There are a
couple of competing products (e.g. Open designer) that have just come out but lack
documentation and involve a steep learning curve. Once they prove themselves, we
will offer links to their vendors too.
Search Engine Friendly Page Generator Modules:
It is useful to create a static html copy of your dynamic
pages generated by Miva Merchant. Some search engines do not index dynamic pages,
and some give preferential ranking to static pages. Additionally, the static page
will allow you to make additional tweaks to your page. Emporium Plus offers the
Static Catalog Generator Module that works great for this purpose and we have used it
ourselves. A competing product that is well recieved is SEK Module and is offered by
Wump Services.
Emporium Plus also offers a
Froogle Feed Module that will take your product database and create a flat file from it
that you can upload to Froogle, a service from google that is currently in beta testing.
Emporium
Plus also offers a Yahoo Feed module that does the same for the Yahoo product
search service. While Froogle is a FREE service from goole (but you ahve to sign
up), Yahoo offers their service at a cost.
Business Customer (B2B) Oriented Modules:
Miva Merchant offers both Price Groups and Availability Groups to offer distinctive
pricing or product display to different customer groups. This tend to be very useful
for sites with business customers among others. Emporium Plus offers 2
modules that are very useful to Miva Merchant store owners with business customers.
There is a B2B No Tax module will ensure that the business customer does not pay the tax a
retail customer is supposed to pay. Additionally, your business customer (B2B
customer, corporate customer, or government agency) will certainly appreciate seeing the
Purchase Order Module that allows you to set certain approved customers to place the order
with a Purchase Order Number. Very useful for customers with house accounts.
Affiliate Modules:
While Miva Merchant offers an affiliate module, it is
certainly very poorly done. Viking
Coders offer a robust Affiliate Manager Module that not only manages your
affiliate program, but allow you to create a brandable look and feel to your affiliate if
necessary or wanted. It also allows you to have discounts or price changes based on
which affiliate link the customer uses to come through to your site. We have used ClixGalore
as a third party affiliate network and like the results. The basic sign up is free
and you only need $75 to be placed in escrow. To learn more about how to integrate ClixGalore
into your Miva Merchant Store Click Here.
Electronic Delivery Modules:
Viking
Coders offer their Soft Goods Module and also Ivo Truxa's mmPass Module.
We highly recommend mmPass for those who want to offer downlaodable files, or
password protected content based on subscription or one time payment. Viking Coders
Soft Goods Module is less expensive but is limited to downloadable files and additionally
needs PHP enabled on your server.
Gift Certificate Module:
Viking
Coders is the only (acceptable) vendor that offers a gift certificate module.
Modstop was the first to offer a similar module but due to lack of support we do not
recommend them anymore.
Paypal Payment Module:
Both Emporium Plus and Viking Coders offer Paypal
Payment Modules. Miva Merchant has a built in one in V4.14 and up but it does not
work as well as those offered by the vendors above.
Store Management Software:
For Miva Merchant store owners with more than 50 products,
Storeman is essential. The time savings is incredible, not to mention the fact that
you have your valuable content right on your PC and can do all the work without having to
be connected to the internet. The software creates a backup of your old files each
time you upload and upadate... just in case you screwed up something in the last update,
all you need is to click one button to restore from backup. You can buy it from Phosphor Media (the
owners/developers of the software) if you wish to pay by check or paypal, or from Viking Coders if you wish to
pay by credit card.
