Miva Merchant 5: Consultant Needed

[jki540]

I'm looking for a Miva Merchant 5 expert to help me make the final tweaks and refinements on a site that I have built. The site is up, the modules installed, products loaded, and the design complete. However, there are still a few last remaining technical items that I need some help on, and rather than trying to learn my way thru them, I feel it will be more efficient to hire an expert.

This is not a large project. Most likely, it's 2 or 3 hours of support and 'hand-holding'. But it will also lead to future work as we already have a roadmap for additional functionality we want to install.

These items include back-end things such as: checkout flow, customer account management, and other 'best practices' that you might be able to recommend.

i'd like this work to begin as soon as possible. if you're interested, please send me private message, along with some background info on the work you've done and the capabilities you possess. it doesn't need to be elaborate, but I want to make sure I'm hiring someone who at least knows more than me.

thanks for reading this post,
-jim

[Nerd Boy Inc]

Dear Jim,

You can contact me at the number below if you wish.

[masters]

Hey I am in the same boat.. I'm looking for someone that can help add some stuff, fix and set some things up properly, etc.. Depending on the quality of work and the price, we may wish to use the person/business more often.

Does anyone have experience with hiring some people with example websites with Miva Merchant 5 (yes nerd boy, I'm going to look at your work too..)..

I'm also curious if anyone has reviews of a business or individual that you would NOT use again.. I know some folks don't like writing negative experiences, but I would like to hear opinions.

Maybe even add why you like working with that business would be helpfull too...

Thanks
JM

[Biffy]

If we rated Miva pros then we'd need a rating system on clients, too.

Most of the Miva people in these forums are about the best you can find anywhere. However, the opinions of clients are based on an assumption - the assumption that the client can adequately describe the job. We interview our clients in exquisite detail and some of us provide highly detailed proposals in an attempt to cover this situation. Still, it's not always successfully addressed.

Also, customer expectations can be unreasonable and the failure to meet these expectations is often viewed as a failure of the Miva consultant. A common thing I hear from clients is "I figured it would only take you 5 seconds to do so I didn't mention it". Or this - "I figured that was part of the deal".

There is no Miva consultant who knows it all, and none that are the best at everything. We each have our strengths and weaknesses. What we do is try to match that up with the customer's actual needs, not their perceived needs.

Another problem is customer perception that ecommerce is an out-of-the-box product when in actuality it is a complex, multi-tiered process.

Many of us will sub-contract to cover our shortcomings. If you hire one of us you may actuially end up with 2 or 3 or 5 or 6 of us actually contributing work to your site. Just because I don't know how to do something myself doesn't mean I don't know how to get it done.

These ratings systems can be manipulated and that's always a problem. Ebay has the most advanced and experienced rating system around yet it is suffering from numerous abuses.
Ebay Problems (http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9874447-7.html)

In short, a bad rating might only reflect the fact that a client had unreasonable expectations to start with. A good rating might mask important technical shortcomings that you'll need. Just because you would not use someone again may have no meaning for another customer and just because a customer loves a consultant doesn't mean that they are competent to do your project.

What I see as a much larger problem is customer education. The problem is the information they need to make an informed decision is too voluminous, too scattered, too poorly organized and too polluted with extremely biased opinion, fake polls and fraudulent comparison studies.

I think a single document, searchable and indexed, downloadable and printable, perhaps a Miva Trade Customs sort of thing, might begin to fill some of this gap. The problem is not the experienced professional buyer, it's with the first-timers, store owners who don't know the ecommerce supply industry very well and have only advertising hype for their information.

I think it's a conversation well worth having and a very good point to bring up.

[Nerd Boy Inc]

Dear Steve,

Well put and I agree with you 100%.

My expirience is most potential clients do not have the budget to accomplish what they want. I often recommend starting small and working thier way up to the final product. But most want everything now, but do not have any idea what the true cost of what they want really is.

[leslienord]

Remember the attempts at MM web host rating?

But I agree with you - client education is key to client success. Starting with "well I got this Miva thing free from my host, why do I have to pay for modules?"

[Biffy]

Nerd Boy and Leslie bring up things we've all dealt with one way or another. I try to deal with it by using Trade Customs and making them a part of the contract.

Now, my Trade Customs is woefully inadequate in many critical areas and covers a lot of stuff that's pointless from a Miva standpoint. However, I'd be happy to offer it to the Miva commnity for free if anyone wants to contribute some improvements. It's not all that great but could be viewed as a starting point.

Trade Customs (http://www.ecommerce-retail.com/Trade_Customs.pdf)

[gomblue]

As we begin to hire developers, I'll be expecting to know exactly what I'll receive for the the price agreed.

I'll be asking a lot of questions before the work begins.

[Nerd Boy Inc]

Dear GomBlue,

You will find out the good developers also ask a lot of questions...at least I do anyway.

[gomblue]

I can imagine that there would be some benefit of having document similar to Biffy's Trade Customs. Would this be a supporting document to a developer's quote?

[Biffy]

I do use Trade Customs as a supporting document that is referrenced in my quotes. My quotes are very "fine grained". Yet misunderstandings can still arise on occasion.

The power of Trade Customs is partly derived from industry usage of it. It's the same for all major suppliers and the experienced buyers are familiar with it.

PIA's book The Lithographers Manual has a chapter on Trade Customs. It details (and cites) various court decisions that lie behind many of the adopted customs. Many are Supreme Court cases, indicating just how important small details can be. Many are District Copurt and State Court cases.

Trade Customs covers details that we'd normally ignore and also some details that always apply. Trade Customs are the rules that apply in the absence of any specific written agreement. Many of these customs would apply in a court dispute even in the absence of the Trade Customs themselves.

[gomblue]

What common mistakes do clients make in defining the details of a Miva Merchant store development contract?

It would be helpful for clients to know about common mistakes, so that they are less likely to make the mistakes themselves.

Any specific examples?

Thank you

[Biffy]

Dear GomBlue,

You will find out the good developers also ask a lot of questions...at least I do anyway.

Unless it's something very minor, I try to schedule at least 1 lengthy phone or face interview to gather information from a client and to also explain the variables and limitations. I normally ask for 1 to 2 hours of time. I've had some of these meetings run 5 or 6 hours, sometimes on the phone which is physically painful. I do appreciate a client who is well versed in the details of their business operation and I actually enjoy discussing it with them.

[Biffy]

What common mistakes do clients make in defining the details of a Miva Merchant store development contract?

It would be helpful for clients to know about common mistakes, so that they are less likely to make the mistakes themselves.

Any specific examples?

Thank you

The biggest client mistake I see is in making assumptions. The second biggest is in is overruling or ignoring consultant advice. A third problem is in trusting the consultant too much.

A common assumption is the Google Analytics website explains integration and customers assume that it works. In Miva it doesn't work the way Google says.

Another common assumption I see is the client assumes the quote includes graphic design services. Even with written terms stating that the client is to provide all graphic design, they will still make this assumption. These are generally the same clients who express shock and horror at the cost of a $1500 professional graphic store design.

Some problems seem inexplicable. I recently had a customer provide Photoshop layouts for quoting. After the contract was entered into they then provided all new layouts with a radically different design concept and numerous additional store features.

Making assumptions cuts two ways. I have customers tell me they are very good with Excel and I assume it to be true only to learn that they don't how to add a column to a spreadsheet (a common skill the client needs).

Many mistakes are shared by client and consultant. These mostly seem to involve revisions. A nasty one can be a client making revisions to the basic page layout after all the store templates have been installed. This is shared with the consultant who probably did not explain just how fantastically expensive layout alterations are at this stage. Changes like this can easily cost 3 or 4 times the original template quote. Also, did the consultant get explicit approval from the client before installing the templates? Probably not.

Common errors by consultants mostly involve money. Clients ask for revisions all the time, on about every project I've ever done. The consultant should provide a price and get approval before doing the revision. This is not done in many cases resulting in sticker shock at invoice time. Consultants must insure that the client is in total control of their money at all times.

I'll share a war story about this. I did some merger and acquisition financials for a client who had changed corporate communication suppliers after getting major sticker shock on a previous job. So I gave him a price for each of the 28 rounds of revisions he ordered. The revisions cost far more than the original quote but now the customer was happy. It turns out it wasn't the cost that bothered him even though that's what he said. I wasn't any cheaper than the previous supplier. It was the loss of control that actually bothered him. I never told him this and did business with him for many years.

One more assumption clients should watch out about making, that's the assumption you can beat an experienced consultant down on price by constant complaining. I've had numerous of these types of clients, mostly interns from advertising and design agencies. I think they must teach this crap at the junior colleges they attend. After many years in this business they're easy to spot. What I do for this special type of client is pad the revision costs and then let them "beat me down" to what I would have charged anyway. It makes them feel better so it's a service I provide. Yep, you can go to your boss and gloat over your win! They don't realize that their boss knows what's going on and is more amused than impressed.

Then there's the top quality professional client who is a highly experienced buyer. These are always large corporate buyers, never store owners spending their own money, and never ad agencies. This is a client who never asks prices for small jobs, they already know what things cost. By assigning jobs on a "cost-plus" basis they get the lowest prices available. These clients also demand the highest level of service and the highest possible quality. It's a combination that's impossible to beat. It's a combination that's only achieved between a professional supplier and professional provider with an established relationship.

I've never seen a store owner turn control over to a consultant like that but it's extremely common for corporate clients to do so. You pad an invoice on these guys (you assume they're not paying attention) and you'll end up on a street corner with a work for food sign hanging around your neck. These pros can spot a $10 pad on a $2000 invoice without ever opening the envelope. That's because they're not reading the numbers, they're reading you.

Think of the old Prisoner's Dilemma game developed at RAND. The game was used to formulate international nuclear arms policies and is applied to business and many other fields of human endeavor. In the single move version of the game a player can win by defecting. This is the case of an individual store owner placing a one-time order with a consultant. There is an incentive for both parties to defect. Now look at the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma where an unknown number of moves will be made. This is the situation with a corporate buyer placing dozens and hundreds of orders per year. In this scenario it is impossible to win by defecting when either party employs the Tit-For-Tat strategy, also known as mutual assured destruction in nuclear policy. A defection causes both parties to lose in the iterated version.

The single store owner is therefore at an elevated risk in selecting a consultant that his large corporate brethren don't share. He is justified in experiencing reservations and in seeking unbiased advice. This situation should be addressed in the Trade Customs and in the specific contract. Clients should seek terms covering this and not rely on the consultant to provide it. When a party to a contract defects, what happens? In the single move Prisoners Dilemma game, what values are in the 4 cells of the payout matrix? Engineer this matrix so that cooperation by both parties offers the highest payout. The other three values are single defection either way and mutual defection. All 4 situations will be addressed in a well written agreement.

Prisoner's Dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma)
Tit For Tat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat)

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Some problems seem inexplicable. I recently had a customer provide Photoshop layouts for quoting. After the contract was entered into they then provided all new layouts with a radically different design concept and numerous additional store features.


Actually, this points to a common problem. The client (or designer) changes the "look" and then is surprised by the developer saying that this "look" changes the coding requirements...to them its just a "design" issue. Classic example, they add page numbers to pagination. While not a huge deal...its still adds time to code.





Then there's the top quality professional client who is a highly experienced buyer. These are always large corporate buyers, never store owners spending their own money, and never ad agencies. This is a client who never asks prices for small jobs, they already know what things cost. By assigning jobs on a "cost-plus" basis they get the lowest prices available. These clients also demand the highest level of service and the highest possible quality. It's a combination that's impossible to beat. It's a combination that's only achieved between a professional supplier and professional provider with an established relationship.


Quite a common event as well. In many cases, a small project or change requires twice as much time to document as it does to complete. If a client wants a firm estimite or fixed cost...then that cost is going to be two to three times the actual work. Especially true of troubleshooting. Almost every client asks "how much to fix my broken store"...most of the time, there is little to go on at this point, and discovering the problem will take 95% of the time.

[Pete McNamara]

What common mistakes do clients make in defining the details

I agree with all of the above and can share another war story.

Last year I missed on a quote to build a unique website, including a database. My quote was double the winning bid. I was very disappointed because a few years ago I had created a MM store for this client. When I submitted my quote, I went through it in great detail to ensure she understood what she was getting. When she advised me of the huge price differential I went through it again, constantly questioning her as to whether we were comparing apples with apples. She assured me we were. I just couldn't see how the other firm could do it for the price and limped off with my tail between my legs.

Her site was finished 5 months ago. It looks great but:

1. it has had very little "independant" i.e. (excluding friends, family, acquaintances etc. etc.) traffic
2. complete logfiles and statistics are not available, either now or in the future, due to the way the databases (notice it is now multiple databases, whereas only one was actually required) have been created.

Why is this important? Because the site relies entirely on tile and banner advertising for all its revenues (and it has virtually none and is finding it very difficult get any [because the advertisers want to see statistics and few acceptable ones are available]).

So, we have a good looking site whose business model is advertising but it is getting little traffic and of that traffic it does get, it can only show advertisers limited statistics (using Google Analytics). So she is not getting the advertiser clients she needs.

It is basically a waste of money to SEO the site because key SEO statistics are not possible to get, so the SEOer would be operating largely in the dark.

Finally, her site contains 10,000 "products" and will eventually contain hundreds of thousands. Her developer has developed this site so that the only way of inputting each "product" is one by one, through the Admin screen. There is no bulk upload method such as flat file import.

The only solutions are either to completely redo the site or pay for custom (i.e. expensive, particularly over time, due to maintenance costs) applications which can create the missing bits e.g. the necessary log files and statistics. The cost is more than the price difference between my quote and the winning bid. The developer says this is all part of "Stage Two" (the client says she was never made aware of a "Stage Two") and "Stage Two" includes a laundry list of other features included in my quote but evidently not provided in "Stage One" of the winning bid. It appears the cost of "Stage Two" alone is going to be close to the entire cost of my (losing) original quote so my "client" is going to be paying 50% more than my quote, for the same thing.

Oh wait - did I forget to mention the Webhost and the Web developer failed to keep backups of the site? My client just assumed professionals would keep backups. The server went down and the Webhost lost all the files. My "client" lost two months of data input work (more than 8,000 "product' files which she and her staff had inputted one by one), which cost her $1,000 more than the difference between my losing bid and the winning bid. So, in total, my "Client" will now be paying double my original quote to get the same thing.

It gives me no pleasure to relate this tale of woe as it has cost me many hours of unpaid assistance to try and help her extract herself from this mess.

What are the lessons to be learned?

1. She assumed the quotes were for the same services (a complete job vs "Stage One" [partly screwed up] and Stage Two")
2. She assumed the Webhosts were professional and kept backups
3. She assumed the statistics and log information would be the normal type and that the information would be adequate to effectively manage her business
4. She assumed the pages would be SEOed and SEOed properly
5. She assumed that bulk uploading of "product" data was unimportant (despite being experienced with MM product flat file imports)
6. She assumed that the developer would be anticipating her business objectives and developing the site accordingly.

She was wrong on all counts. She has a great looking site but one which completely fails to meet her business requirements.

[Biffy]

Pete, I learned many many years ago how to deal with your situation.

First, I offer item level quotes so the client can pick and choose what gets done now, what gets done later. In this manner they can also control the cash flow. Phase 1 and Phase 2 are documented in my proposals. Nothing wrong with multi-stage development as long as it's all documented.

Second, I'll offer cheap alternatives and explain the shortcomings. Sometimes recommending for and sometimes recommending against. The cost of a feature is no indication of its usefulness or necessity. Also, over-complex designs may have no benefit for sales and pofit and in some cases will harm profits so I'll offer design alternatives, too.

Finally, when someone bids a job at a loss I advise the client to give 'em the job so that the competitor will go broke. When that happens I'll be here to pick up the pieces. Been there and done that numerous times.

You also give strong hints at a most critical issue, maybe the most critical of all, and this suggests to me that you'd make a good ecommerce project manager. You've got your eye on making money for the client. I notice that most of what you discuss is related to client profit. The only reason to have an ecommerce website is to make money and there are a huge number of so-called ecommerce providers that don't address it.

Clients - if you hear too much techno-babble and not enough talk about usability, ROI, conversions ratios, cart bailouts, accounting, fulfillment, data mining, on-page merchandising, and product and vendor management, then you probably should keep looking.

I do have the technical details, in exquisite detail, published as a supplementary document. And yes, it spells out exactly how and when backups are done plus a gazillion other details no one thinks about until it's too late.

Professional corporate buyers have a way of dealing with this, too. They'll bid a job out to 6 or 8 suppliers. They throw out the high bid then throw out the low bid, and then rebid the job with the remaining suppliers with new specs. They know from experience that low bids are all too often disasters that can get them fired.