Four Simple Reminders To Make Your Life Easier In 2011 With Your Miva Merchant Store
“With great power comes great responsibility” –Anonymous
One of the great strengths of Miva Merchant is the flexibility to do just about anything you want without many built in limitations or rules. However with this freedom come some common mistakes that can cause stress and frustration (and even harm your business). Here are some tips to help you avoid common problems:
Assign Tasks/Roles: Most online businesses have more than one person working behind the scenes at any given time to keep things up and running. If you have more than one person working on your store, assign individual tasks to each person. If two people are working on the same task at the same time, things are bound to get confusing. Not only that, but they may also overwrite each other’s work, causing site errors and other problems.
Many Merchants’ either forget or don’t know that Miva Merchant can have multiple unique User Logins and even specific User Restrictions based on login (in fact for PCI Compliance you’re not allowed to share USER ID’s, FYI). Here’s a couple links on how to Add Admin Users in Miva Merchant: and how to configure and setup Store Administration Groups.
Make A Backup: Accidents happen. This is why it is always a good idea to have an up-to-date back up of your store in case of system failure, power outages, or other natural and/or man-made disasters. Double check with your Miva Merchant host to make sure they have nightly backups, find out how long they keep previous backups (it should be at least 90 days) and make sure you know how to get one restored if a problem happens. In addition there’s an inexpensive Backup Module that you can use in your stores to make local backups of your store and your data as an extra and (recommended) precaution.
Take Your Time and Make a Plan: You want to get your store up and running as soon as possible. Hurrying through the setup process may seem like a quick way to achieve this, but it will only lead to trouble in the long run. Think of it this way: you wouldn’t build a house without a blueprint would you? An online store needs to have a blueprint of sorts in order to be successful as well. Product categories, names, descriptions, codes, and many other elements need to be planned out in advance. Hurriedly rushing through the setup process without taking notes or planning each step will only lead to trouble in the long run.
Think Before You Delete: Miva Merchant 5.5 gives users the ability to clear their page template history, delete Products, Categories, Attributes, you name it, you can most likely delete it. Once you delete, however, you can’t go back, so think before you click that button (and then re-read item number 2 above).
These are just some of the many ways that you can avoid common headaches when it comes to administering your store. To find out what other users are saying about Miva Merchant 5.5 and to get tips and support, check out our Beginner Support Group in the Miva Merchant Community Forums.
