Questions and Answers on this page:

What Are The 5 Steps E-commerce?

What is a shopping cart, and what does Traverse Web Hosting offer?

What Are The Main Differences Miva Order, and Miva Merchant?

Is Miva Merchant really easy to use?

Is Miva Merchant sophisticated enough to handle my complex ecommerce store?

Can Miva Merchant generate reports that I can use to analyze my sales?

Can I easily integrate a Miva Merchant store into my existing web pages?

How will I manage my ecommerce store? Will this be easy?

What's the cost to upgrade my Miva Merchant software?

Will my data be secure within Miva Merchant?

Can I take orders with Miva Merchant and not use credit cards?

Do I still need a Merchant account with Miva Merchant?

Which payment gateways do Miva Merchant and Miva Order support?

Can I import my products from an Excel spreadsheet into Miva Order or Miva Merchant?

Can I customize Miva Merchant to fit my specific needs?

Can I securely accept credit card information through my Web site?

Is it possible to accept credit card transactions in real time?

Can I import my products from Miva Order into Miva Merchant?

Where can I find additional information on Miva Merchant?

How easy is it to setup Miva storefront?

Can I Use Paypal To Accept Payments In Miva Merchant?

Does Traverse Web Hosting offer htmlscript (Miva Script)?



What Are The 5 Steps E-commerce?
To see the 5 Steps To E-commerce, and get some valuable advice click here.

What is a shopping cart, and what does Traverse Web Hosting offer?
A shopping cart is a program that allows for a merchant to easily add their products/services for purchase on the Web. A shopping cart will total the order, add tax and shipping, and email the customer and merchant when the order is complete. Many shopping carts work with 'Real-Time' credit card processing which means the merchants gateway verifies the credit card, and deposits the money in the merchants merchant account within seconds.

We offer several shopping carts depending upon your needs and the features you require. That's an Order shopping cart is a easy to use shopping cart that can be setup right in your control panel. It allows up to 25 products and you can change the colors of the shopping cart and add your own image for the top of the page. It calculates tax and shipping, and allows up to 25 products. It does not support 'Real-Time' credit card processing, but you can have your order emailed to you via encrypted email. In order to have Real Time credit card processing, you should sign up for our Linux Premium or Pro Commerce plans which include Miva Order and Miva Merchant.

We also offer 2 shopping carts developed by Miva Corporation with our Premium and Pro Commerce hosting plans. Miva Merchant, which is offered with our Pro Commerce, is a browser-based storefront and catalog development tool that integrates cataloging, product maintenance, category management, shopping basket, order and credit card processing. The software is organized as a series of modules that can be field-upgraded to provide new functionality without any changes to the core system. Developers can use the browser interface to build and manage their stores, or can "get under the hood" with complete access to the underlying source codes written in XML based Miva Script.

Miva Order, which is offered with our Linux Premium plan, provides a secure, customizable online order form. Businesses simply incorporate a link from the web page where their products are sold, permitting customers to seamlessly access the order form and make purchases. Miva Order is also administered using a browser.

What Are The Main Differences Between That's an Order, Miva Order, and Miva Merchant?
That's an Order is for up to 25 products, only allows for minor changes to the look and feel including color changes, and adding an image to the header. It does not process credit cards in 'Real Time' but you can have your order emailed to you encrypted. It is a great shopping cart for those wanting to test the E-commerce features.

Miva Order is recommended for up to 30 products. Miva Order provides the tools necessary to add a customizable credit card-enabled order form to any website.

Miva Merchant allows for unlimited categories and unlimited products. Miva Merchant provides the tools necessary to build and manage a complete storefront with a built-in shopping cart and credit card processing.

For more details, please visit our Compare Miva Merchant And Miva Order Page.

Is Miva Merchant really easy to use?
A. Yes! Miva Merchant has a complete set of wizards to simplify the process of building your store. You can use the "wizards" to get your store setup within minutes. Miva is Site Administrator Friendly. Miva Merchant requires no daily management. Installation takes less than a minute on our Miva-enabled web servers.

Is Miva Merchant sophisticated enough to handle my complex ecommerce store?
Yes! The browser based administration interface provides access to an array of more sophisticated tools to maintain your catalog and inventory, manage customer and affiliate accounts, create comprehensive promotional campaigns, handle order fulfillment responsibilities, and generate detailed sales and website traffic reports.

Can Miva Merchant generate reports that I can use to analyze my sales?
Analyzing your store activity is important. Miva Merchant exports directly to QuickBooks for backend accounting and provides several options for exporting your data for further analysis. Third-party applications such as Quantified Systems Urchin web analysis tool can be integrated for a comprehensive web tracking solution. Additionally Miva Merchant 4.20 now has extensive built in stats and customer tracking for your benefit.

Can I easily integrate a Miva Merchant store into my existing web pages?
Yes. E-merchants who have sites in HTML can hyperlink directly into a Miva Merchant e-catalog. Key e-catalog functions such as product lookup, category presentation, shopping basket, and order forms can be accessed as components of existing HTML-based web sites.

How will I manage my ecommerce store? Will this be easy?
Yes! Whether you are running a single store, or a "shopping mall", Miva Merchant allows you to have complete management control. You can create a store manager with full authority and multiple user accounts to handle the normal day-to-day operations of running your store. Also, customer accounts can be set up to provide frequent shopper programs, discounted pricing and special product availability.

What's the cost to upgrade my Miva Merchant software?
There is no charges to upgrade the Miva Merchant software from v4.00 to v4.13. But, if you are upgrading from version older than 4.00 to 4.13, you'll be charged $99 for the upgrade license. New Version 4.20 is not backwards compatible with older versions but is now standard for all new accounts.

Will my data be secure within Miva Merchant?
All sensitive data can be encrypted with SSL prior to transmission. This includes the customer ordering process and processing of orders. Multiple layers of login permissions give a centralized manager the ability to grant store-level permissions to different developers and merchants.

Can I take orders with Miva Merchant and not use credit cards?
Yes! You can have people place orders and process them after receiving payment by any other means you desire, such as by check, Wire transfer etc... The customer and the merchant will receive email notification of the order. You can specify the mailing address or bank information for them to send you the payment in the customer email. Then, send them the product when the payment is received.

Do I still need a Merchant account with Miva Merchant?
A merchant account is necessary in order to take payments using Visa/MC. Miva Merchant is a shopping cart program that allows you to offer your products on the Web. You can tie the two together with a processing gateway which can be used to verify a customers credit card and deposit the payment into your merchant account. You do not have to have a merchant account if you are using Miva products, but it is usually easier for your customers to pay using a credit card. If you do not want to get a merchant account, you can take payments by check or paypal or bank transfer etc...

Which payment gateways do Miva Merchant and Miva Order support?
Miva Merchant is bundled with interfaces to the following list of payment gateways and, supports over 40 others:

PayPal *New with version 4.20
Authorize.Net Payment Services v3.0
E-Commerce Exchange/QuickCommerce 3.0 Payment Gateway
Moneris e-SELECT Payment Service
GlobalCommerce Payment Gateway
CyberSource ICSv2 Payment Services
Cardservice/LinkPoint Payment Gateway
Paradata Payment Service
Verisign Payflow Link
Verisign Payflow Pro (PaymentNet)

Through Miva Merchant's modular architecture, many other payment processors can be integrated to a Miva Merchant storefront.

Miva Order works with the following gateways:

Verisign Payflow Pro (Payment Net), Cardservice/Linkpoint, Cybersource, Cybercash, Authorize.net.

Can I import my products from an Excel spreadsheet into Miva Order or Miva Merchant?
Yes! Your products can be easily imported into Miva ecommerce software from an Excel spreadsheet or any text file. This can save you time when setting up your shopping cart.

Can I customize Miva Merchant to fit my specific needs?
You can do some extensive customizing in the look and feel of your Miva Merchant including: headers/footers for each page, images for buttons, colors etc.

And if you need even more customization, there are 2 companies that have developed a long list of add-on modules for Miva Merchant. All you have to do is purchase them and click on "Add Module" in your Miva Merchant administration to add the module. Or, you can have the company install it and test it for you for a very low installation rate. Just visit: Starbase21 and Designextend.com and browse through their list of modules for Miva Merchant.

Can I securely accept credit card information through my Web site?
If you order any of our plans, you have free access to our secure server running SSL (secure socket layer). This allows users of your site to submit credit card information with confidence, knowing that it is being transmitted safely and securely through the Internet.

Is it possible to accept credit card transactions in real time?
For this we recommend that you choose our Pro Commerce plan.

You need three things to process the credit card payments in real time:

1) A merchant account

2) A real-time credit card processing account or "gateway".

3) A shopping cart that supports your choice of a real-time credit card processing solution.


We offer free shopping carts with both our Pro Commerce plan, and an easy way to signup for a Merchant Account & Gateway online!

Can I import my products from Miva Order into Miva Merchant?
Yes! Miva Order products can be imported easily into Miva Merchant if you decide to move up to Miva Merchant at a later date. Just click on Products/Import in Miva Merchant. It's that easy!

Where can I find additional information on Miva Merchant?
You can find documentation and more information on Miva products at the Miva Web site.

How easy is it to setup Miva storefront?
All of the programming is already done for you! You just input your product names and descriptions into your shopping cart through your browser based administration tool. You can even upload thumbnail and larger pictures of your products. Then link your shopping cart to your Web site, or make your shopping cart your Web site. And if you have any questions, just ask! Our support personnel are all trained in E-Commerce and are experts at setting up Miva Order and Miva Merchant.

Can I Use Paypal To Accept Payments In Miva Merchant?
Yes. This is now standard with Miva Merchant 4.20.

Does Traverse Web Hosting offer htmlscript
(Miva Script)?
Yes. Miva Script comes with all linux hosting plans. Miva Script is the Miva engine that allows you to run Miva Order or Miva Merchant shopping carts and to write Miva script programs. You get the Miva Order shopping cart if you sign up for the Linux Premium plan and the Miva Merchant shopping cart comes with the Pro Commerce plan.

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All levels of experience are welcome to apply.

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