Miva Merchant checkout

The Miva Merchant checkout system is pretty cumbersome, but it's very difficult to think about ways to change it. The Ship To address is required to calculate shipping and sales tax most of the time, the payment method must be selected in order to display the proper payment fields, and the shipping, sales tax and payment information must all be in place before submitting an order. So, the page scheme makes sense.

But then you think, what about Amazon's "one click" checkout? Well, it really isn't one click. First, the person must register for it, which is about the same steps as a Miva checkout. THEN it's one click, although it still needs logging in and confirming the order. If you look at Dell.com, you'll see steps very similar to Miva Merchant's steps. So, you wonder what is important or not.

Now, what we did, though, is put together the best scenario we could within Miva Merchant's needs. We came up with www.pimpmycheckout.com. It's pretty sweet.

Telephone in an online world

I prefer email and instant messaging for communication. It allows time to think, keeps a record of the conversation, and allows a BRB message when you have to use the restroom. On the telephone, everything is in a hurry, and disagreements come up later as to what was said.

Yet, with dozens of clients who have online businesses, many of them want to speak by telephone all the time instead of use online communication methods. I wonder why. I can understand a retail store owner, a telemarketer, etc., but an online business owner you would think would prefer online communication methods.

Anyway, it just confuses me. It's 2007!!