This story is not about anything new. Users of Miva Merchant have been misled, deceived, and even lied to for years.

The OpenUI Look and Feel Module is frequently the main subject in these matters. The reasons for this in my opinion are as follows:

• Makes end-users of Miva Merchant less dependant on modules for enhancements which pisses off third-party module developers
• Gives end-users so many features and the ability to do so many things that they are less reliant on custom development services which pisses off third-party developers
• Exposes horrible hosting companies who overload their servers, have horrendous support, and are generally clueless about Miva Merchant and are not involved in the Miva Merchant community.
• Has made the creators of Miva Merchant look bad because this shopping cart would probably be dead without the OpenUI.

I was doing some onsite consulting here in Dallas, TX with Ernest Delmonico of Delmonico Hatter, Hats and Caps like Kangol and Fedora.

I found out that the main reason he wanted to upgrade to Miva Merchant 5 was because his host and many untruthful people in the Miva Merchant community had told him that OpenUI was the problem.

His Miva Merchant store was on a dedicated server at his old and incredibly incompetent host. After he was moved to only a shared server on a new and Miva Merchant friendly host, the difference was extreme.

Ernest spent three days at my home office working on his Miva Merchant 5 test store. He was frequently going back and forth from his version 4 store on the new host and the version 5 store. I would say that no less then five times I turned around to see what all the fuss was after hearing statements of joy coming from Ernest. Every time he was basically amazed at how fast his version 4 store was compared to the old host.

Here is a sad video testimonial from Ernest about how he was deceived for years into believing OpenUI was his problem. May the evil people who did this to him and his company get what’s coming to them!

 

 Ernest DelMonico on the OpenUI is Not Slow [2:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The turnout for this year’s conference is much smaller than in the past. The top session so far in my opinion was the keynote by Anne Holland, directory of MarketingSherpa. She shared a lot of great data and helpul information. Not only did she give a great presentation, but it was good to see her again. I had met and got to know Anne from MarketingSherpa’s Email Marketing Summit and Selling Subscriptions on the Internet conferences earlier this year in Chicago and New York. Here is a pic of us. Yes, she is famous for closing her eyes during pictures. She is also standing on the steps of the stage. Anne is tall but not that tall.

Another old friend I got to see was PJ of Webnet Miva Hosting.

I also got to see Mike Pimco of Penguin Clothing, a former and now current client who was the first one to register for my upcoming search engine optimization and marketing boot camp for Miva Merchant store owners. Here is a pic and video of Mike.


Matt Alper and Brian Gold of Cop Shoes who will also be attending the boot camp. Here are two videos of Matt and Brian.

and Todd of Discount Party Supplies who is also attending. Here is a video of Todd.

Without disclosing any keynote speakers, details on sessions and speakers, or a detailed agenda with session times, Miva recently announced an early bird discount of $399 for their upcoming Miva Small Business Conference entitled Paving the Way.  The deadline came and went.  Instead of raising the price, Miva extended the discount another week with threat of definitely raising the price on Monday, July 17, with no exceptions. The second deadline has come and gone once again with no increase in price.

One has to wonder what the marketing department for Miva Small Business is thinking.  It is about six weeks till the conference, and all these details are still not available.  I have even talked to three speakers, and they are still awaiting more information as well.  These details are not just for us.  Miva Merchant end-users come to us asking whether they should go to the conference or not.  I am going to the conference and hope others go too.

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