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    Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

    Miva has radically changed what it does since 1997.

    In 1997 we were 2 things:

    1. An online catalog/checkout
    2. A CMS for such catalog

    That was it. No Reporting, No Order Processing, No Automation, No Coupons, No Volume Pricing, No Themes, nothing.

    In 1997, the Average price per month for Miva was $50/month.

    It's now 18 years later, Miva does likely thousands more discrete things than it did 18 years ago, including whole new segments that used to be separate paid products.

    Today our base price is still $50/month.

    The statistics for people using PR8 and older in the month of December were analyzed this week and only 35% used more than 1 seat (this is when they have free reign to use as many as they want with no built in limiter).

    Our options were to go the Magento Enterprise or Mozu route and start charging $5k a month plus for our product. Yes this would've eliminated roughly 95% of our clients, but ironically it would actually still generate more revenue from the remaining 5% than we previously generated.

    Or we could find a new path. One that equates price to utilization.

    If you're still using Miva in the 1997 way, as a "dumb cash register", then you don't need more than 1 seat. If you're a Small (as in Home) business, you don't need more than 1 seat. 65%+ of our clients do not need more than 1 seat (we expect it to flush out around 15% of our clients buying multiple seats once behavior changes are factored in).

    So I'm highly unclear on how this is price gouging? Was there a hurricane in ecommerce and we're charging $100 a gallon for gas? That's price gouging.

    This is a price increase to correct the fact that we've charged far far too little for our top 15 - 35% of our clients for the last 18 years. The difference is 18 years ago we simply didn't have the features to justify charging more and now we do.

    And the beauty of this new system is that if you don't use these features, then you shouldn't need more seats.
    Thanks,

    Rick Wilson
    CEO
    Miva, Inc.
    [email protected]
    https://www.miva.com

    Comment


      Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

      I'm sorry Rick, but there is no beauty in this new price structure.

      I have one client who has several different departments that need the to manage items. This client was a tough sell and was already balking at the host rate, but I represented your company and sold them goods based on your advertise PUBLISJHED rates. And there was not a mention of potential seat pricing at the time of purchase.

      We spent the better part of last winter and early spring building and working really hard. this clients is still working to try and populate its products with all hands on deck... now AFTER the purchase and agreed upon terms and conditions we're going to go back on these hard working people and say "guess what' in order to keep doing what you are doing... what we sold you... its going to cost you maybe $200 more a month... maybe even more.

      These people TRUSTED me and the price I quoted, based on your published rates... I TRUSTED Miva with the packages you advertised on your site. And then I turned around and represented your product as a good product and good value... in good faith. And now I have to turn around to this guy and say "guess what you only have one person working on your site, or we are going to slam you with huge monthly rates"...

      It would have been one thing if we were given the opportunity to decide if we wanted this price structure BEFORE all the man hours and sweat equity was put in. That is BEFORE we made this investment, which is not like a pair of shoes that can be replaced in a few minutes...It would be one thing if, at least for existing clients you put in a buffer, like allowing 3-4 seats per before slamming fees.

      You can quote percentages of this and that, but above is a real example of one client that I am truly embarrassed and regretful that I represented your product to them as a good deal. And by good deal, I mean by the rate that you published when you sold me and my client this bill of goods.
      Last edited by sylvia8308; 01-09-15, 05:30 PM.

      Comment


        Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

        Sylvia,

        I have empathy for the situation you're in, I truly do.

        Here's how I see it, you put your name on the line maybe 18 months ago and used your good reputation to sell them on us. One of the things they liked was our (I would call below market) pricing.

        Now 18 months later you look foolish, as you don't have good answers and you're taking heat from the customer.

        Since I don't know the customer (or even you personally), I have no idea how their general experience with the software is, or the process or lots of other factors that either add to or subtract for the process of good will creation.

        What I do know is your two suggestions, that either you would've somehow known back then so you wouldn't look bad now, or that we grandfather people in to the old pricing simply don't work for us as a business on any level.

        The first one is simple, how could I have predicted the future? We have month to month pricing, people can cancel anytime with no penalty. As a rule the generally accepted other side of that coin is that pricing may change, since there's no contract. (In fact just this week, I got an email from KISSMetrics since we're a customer, explaining all the new things they've added and that basically my price was going up 80%, but since I'm not on contract, my only options are to evaluate if I find it worth keeping at an 80% higher price or not).

        The second one is just impossible for our business. Our average customer lasts almost 9 years (where the industry average is less than 2.5 years for churn), so I'd be old and gray by the time this model change took hold if i had done that based on the rate of client acquisition replacement and while we were stuck on the sidelines waiting for new customers to help fund the growth of our company, we would've lost the "war" if you will.

        Finally and again, I don't know your customer or who they are, but anyone who has "many departments" can afford $600/year per seat. It's that simple, and if they truly don't need the seats, then don't buy them. If they need the seats, I'm certain that once the frustration of unwanted change goes away, they'll see both the incredible ROI and Value in our platform.
        Last edited by Rick Wilson; 01-09-15, 06:01 PM.
        Thanks,

        Rick Wilson
        CEO
        Miva, Inc.
        [email protected]
        https://www.miva.com

        Comment


          Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

          I don't feel your so called empathy, truly I don't. And, you are completely missing the point. This isn't a telephone cell service plan that we can hop quickly from one vendor to another. Your reference to KissMetrics is quite mute as an online store is a person's livelyhood...not some statics gathering service that can be swapped out like a hat... And, you know that. This is a purchase that took days, even months of careful consideration. Then months of planning and even designing in-house systems to work with your product.

          And, by the way this is NOT a huge company we are talking about that can afford $600 more a month. This is a FAMILY business and where dad, son, daughters and cousins are all working 24/7 trying to make a go of it. The "departments" are an uncle who handles the shipping, the son is the outside sales rep, the daughter manages the customer service along with the the office admin, some cousins provide all around support and the dad who does everything else in between. They all manage the online store and do whatever they can to keep afloat. It was a huge gamble and they bought it based on your advertised rates and service promises... I would have never, ever, ever put them in this position... not ever had it not been for the advertised rates at the time of purchase.

          An online store is an essential item that is so labor intensive that moving to a different platform could put people, families out of business. They didn't make this decision lightly, and they made it based on your advertisements and I trusted that. AND yes, the price was one of the factors. I truly feel like your organization is fully aware and taking advantage of the fact that its not so easy for your customers to "up and leave" and for MOST their entire livelihood is vested in it. And yes I'm embarrassed and feel foolish I was a representative for a company that takes opportunity to rate hike existing loyal clients and put them in very a precarious position.
          Last edited by sylvia8308; 01-09-15, 06:35 PM.

          Comment


            Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

            $600 per year divided by 52 is $11.54 per week with a 40 hour work week is roughly $.29 per hour

            Have you used version 9 yet? I do not know what everyone sells here and it may make part of the difference. What I can guarantee is that if you are not doing everything from adding products, taking phone orders and dealing with customer problems faster with mm9 than you are doing it wrong.
            Mark Hood
            Vermont Gear

            Comment


              Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

              I have been converting all my clients to Miva 9. I have one more to do... I'm a one person show here and its been a burden on me, after the conversion I have to deal with the clients freaking out over the change, and retraining... it's costing me time and money. Quite frankly its making me feel sick.

              I am dreading this last one client... if they have 4 people using the Miva that's $200 a month... that's a HUGE hike up. It's NOT good no matter how you spin it. If you did this to a million of your clients, your boosting your income $200 million a month... okay, say you only doing this to 1000 people, that's $200,000 more a month... off the backs of people who made a purchase decision based on your advertised rates... and to people who are locked in and can't easily change the product. (like myself a loyal customer who has represented you since 2000)>>> how can you say its not gouging?
              Last edited by sylvia8308; 01-09-15, 10:02 PM.

              Comment


                Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

                I feel the same way we have 4 miva sites (our first one in 1997) and just received a bill for $1200 for the month at $100 per seat and not $50. I assume since I responded negatively to the email yesterday you made sure we got our bill right away and pay double for not upgrading to Miva 9. We have 4 people and Stoneedge that access the Miva admin but we dont use miva for any type of order management other then send up the tracking #'s via StoneEdge. All our back end systems and website development has been tied to miva. There is no quick way to switch everything if we dont like the new pricing structure. We probably only need 2 seats per site one to batch orders,add/modify products and one for stoneedge and change our habits of staying logged into miva. I am hesitant to upgrade to miva 9 to better manage seats until Miva doesnt something that will prevent API (or specific users) from being autokicked out because I dont want Stoneedge to ever get kicked out in the middle of processing a batch. So not only do I feel the pricing was change with short notice but the implementation of the seats was not fully thought out and you are forcing people into it before it is complete.

                I compare the method you are using to decide how many seats and new pricing altogether would be like if I leased a car at an agreed upon amount then into the lease I get notified that they feel I should pay by usage and they arent going to do it by mileage but by how many people maximum I have in the car at the same time. 95% of the time it is just me but I car pool once a week for an hour and have 6 people in the car so I need to pay $50 ($100 in our case for some reason) per person. Oh and you want to tow a boat that will be another $50.

                Not much point and saying more like sylvia said we are just a statistic and should be happy with the great deal we are getting.

                Comment


                  Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

                  BkraM,

                  We're not charging some people $100 per user as opposed to $50 per user, so something is amiss on your invoice. I suggest you reply to the email including your invoice and tell us what you're using.

                  We're calculating seats (for people not yet on 9) based on high simultaneous seat usage (we track that and have for a while). If that's incorrect in your case for some reason, tell us and we'll fix it.

                  I think the thing being missed in both your case and Sylvia's is this. We're a Software as a Service platform, Service prices change over time. We went 18 years without a meaningful change in base market price, so yes this one is a shock (although as Mark pointed out, it's literally less than $2 per day per user), but it should a self sustaining model going forward. We add more meaningful features that you want, you need more people logged in to use them and you pay for the privledge.

                  Additionally you (and anyone) was free (and is free) to purchase a Retail License for $1000 one time, install it on PR8 (and keep it on PR8), host it elsewhere, maintain it yourself, etc... etc... and then we have no ability to change your price, and no official relationship with you what so ever. It would be no different in that case than having a copy of Microsoft Word you use. Granted when you wake up one day and UPS or Auth.net has changed their API and your store stops functioning you might be unhappy because you won't be able to get a patch to fix the problem and you'll be out of business, and then may realize this path was shortsighted, but you do have that freedom and that power.

                  That's the fundamental difference between buying installed software (which in both cases you chose not to do) and buying Software-as-a-Service.

                  The thing you don't see is the cost to operate Miva today is 1,000% higher than it was 7.5 years ago when we bought the company.

                  Our annual budget is up 10 fold and our employee count is up almost 20 times (from 5 employees when we bought the company back in 2007 to just under 100 today).

                  You mention beginning with Miva in 1997 (and I think Syliva said 2000). In 1997 we didn't even have a tech support department. So if something broke, good luck. Maybe you would've found Jeff Huber's list server and gotten lucky. By 2000 we had a tech support department of about 5 people and the whole company back then was around 20 people. Today we have over 20 people in support alone, all based in the US, all at our offices, nothing outsourced. Support in 2000 was 9 - 5 Monday through Friday and 90% of the time they blamed your host or OpenUI and sent you on your way without any help.

                  Today it's 24/7/365 and we control the tech stack and keep you in business with unrivaled uptime and running on the best hardware money can buy.

                  The big mistake we made is as we've improved the company (transformed it really) over the last 8 years, both in scope of software, support and services offered, hosting, etc... we kept doing it all both without changing the price and without even setting the expectation that we'd someday have to change the price.

                  And that in hindsight was a mistake. We should've said "we're going to make it better and then we're going to find a way to charge you more" but we didn't and I'm not sure there would actually be a practical way to pull that off, but we should have been more transparent about our long term plans that we couldn't keep endlessly improving things without changing our pricing in the long run.

                  With that said though, you can't have it both ways. You can't expect bulletproof software, that's secure, safe to upgrade, 24/7/365 tech support, extraordinary uptime on the hosting side, with a constantly added to feature set and not have the cost change.

                  And I'll repeat like I did above to Sylvia. If you want to use the product like you did in 1997, or 2000 in her case (which I highly doubt had more than 1 admin user back then, since there would be nothing to do in admin for the additional users), then your price doesn't change.

                  We've given you the tools in your hand. Run it the "old" way, with 1 user and your price doesn't change. Run it the "new" way and you pay for the privledge.
                  Last edited by Rick Wilson; 01-09-15, 10:24 PM.
                  Thanks,

                  Rick Wilson
                  CEO
                  Miva, Inc.
                  [email protected]
                  https://www.miva.com

                  Comment


                    Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

                    I've been reading every post on this matter and nothing that has been presented justifies this seat pricing for existing customers. You keep comparing Miva to statistic and software products that take minutes to install and get up and running. Its not like swapping software at all. Its the entire backbone of a small business and you are affecting the livelihood of small businesses that trusted your advertised rates and signed on believing you valued them as clients... people working hard 24/7 with mouths to feed.

                    Comment


                      Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

                      Exactly!

                      Comment


                        Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

                        Sylvia,

                        I'm certain there's nothing I could say to satisfy you.
                        Last edited by Rick Wilson; 01-09-15, 10:48 PM.
                        Thanks,

                        Rick Wilson
                        CEO
                        Miva, Inc.
                        [email protected]
                        https://www.miva.com

                        Comment


                          Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

                          I agree with Pamela, and I notice know one in Miva has even addressed her support for a uniform rate increase across the board.

                          Comment


                            Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

                            You got that right Guy. That $50 is cutting into the little guy's ability to pay for his kid's tuition, or start his retirement fund.

                            Comment


                              Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

                              I have to say that is a very smug comment Mr. Wilson. $50 is a lot for a small business.

                              Comment


                                Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

                                I agree, I truly feel duped in representing the Miva to recent clients without knowledge of this huge rate change. I certainly would have reevaluated presenting Miva as an option to this client.

                                Comment

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