MIVA v. osCommerce

[CaptainMarvel]

Okay . . . Let's hear the advantages/disadvantages to each of these Shopping Cart management packages (besides the fact that osCommerice is free).

Options available?

Manageability?

Customization?

Upgrading?

[TipPro]

I use Miva for my store, I do not have the latest Miva 5 installed, I use version 4. I would like to upgrade to 5 but it is completely different software so I basically will have to recreate my store.

The support is really lacking. Miva just opened a new forum for Miva related questions but no one in the forum can handle tough questions (but it is a great source for beginners). For heavy duty support you must pay for it.

Web hosting usually costs more to host a Miva store since your also renting the license.

You can make your Miva store do almost anything using third party modules but a lot of these third party modules are poorly written and usually not very compatible with each other.

For managing orders I use Shipworks which really helps. It is not the best solution because all it does is download orders, it does not communicate back and forth. So after I download and fill order I must manually log into my Miva Admin panel to update my customer order status so that they can login and see if their order has been shipped yet.

[TipPro]

Wanted to add one more thing...

Something I cannot do with Miva and it drives me nuts. When a customer creates an account with my store they must create a unique username. Most big stores like Amazon, Comcast, and others did away with usernames and allow customers to login with their email address and password.

[CaptainMarvel]

I guess I'm wondering whether or not the open-source/non-support ... yet FREE ... nature of osCommerce would be more customizable - especially given all of the modules people in the "open source" community write for it. Of course, I then wonder about the kind of administration and accounting that can be achieved using osCommerce.


Can you post a link to your store, TipPro ???

[TipPro]

yup, my store written with Miva is www swisco dot com