Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

[NinaLeon]

Hello

We have a Miva 5 store. We need to increase sales. I realize that increasing conversion rate would be great.

One consultant who specializes in generating online traffic suggested we need to completely rebuild the store using a different shopping cart to increase conversion before we start trying to increase traffic.

Another consultant has said that Miva has known problems regarding customization to improve usability and converison.

What are those known problems?

Does everyone disagree?

Thanks
Nina

[Kent Multer]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

Just as a test of their knowledge, you might ask them to be specific about what these "known" problems are ...

Internet marketing is as much an art as a science, and it's constantly changing. There was a time, a couple of years ago, when the Miva platform was putting some roadblocks in the way of users; but that has been largely fixed by new features and 3rd-party modules. It sounds like these "consultants" may not really know anything about Miva except what they remember from some old discussion groups.

Just one man's opinion ...

[chucklasker-BANNNED]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

The "known" problem is they don't understand Miva Merchant. They just want to move you over to something they already know - costs you money but makes life easier for them. There are thousands and thousands of Miva Merchant sites, selling successfully online, so it's a copout to act like your using MM is a problem. It's completely customizable by anyone who learns the inner workings...

[Pete McNamara]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

The "known" problem is they don't understand Miva Merchant.

You nailed it, Chuck.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

....and many don't even know much about e-commerce and the internet...just had a converence call with one of "those" experts which basically sounded like they went to a bunch of e-commerce how to sites and copied down the bullet points...

[Biffy]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

Miva out of the box does have some issues. However, it is completely customizable and all known issues have solutions. Because Miva is a modular system, not a monolithic one, it is extremely fast and cheap to customize. It also offer a variety of solutions for any given issue. Plus, Miva uses pre-compiled modules which means it will outperform uncompiled script stores that are so common today.

One more beneft is these forums. I know of no other ecommerce system with such excellent and in-depth support from the developers, the company and the community. In fact, the support is worth the whole game.

[NinaLeon]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

Can anyone recommend a really good conversion professional who is Miva friendly?

[Kent Multer]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

I've done plenty of data-conversion projects for Miva stores. If you want to discuss something in detal, you can contact me privately.

[wcw]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

Kent,

I thought they were talking with consultants to boost their sales conversion rate, ie higher order completion percentage of those visiting their store.

[NinaLeon]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

Kent,

I thought they were talking with consultants to boost their sales conversion rate, ie higher order completion percentage of those visiting their store.

Yes, we are looking to increase our conversion rate.

[Kent Multer]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

Oh, yeah, the other kind of "conversion." Sorry, not my specialty.

[aarcmedia]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

The consultant you have been dealing with doesn't know what they are talking about when it comes to miva. From a "TRAFFIC" perspective, we operate 3 of our own ecommerce properties and everyone ranks highly for just about every group of keyword terms we target and converts traffic into sales at rates that are well within the norms of the industries these sites operate in.

I agree that Miva "USED" to have problems with customizations that would help improve conversions, but with the advent of Miva 5, those problems have been fixed and because of that, all of us miva developers have seen our business more than double over the course of the last 2 years or so.

So be wary of any consultant that tries to pitch a "PLATFORM SWITCH" on you. The problems that you would end up having as a result of ditching your current ecommerce platform for another would catastrophic to your current rankings and traffic.

As Chuck stated above, this consultant probably doesn't know how to work with Miva so in order to be able to retain your business, they want to switch you to a platform they have experience with.

If you wanted to PM me your URL, I'd be happy to do a quick eval of your site and note any OBVIOUS problems that could be hurting your conversions.

Conversions problems are sometimes very obvious to people like us that are in and out of more ecommerce projects than we can count from month to month.

[Biffy]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

There are a few basics that seem common to all. There are also other issues that can have a 300% effect on conversion ratios either way, up or down. Some of these have been identified, too. What works for one store may severely damage yours, and vice versa.

The fundamentals can be scanned as aarcmedia suggests. Other issues will require standard AB Testing to identify, so the whole thing is a process, a process that becomes an ongoing part of an ecommerce project that goes on forever.

You do have Analytics fully functioning, right? It's your most powerful tool for working on conversion ratios, cart bailouts, ROI, and site "stickyness". When you make a change to the website, even the smallest detail, you would measure its effect on your conversion ratios. If you don't, how do you know if the minor change helped or harmed?

In the conversion analysis game never assume a single damned thing. Measure, measure and measure again! Some of your favorite assumptions will get shot down, guaranteed.

Once you get it all optimized then consumer trends will change and here you go again. Or you'll need to change to follow seasonal trends. Or you'll need to serve variations to different geo-locations and do some temporal targeting.

The basic idea is to conduct a never-ending series of rigorous AB Tests and then just follow the money based on the results with absolutely no preconception of where that's going to be. I've had customers evolve some dramatic changes in their entire business from following the money, sometimes dropping their entire original product line to end up selling stuff they never dreamed they'd sell.

What an AB Test really does is you are letting the customers tell you what they want their ecommerce websites to be like. They're not telling you what they think they want, like they do in surveys, they tell you what they really want with their actions. You simply have to learn to listen to the drumbeats and read the smoke signals.

[dreamingdigital]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

Miva 5 is probably 95% customizable. You can re template the entire checkout process to look like another one that you like and know converts well. You can get the Emporium Plus Mini Basket and show the actual shipping charges right on the Shopping Basket screen and OCST. Give your customers all the info they want before having to checkout. Get Shipping Supermod. Also, configure your checkout so it looks differently than the store so the checkout is focused on checking out (ie no navbar etc. Add links to customer service, live chat, testimonials, guarantee etc) ... there are tons of articles on the 'Net....

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Miva's known usability and conversion barriers

Miva Merchant 5.5 unlocks the last of the black boxes hidden within Miva Merchant so that 95% should go to 100%.