Using Miva Merchant for Custom Ecommerce: 7 Business Websites

This is a guest post by the W3 (Web Dev) team at PlanetMagpie.  Located in Fremont, CA, PlanetMagpie specializes in small and mid-market website development, ecommerce development and web hosting/marketing.  The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Miva Merchant.

In the past 12 years we’ve tried out our fair share of ecommerce software packages.  When we came across Miva Merchant we stopped looking.  Why?  Because for our clients—comprised mostly of small and mid-market businesses—nothing’s more useful than customization.  Miva Merchant’s biggest value is its customization capabilities.

Using Miva we’re able to customize shopping carts and interfaces to almost any need.  Depending on client needs we use one of several different development approaches—simple HTML all the way up to custom ASP.NET work in a CMS.  The ecommerce part?  That’s easy.  With a little custom coding, Miva Merchant will do the job.

Customization:  Modifying Miva Merchant 5.5 to Suit a Client’s Goals

Out of box, Miva Merchant gives everything necessary for an ecommerce site: solid shopping cart, credit card processing, a warehouse of modules to add on more functionality.  Springing from that we do things like modify Miva Merchant’s standard look and feel to match the client’s brand, transform the cart into different website designs, or integrate Miva Merchant with third-party apps.

One big customization was connecting a new module with a third-party order fulfillment process.  At the time it was a rather unique custom development.

We can add things to websites now that only existed in the print world just a couple years ago—things like coupons, reviews or “Tell a Friend” forwards.  Without the ability to customize Miva Merchant so thoroughly, many of our ecommerce website projects would take much longer and cost more to set up.

Seven Custom Miva Merchant Ecommerce Sites

We have here seven example sites of custom Miva Merchant ecommerce development.  Each of these sites put its own spin on Miva Merchant, from added functionality to custom layouts.  Have a look and you’ll see just how flexible the whole Miva Merchant platform is.

(Disclaimer:  We built the first three of these websites.  Furthermore, the third was altered post-launch by the client.)

PleoWorld

The Pleo dinosaur is one of the world’s most popular robotic pets.  The new website (built following a purchase by Innvo Labs) had to incorporate coupons, worldwide payment and shipping modules, and a customer address book.  These custom modules were only the start though.

In order to get Pleos to their buyers as quickly as possible, a module was customized to work with a third-party order fulfillment process.  This hadn’t been done before.  But after some development work, everything connected up.  Pleos can now be ordered and shipped to over 90 countries.

Anderson’s HDTV

Anderson’s sold hi-def TVs, media consoles, stereos and specialized furniture.  Their site contained multiple customizations in terms of layout and localized services.  The list of customizations is too long to post – just a few of them include:

• Implementing Netblazon Feed Generator, to generate product feeds and sitemaps for the store
• Zip-Based Sales Tax, so customers would have sales tax factored into price for them automatically
• Coupon Redemption module, so mailing-list customers could redeem special discounts
• Category Tree Template, to target local SEO keywords
• Custom Fields, so customers could specify things like addresses for local delivery
• Category Template Manager, so they could use multiple templates throughout the year depending on seasons or special events
• And more!  These are only a few of the customizations Miva Merchant handled for Anderson’s HDTV.

Outside-In Home

A home and kitchen store that shows a huge inventory of products.  The Outside-In Home website has multiple levels of product organization, categorization, you name it.

Best Friends General Store

BestFriends General Store is, as you might expect from the name, a website that sells products for dogs.  They sell dog toys, food, collars and even clothes.  What’s great about the site—something that’s maintained by its Miva Merchant shopping cart—is that it LOOKS like a site for dogs!  You’d almost picture a Jack Russell sitting at a laptop, hitting Enter with a paw.

The site includes the ability to set favorites, purchase gift cards to use later, and offers product reviews.  Not just any reviews though.  In keeping with the site’s brand, the two mascots Betsy and Norman review products for their fellow dogs!

Playing for Change

This isn’t a store; it’s a movement.  Playing for Change set out to accomplish the “ultimate goal”—world peace—through our oldest form of expression.  Music.  Their powerful message has resonated with a worldwide audience for five years now.  The website showcases video “episodes,” discussions and products.

The Playing for Change Shop is a great example of clean custom ecommerce.  The design uses big lettering and sharply-defined boxes to highlight each product.  That’s carried through in the shopping cart all the way to order completion.  You never lose the sense of where you are while you’re buying things to support Playing for Change.

Cali Bamboo

When most people think of bamboo, they think of bamboo mats or big clumps of it in a backyard.  Cali Bamboo goes way beyond that, showcasing everything from bamboo flooring to bamboo fences.  The sheer variety of product and the slick ecommerce interface make you feel like you’re walking through a store surrounded by a tranquil bamboo forest.

ScottEVest

ScottEVest sells a line of travel clothing designed to carry your electronics for you.  They bill their vests, jackets and other clothing products as “replacements for carry-ons.”  And it sure looks like you could fit just about everything in them—even an iPad!  The site’s ecommerce is very up-front; they make it dead-simple to select products, view your cart and complete the order.

All of these websites knew what kind of experience they wanted to give their clients.  Using Miva Merchant made the ecommerce part of that easy.  These are all examples of how customizable Miva Merchant software is, from integrating into layouts to specialized order processes.