On Mon, Sep 17, 2001 at 10:38:57AM -0400, Russ Herrold wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Paul M Foster wrote:
>
> > I've got a customer that I've set up with my ISP (XO), and we're also
> > setting up e-commerce for her. On the low end, XO uses something called
> > Miva, which is, nearest I can figure, like a proprietary sort of PHP.
> > Docs suck, interface sucks, etc.
>
<snip>
> Miva license -- Miva sells upgrades every 4 months or so, and
> obsoletes this years' version, seemingly on a 18 mo cycle -- sound
> familiar?
Very familiar. That's one reason I don't like this.
> Miva T/S is pretty responsive, and there is formal training
> available in San Diego, and a pretty good doco manual.
>
Except that their PDFs are encrypted.
> And it DOES do credit card auth's, and UPS shipping calculations,
> and a nice shopping cart, and beautiful graphic themes for novices
> with no artistuc skills. These are important.
>
I haven't figured out how to make it do UPS.
<snip>
> The question comes to -- Can you replicate for $250, plus training,
> what Miva sells. The answer may not be yes.
I hope so, but I didn't pay $250. The customer pays an extra $35 a
month (to the ISP) for the service. I can set Miva up and then install
something else in the background and test it while the Miva is up an
running.
> As to alternatives, ecommerce means differing things to different
> people -- WHICH ecommerce functions?
Good question. Really only secure ordering and credit card validation at
this point. "Credit card validation" means making sure the CC# is
valid, not checking it with a merchant service. With Miva (as it's
currently configured), our customer will get an email telling her an
order was received, and she'll have to go out to a website to go look at
the CC#s, since they aren't mailed with the orders (security). Our
customer is using AOL for her email, so we're limited as to what we can
do (I would think sending CC#s via PGP encrypted email would be
acceptable, but I doubt AOL could handle it.) Anyway, the lady will run
the CC#s through her husband's automotive shop (goofy yes, but I didn't
set up the deal).
Truth is, we do websites, but have never done e-commerce before. This
lady happens to be the wife of a customer, so we were a natural choice
for her website. Unfortunately, I didn't talk to her, and Nancy didn't
know the kinds of questions to ask. So I'm hoping that the way we've set
it up (detailed above) will be acceptable.
Paul
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